South Hills Students Collect Donations For Local Charities
December 19, 2019
South Hills Hosts Student Appreciation Luncheon for Student Club Members
February 19, 2020
South Hills Community News Release
ALTOONA, PA – The Information Technology (IT) Club at South Hills School of Business & Technology's Altoona Campus organized a Local Hack Day event as part of a global event sponsored by Major League Hacking (MLH). People from all over Central Pennsylvania came together at South Hills, joining more than 10,000+ hackers participating in the event from 250 locations around the world.
“Hackers” are individuals who use their technical knowledge to solve problems. Local Hack Days are designed to help individuals and teams develop their computer skills and problem-solving abilities, as well as provide networking opportunities for people interested in technology.
The event included presentations from local technology professionals as well as learning sessions and activities designed by IT Club members including:
- Intro to Computer Programming with Python
- Intro to Building Your Own Computer
- Raspberry PI Throwdown and IoT (Internet of Things)
- What My First Tech Job is Like
- What I Learned This Year Owning My Own Computer Software Company
- Q & A with a Computer Security Expert
- Working with the Twilio API to send Text Messages
- What does $3,000 of New Computer Technology Look Like?
- Intro to Building with the Cloud
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- Local Hack Day Attendees listen to South Hills Information Technology graduate, Tyler Davis, about What his first IT job is like as a Software Engineer at PS Solutions.
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- Chris Beaver, Software Developer at cbCodeStudio, provides insights into the Internet of Things (IoT).
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- South Hills IT Program Instructor, Guido Santella, unboxing new computer technology.
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- Current South Hills IT student, Jason Schopp
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- Local Hack Day Swag
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- South Hills IT graduate and Software Engineer at Muni-Link, Omar Brown, showed participants how to create and assemble the models for printing on the 3D printer.
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- Hosting Services Engineering and Security Manager at Tessitura Network, Ryan McCracken, talked about computer security careers.
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- Founder & Chief Engineer at Talixa Software, Thomas Gerlach, gave a presentation on what he learned this year owning his own software company.
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- Winter Gerlach, South Hills IT student, taught a class on Scratch and Python.
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- Information Technology students, Jarrod Frederick and Scott Goss, show off their project during the cup-stacking activity. This challenge pushed participants to use analytical skills to build the tallest tower in the shortest amount of time. Although this was not directly related to building hardware or software, strategic thinking and a problem-solving mindset was needed to win.
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- South Hills IT graduate, Omar Brown, helps a young Local Hack Day participant assemble and start printing on a new 3D printer.
Guido Santella, Information Technology Program Instructor and event organizer, said, “With so much support from our local guest speakers, the South Hills IT Club, and the tools and resources provided by the global event organizer, Major League Hacking, it was easy to organize this event. We wanted to generate more technology career awareness and tech energy in our area, and I know we did this today.”
Local Hack Day attendees spent time sharing about projects they’ve worked on and things they’ve built. The schedule included activities that allowed people to work together on projects. They had had time to network with each other and shared advice and stories about working in the field of IT.
Attendees participated in cup stacking challenges and computer gaming tournaments, unboxed and assembled a 3D printer, setup new computer hardware, tinkered around with all the equipment, and learned new things.
