Samuel Ginn College of Engineering

Creating Computer Savvy Kids

Daniela Marghitu believes "it takes a village" to help children learn and succeed in life.

She started the Computer Literacy Academy for children of Auburn University employees last year to give area young people, ages 8-14, the opportunity to gain valuable computer knowledge and skills in a fun environment one month out of the summer.

Now Marghitu, the coordinator for computer science and software engineering at AU, wants the community's help to open the program to all area young people of that age. The class is currently housed in a computer lab in engineering shop building 1. If they had more students, Marghitu said they would need more space and more computers. Read full story

Blanks and Ewald Attend Robotics Education Symposium

George Blanks, director of continuing education for the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, and Mary Lou Ewald, director of outreach for the College of Sciences and Mathematics, were selected to participate in the 2006 Robotics Education Symposium at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. this spring. The symposium, funded under the National Science Foundation's Teacher Professional Continuum Program, was hosted by the Technology Student Association. Blanks and Ewald were part of a team that develops criteria and scales for assessing the use of standards-based robotics competitions in high school Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. Read full story

Alabama BEST Robotics Recruits Schools

The Alabama BEST Middle and High School Robotics Competition is gearing up for this fall's competition at Auburn University and is recruiting Central Alabama schools to join the excitement.

BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology) Robotics, Inc. is a non-profit organization based in Dallas whose mission is to inspire middle through high school students to pursue careers in the three career fields through participation in an annual sports-like, hands-on science- and engineering-based, six-week long competition. Read full story