Carl Erickson

Hi, it’s Mike again here with Eukatastic at SCNA. I’m sitting down with Carl Erickson, who is the CEO of Atomic Object, singular, not plural, and he’s working on a project called BitCamp, where he’s working with middle school girls so that way eventually they can become part of the tech community. Can you tell me a little bit more about what is exactly BitCamp? Sure. The first time we did BitCamp was in 2006, Michael, and we did it because we recognized there were very few women who are studying computer science, and therefore very few women in the field as software developers. We wanted to try to do something about that, but as a university professor before I started Atomic, I recognized that when you start thinking about that issue in freshman of college year, that’s too late. So we wanted to go back earlier and we wanted to start getting girls excited and showing them what’s possible and what a life of being a programmer is like, a work life of being a programmer, but when they’re still young enough to not sort of have made up their mind that they can’t do that or they’re not interested in that or that’s boring or unexciting or whatever. And that seems to be middle school. They seem to get turned off somewhere around middle school. From females in my family that I’ve spoken with, they think that it’s kind of a boys thing, that it’s just sitting down and looking at a computer. Right, it’s no collaboration, it’s a solo sport. You put your little headphones in and you go into your little cubicle and they throw food over there and out comes code. And our office environment is so much the antithesis of that, and our projects are so team oriented, that honestly collaboration and communication are at least as important, those skills, as software development skills. So I suspect if anything, women might actually have a natural advantage in that kind of environment. So with working with the young girls, is there a difference in the approach that you have, working with young females versus young males? So we’ve never done anything, we’ve never done anything with middle school kids. My daughter at the time was 14, and so I knew about 14 year old girls. But we haven’t done anything formally teaching wise, and I’ve never taught kids that young. So we decided that we wanted to try to give them a little bit of an overview. So we decided that we wanted to try to give them a little bit of an overview. So we decided that we wanted to try to give them a little bit of an overview. So we decided that we wanted to try to give them a little bit of an overview. So we decided that we wanted to try to give them a little bit of an overview. So we decided that we wanted to try to give them a little bit of an overview. So we decided that we wanted to try to give them a little bit of an overview. And I was a professor, so I had this perspective on some hands on exercises, some simulations, some doing practical things, as well as some lecture. And we put BitCamp together out of a one day experience with plenty of snacks and lunch and some fun in between. We didn’t tailor it one way or other gender wise, and we tried to appeal to lots of different ways of learning. And we made darn sure that they were paired up when they were working together. And we made darn sure that they were paired up when they were working together. And we made darn sure that they were paired up when they were working together. And we made darn sure that they were paired up when they were working together. And we made darn sure that they were paired up when they were working together. And we made darn sure that they were paired up when they were working together. And we made darn sure that they were paired up when they were working together. So it was very collaborative. So like what kind of exercises were they doing? I mean, was there something that was more, well actually without leading into any kind of topic, what kind of exercises were you having the children do? Well, so we really wanted, we were focusing on the web. And we really wanted them to have a basic understanding of what the web was and how it worked. And so of course we were going to do some HTML and CSS and some light weight JavaScript, a little bit of back end stuff. But I also wanted them to have an appreciation for the web. But I also wanted them to have an appreciation for the web. But I also wanted them to have an appreciation for the web. But I also wanted them to have an appreciation for the web. But I also wanted them to have an appreciation for the web. But I also wanted them to have an appreciation when they clicked, you know, the return key to send an HTTP get request. Like what happened there? How did those packets flow across the net and where did they go and what came back? So we did this little simulation on the floor with the girls in chairs as packets. And we pushed them around through the network and showed how that worked. So making it real. Making it real. A response was assembled. We had the little, you know, HTTP response chopped up into pieces of paper. And then we handed them out and we reassembled it at the back end. And then we handed them out and we reassembled it at the back end. And then we handed them out and we reassembled it at the back end. And then we handed them out and we reassembled it at the back end. And then we handed them out and we reassembled it at the back end. And trying to get it to be a little more physical. And trying to get it to be a little more physical. It’s an interesting thing that we’re in probably the first time in human history where a machine is completely turned opaque. It’s an interesting thing that we’re in probably the first time in human history where a machine is completely turned opaque. It’s an interesting thing that we’re in probably the first time in human history where a machine is completely turned opaque. Oh, yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. And I wanted to give them an appreciation of that. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke. Yeah. Incredible complexity is hidden behind that simple little keystroke.