College of the Desert

College of the Desert, Palm Desert
Adjunct Faculty – Computer Information Systems

Pre-COVID, I taught a hands-on computer engineering workshop and summer STEM program for middle and high school students. The topics as listed below.

I currently teach workshops at the Roadrunners Makerspace on campus. Details can be found at https://www.collegeofthedesert.edu/makerspace

Descriptions of my Makerspace workshops and PDFs of the handouts can be found here.

Workshop Projects:

• Air Quality Monitoring Station using SparkFun’s environmental sensor, carbon monoxide sensor and Adafruit’s PM2.5 particulate sensor.
• “Light Saber” using the Adafruit Circuit Playground Express and a length of Neopixels encased in a clear plastic tube.
• Autonomous Vehicle (JetBot) using the NVIDIA Jetson with machine vision and machine learning

Summer STEM Workshops:

Two week, 1/2 day workshops. Middle school students in the morning, high school students in the afternoon, same content for both. First week was instructions and hands-on exercises. Second week consisted of student projects and their presentations.

• Introduction to Arduino Uno and Arduino IDE
• Introduction to C Programming Language
• Using Motors and Servos
• Introduction to the Circuit Playground and MakeCode
• Using Sensors in MakeCode
• Laser Tag
• Using the Circuit Playground Express with the Arduino IDE
• Using NeoPixels
• Using the Accelerometer
• Music and Simon Game
• Representative Student Projects:
  • Fusion Gem
  • Tilt Trumpet
  • Zombie Tag
  • Quick Draw
  • Hot Potato