youth outreach | Made At HAL

Projects from the Hack Arts Lab, University of Chicago

LEGOs and Laser Cuts for Data Visualization

compileHer is a UChicago student organization that engages Chicago middle school girls with computer science. Their recent Capstone event featured educational activities created with various UChicago faculty. Prof. Gordon Kindlmann designed an activity to teach elements of data visualization, involving building a terrain out of LEGOs, covering the terrain with a box with a grid…

Smart Lamps for Energy Engineers

The Energy Engineers Pilot Program at Dunne Technology Academy, a program of RDCEP and the Computation Institute (one of HAL’s main sponsors) recently wrapped up. Students were tasked with building and programming the desk lamps’ Raspberry Pi controllers, which permitted the lights to respond to data streams. This project grew out of earlier CI work…