Experiential Learning Workshop Series

The Jeffrey S. Boyce Engineering Innovation and Design Studio is offering a series of workshops as extra-curricular activities to provide students with the opportunity to participate in experiential learning - learning by doing.

The goals are:

to assist them in expanding their knowledge and further developing their technical and professional skills using industry-standard tools,
to enable students to reflect on their learning, master new concepts and skills,
to encourage students to apply the concepts they learn to practical contexts,
to help students build their portfolios with competencies that employers look for, using self-guided projects.

We ask that you please attend all of the sessions that you register for, as registration is limited.

Link to the Registration Form for the Fall 2024 workshops.

CURRENT WORKSHOPS

Fall 2024 Workshops

Getting Started with 3D Printing

Oct 17 and 18 | 2:30 - 5:00 pm

Day 1: Introduction to SolidWorks, Part Design, and Starting 3D Printing

In the first session, participants will be introduced to SolidWorks, learning the fundamentals of 3D CAD design. Students will create sketches and design the indivdual components of a phone stand using SolidWorks' key features. By the end of the session, participants will use slicing software to prepare their designs for 3D printing and begin printing their phone stands.

Day 2: Assembly in SolidWorks and Physical Model

In the second session, students will assemble their designed parts into a complete phone stand using SolidWorks' assembly tools, ensuring the design is functional and fits together. Once the 3D printing process is completed, participants will assemble their physical phone stands. This session will focus on both virtual and hands-on assembly, allowing students to experience the full design-to-product workflow. By the end, we will complete a prototype of a custom-designed phone stand.
Introduction to Electric Circuits and Breadboards

Oct 15 and 16 | 2:30 - 5:00 pm

Day 1: Basic Circuit Theory and Firefly Breadboard Project

The focus of this first workshop is going to be reviewing some basic circuit theory that will allow us to prototype a working circuit. We will touch on all the different circuit components and essential equations. The circuit that shall be built will be a simple LED circuit that does not require a microcontroller. Once the circuit is sketched and understood we will create a breadboard version of the circuit. We will end the session by making use of the electronics workbench to test and troubleshoot any issues with the prototyped circuit.

Day 2: Alternating LED Lights Breadboard Project

The focus of the second workshop is going to be building upon the knowledge gained in Day 1 by creating a more complex alternating LED circuit that also does not require a microcontroller. The circuit will be sketched and understood by all students to then create a breadboard version of the circuit. We will end the session by making use of the electronics workbench to test and troubleshoot any issues with the prototyped circuit.

PREVIOUS WORKSHOPS

Winter 2023 Workshops

Developing HTTP-based APIs

Feb 15 | 5 - 7 pm

Facilitators: Michael Lescisin and Thayan Sivathevan

This tutorial explores creating HTTP-based Application Programmer Interfaces (APIs) to make computational services available on a network. Students will learn about software-as-a-service (SaaS) using the API exchange as a gateway, how to develop applications using cloud-based APIs, and how to develop new APIs to be used by others.

Register for the workshop: https://forms.gle/VNeKWWcBrxeWt97c8

Spring/ Summer 2022 Workshops

React Web Application for Sleep Tracking

React Web Application for Sleep Tracking

June 23 | 2 - 4 p.m.

Facilitator: Soham Bhavsar

In this workshop, students will learn how to develop a web application using react to allow users to track their sleep per day and create a report of their weekly sleep cycles. The application will feature a login/signup for users to track their data.

Watch Session Recording
JavaScript Word Guessing Game

JavaScript Word Guessing Game

July 5 | 2 - 5 p.m.

Facilitator: Soham Bhavsar

In this workshop, students will learn how to design and develop a web browser-based game with basic HTML, CSS, JavaScript and NPM that allows users to guess the randomly generated word from a JSON list.

Watch Session Recording
Object Size Detection using OpenCV
Self-Driving Car Simulator using JavaScript

Self-Driving Car Simulator using JavaScript

July 28 | 2 - 5 p.m.

Facilitator: Soham Bhavsar

In this workshop, students will learn about building a simulation application using JavaScript and neural networks to showcase a moving car in a simulated environment to avoid collisions with other vehicles.

Watch Session Recording
Developing and Consuming APIs

Developing and Consuming APIs

August 4 | 5 - 8 p.m.

Facilitators: Thayan Sivathevan and Soham Bhavsar

In this workshop, students will learn about software-as-a-service (SaaS) using the API exchange as a gateway. Students will learn how to develop applications using cloud-based APIs, and how to develop new APIs to be used by others.

Watch Session Recording

Winter 2022 Workshops

Fall 2021 Workshops

Spring/Summer 2021

Week-Long Workshops

Getting Started with Cross-Platform Development using Flutter
Getting Started with Cross-Platform Development using Flutter

May 31 - June 4 | 3:00pm - 5:00pm

Facilitator: Mohamed Ibrahim

Flutter is Google’s UI toolkit for building beautiful, natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase (https://flutter.dev/). In this workshop, we will dive into Flutter development by building applications from scratch. We will cover building great user interfaces, app navigation, persistent storage, network requests (API calls), managing state, integration with Firebase, and all the concepts you need to start bringing your ideas to life. We will focus on mobile development but everything we learn will be transferable to other platforms as well. Not sure what to expect? Check this Keynote to learn more about Flutter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSbsIiluixw

Day 1: Introduction to Flutter
- Creating a new project
- Running your app
- Hot Reload and Hot Restart
- Widgets
- Stateful vs. Stateless Widgets
- MaterialApp, Scaffold, Container, Button, ListView, etc
- User interactions with Buttons, GestureDetector, and InkWell
- Adding app icon and splash screen
- Adding assets and third party dependencies
Day 2: Building Stateful Apps and Making API Calls
- Navigation
- Managing State
- Network requests (API calls)
- Parsing JSON data
- Handling user input
Day 3: Storing Data Locally
- Data persistence using SQLite database
Day 4: Firebase Integration
- Authentication with Firebase
- Working with firestore database
Day 5: Putting It All Together
- App build
Click here to see workshop recording.
Getting Started with Web Development using the MERN Stack
Getting Started with Web Development using the MERN Stack

June 7 - June 11 | 1:00pm - 3:00pm

Facilitator: Thayan Sivathevan

This workshop will show students new to web development or MERN (MongoDB, Express, React, and Node.js) how to develop a small full-stack web application. The students will learn how to use express to create routes and middleware to manage data. How to communicate with and create models for MongoDB and mongoose. How to work with React to create dynamic sites using CSS, components, routing, requests, and a few libraries. Most importantly, they will learn how to put it all together to create a full-stack site.

Day 1: What is MERN?
- Why is it different and more useful than basic HTML/CSS/javascript?
- Discuss the popularity, uses, and modularity of a React frontend.
- How to install MERN.
- Set up a NodeJS environment.
- Start working with MongoDB Atlas.
Day 2: Start Working with creating a backend
- How to use NodeJS and Express for creating a backend
- Creating routes and connecting to MongoDB
- Using postman to test the routes
- Discuss how to use middleware and why we need it.
Day3: Using React
- Start by creating a basic static website with React
- Discuss how React uses JSX to be more efficient
- Using React libraries and css to create a better site.
- Discuss how to react states and rendering work.
- How to route pages use React routing.
Day 4: More React
- How to send requests using React.
- Create a more dynamic site with React.
- Understand how to use and understand JSON.
- Debug errors and problems with console.log().
Day 5: Putting It All Together
- Combining everything to create a full-stack site.
- Ideas for projects
Click here to see workshop recording.

Two-Day Workshops

Jupyter Notebook and Data Visualization using Python

Jupyter Notebook and Data Visualization using Python

June 10 - June 11. | 5:30pm - 7:30pm

Facilitator: Michael Lescisin

In this workshop students would gain familiarity with the popular data science Python packages that are: Numpy, Scipy, Matplotlib, scikit-learn, and pandas by using them interactively in a Jupyter notebook. Using these tools, students will work through the processes of data gathering, data analysis, and data visualization. Specifically, students will gather data from publicly available data sources, analyze the data using supervised classification, unsupervised clustering, and mathematical regression. The data and its analysis will be visualized through Matplotlib by rendering visualizations such as scatter plots, time series graphs, and tree diagrams. The workshop will also discuss the idea of distance metrics and demonstrate Levenshtein distance as a means of measuring the similarity between strings of symbols. The workshop will conclude with a practical example of detecting various events from a set of raw data.

Click here to see workshop recording.