Lesson 1 – SolidWorks and Introductory Computer Science, February 17th, 2015

On Saturday, Access Engineering had their first lesson of the semester. Access had a record number of kids sign up for the program as such, and, after a successful round of recruiting new students, Access was able to accommodate all the students over four different classrooms in Penn’s engineering quad. The introductory classes focused on the basics of computer science, namely the Java language. Students learned about conditional statements, data types, and loops. The theoretical groundwork laid out in these whiteboard sessions will prepare students for programming assignments in the coming weeks. The advanced students embarked on a fast-paced review of the SolidWorks software system by designing puzzle pieces. These puzzle pieces will eventually be laser cut so the students can learn about the entire rapid prototyping process. Next week, these students will continue to review SolidWorks in preparation for a comprehensive review project.