CodeLNK hosted its annual Hour of Code event on Saturday, Dec. 7, at Nebraska Innovation Campus with approximately 500 participants in attendance.
Hour of Code is a global initiative to introduce computer science to K-12 students through local events across the world. Lincoln’s Hour of Code included a morning full of fun coding activities for all learning levels and an interactive tech fair. This year’s tech fair featured more than a dozen technology-focused booths offering interactive and educational demonstrations.
The University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s School of Computing has been a leader in promoting computing initiatives and Hour of Code in the state of Nebraska for more than a decade.
“The School of Computing is dedicated to broadening participation in computing and has proudly supported this event for many years,” said School of Computing Director and Professor Witawas Srisa-an. “We aim to inspire young learners and their parents by highlighting the importance of computing and its role in solving real-world problems. Together, we ignite creativity—one program at a time.”
This year, several School of Computing faculty, students, and lab members also participated in Hour of Code by hosting booths and leading activities featuring drones, robots, and virtual reality games. Participants included:
- Assistant Professor Robert Dyer
- Charles Bessey Professor and Senior Associate Director Leen-Kiat Soh
- Jensen M. Chair Professor Mehmet Can Vuran and the Cyber-Physical Networking (CPN) Lab
- Associate Professor Bonita Sharif and the Software Engineering Research and Empirical Studies Lab (SERESL)
- Associate Professor Hongfeng Yu and the Visualization Lab
- Susan J. Rosowski Associate Professor Max Pierobon and the Molecular and Biochemical Communications (MBiTE) Lab
- The NIMBUS Lab team
- Assistant Professor Qiang Liu
- Assistant Professor Hongzhi Guo
- Professor of Practice Chris Bourke
- Assistant Professor of Practice Jeff Falkinburg
Dyer, the school's lead representative for this year's event, said Hour of Code offers something for everyone.
“The tech fair is one of the unique aspects of Lincoln’s Hour of Code event, providing lots of different hands-on activities to excite and engage kids,” said Dyer. “It is important to show kids that computer science is a lot of different things. Whatever their interests are, it probably can be combined with computing.”
Soh is a co-founder of the local organization CodeLNK dedicated to promoting K-12 computer science education and participation in the Lincoln community. The group consists of members from K-12 schools, post-secondary institutions, and the local tech industry. Hour of Code is the group’s biggest event of the year, held in partnership with the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce, several local tech companies and employees, academic representatives from the School of Computing and UNL’s Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education Department, the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) Huskers chapter, Lincoln Public Schools, and Nebraska Innovation Campus. CodeLNK has continued to organize the event every year (with the exception of two years due to COVID-19) since its founding in 2015.
“This event has exposed not just young learners but also their parents to computing and its important roles in problem solving, from computational thinking to flying drones, from data analysis to engineering innovations, from virtual reality to robotics, across STEM disciplines and beyond. The wide range of topics covered by our tech fair participants really provided an engaging and rich experience for our attendees,” Soh said. “Like reading, writing, and mathematics, computing is fundamental to every student’s learning. With this event, we hope to also impress upon young learners and their parents that computing is for all.”
