These Tech-Savvy Students Are Teaching Silicon Valley a Few Things

What happens when you bring together supersmart high school students and Silicon Valley technology professionals? Innovative projects involving 3D printing, the Internet of Things (IoT), wearable technology, and much more.

Such innovations were front and center at Oracle OpenWorld’s Innovation Studio, where students from Design Tech High School in Millbrae, Calif., demonstrated their projects alongside startups and global companies including GE Digital and Toyota.

“We’ve designed a smart hospital room, with sensors that measure heart rate, temperature, light, even humidity,” says Avery, a d.tech sophomore, of his Hospital Ambiance project. “The room can use these measurements to react to the state of the patient and aid them in an otherwise cold and emotionless place,” he said.

To research the project, the students worked with a nurse at their school and visited local hospitals. “I went to Stanford hospitals to get feedback from administrators, doctors, and nurses,” says James, a junior who participated in the project.

“One of the coolest things about d.tech is that they invite the local community to their school,” says Colleen Cassity, executive director of the Oracle Education Foundation, which supports the school and helps to arrange the volunteer program. “Kids learn hands-on technology from Oracle employees, photography from a local professional, and financial literacy from nearby Visa employees,” she said.

In January 2018, the foundation will open a new campus for the high school on the grounds of Oracle headquarters in Redwood Shores.

Time to Explore and Invent

The d.tech projects on display at OpenWorld were conceived, designed, and prototyped during an innovative program known as an “Intersession.” Intersession is a two-week course where “the school pushes pause on the regular school day,” says Cassity, and students work in small groups to explore arts and professions and develop solutions to real-world problems.

In tech pursuits, students are pared with mentors who help them conceptualize, engineer, and test prototypes of games, wearables, and other IoT solutions. Intersession, which happens four times a year, “immerses the students in design thinking,” says Cassity.

During this break from the normal high school schedule, “failure” is reframed as a golden opportunity to learn and improve. “Failure is important because it’s the best way to learn and go forward,” says Avery. With design thinking, students learn to “design not for yourself but for the individual whose needs you want to meet.”

Top projects from Intersessions get displayed at Oracle OpenWorld. In addition to the hospital ambiance program described above, this year’s projects include:

• A student wellness scanner that helps teachers prepare for class by collecting students’ attendance and assessing their mood.
• Project Roam, an IoT project that helps connect staff and students throughout the school day.
• A water monitoring system that uses sensors to provide a clear picture of water quality in local wetlands.
• A pickpocket-proof purse, which is a patent-pending wearable solution. A 3D design project for wrist and hand braces where students work with 3D design company Carbon.
• Competition robots engineered and presented by d.tech’s robotics team.

“I’m really glad I got this opportunity,” says Ally, a d.tech junior, of her time at Oracle OpenWorld. “I like teaching adults. They seem really interested in what we’re doing, and I like showing them things that I think are cool.”

Students are not just learning to interact with adults, they are also seeing that they can build things that matter. Hanui, a d.tech junior, pointed to the work students are doing with Carbon. “They’re designing hand braces and I was thinking that’s really cool because we have high schoolers working on projects that will improve people’s lives. I’m excited to see their projects get better and better.”

“These d.tech students are gaining the confidence that the world can be a better place and they can be the ones who make it so,” says Oracle’s Cassity. With design thinking, she says, “they have practiced a problem-solving approach over and over again and are confident that they can always design a solution.”

 

https://blogs.oracle.com/these-tech-savvy-students-are-teaching-silicon-valley-a-few-things

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