Claflin University has partnered with the STEM Truck for a Computer Science marketing tour! The bus will travel across South Carolina where participants will complete exciting STEM activities and learn more about Claflin University, the Math and Computer Science Department, and job opportunities at Savannah River Site at no cost.
The STEM Truck will also visit campus during the school year to engage the Claflin community in STEM enrichment.
About STEM Truck
STEM Truck (www.stemtruck.org) is a mobile learning space that delivers Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) resources to students, educators, and enthusiasts.
STEM Truck currently offers the following programs:
- The flagship program, STEM Truck contains dedicated workspaces and includes state of the art equipment for independent or collaborative activities: Electronics/Circuits, Robotics Engineering & Programming, Computer Engineering & Programming and Mobile App Development. The truck includes an innovation bar which is a maker space to incubate ideas and creativity using cutting edge resources: LEGO Wall, Expert Network, Virtual Reality, Periodic Table Games, Robots, Robot Enviroscapes, 3D Printing, LEGO Build Stations.
- Themed Virtual Escape Rooms have the thrill and excitement of a traditional escape room packed with challenges and puzzles. Participants will work together, racing against time to complete a mission and “escape” the room.
STEM Truck currently offers the following escape rooms:
- Computer Science Escape,
- The Great STEM Escape,
- Haunted Escape,
- Black Legacy Escape, and
- Outer Space Escape (for primary and elementary grade levels).
- STEM Kits include hands-on, learning activities for students. Each kit contains the activities, a USB flash drive, video lessons and a keepsake robot tag. Students can access materials in each activity packet in print or via the USB flash drive.
Dr. Tantiana Burns (Department of Biology), Dr. Karina Liles (Department of Mathematics and Computer Science), and Dr. Sharon Richards (Department of Social Sciences) were selected to participate in the UNCF Leveraging Big Data to Achieve Equity Grant Initiative.
The Institute for Capacity Building, Excelencia, and the Coleridge Initiative launched the Leveraging Big Data to Achieve Equity to increase data-based research capacity among institutions of higher education that serve a large share of Black and Latinx students. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the program is designed to accomplish two major objectives:
- Provide HBCUs and HSIs and their faculty with guided training and capacity building to enable production of critical research with confidential microdata in a secure environment through the Administrative Data and Research Facility (ADRF).
- Enhance the research capacity of HBCUs and HSIs to inform the advancement of Black and Brown populations in postsecondary education across the college to career pipeline.
Opportunities were awarded to institutions with the strongest potential to advance data science for their faculty member(s) and institutions.
Claflin University is a partner in the Consortium for Enabling Technologies and Innovation, a program established at Georgia Institute of Technology. The goal of the Consortium is to create a research and education environment to support cross-cutting technologies across three core disciplines: the umbrella of (1) computer and engineering science research specifically in a form of machine learning and high-performance computing (HPC) will support and enhance (2) advanced manufacturing and (3) nuclear detection technologies. The consortium includes partners from institutions of higher education (IHE) and national laboratories.