A few hands shot up. Then a statement on the projection screen appeared. It read: “If you don’t have a ticket to Disneyland , can you get in?”
“Nope!” some of the students answered.
The rather simple line of questioning was intended to teach a fundamental coding concept called conditional statements. It was the topic for the fifth coding class in a series of eight, all taught by the Maria Carrillo students under their new nonprofit, 404 Found Code.
The group, led by three students, aims to provide free and accessible coding classes to Sonoma County students.
The program began as a small coding club at Maria Carrillo High School. Creators of the club, Alexander Yoon, Lisa Zheng and Shengkai Huang quickly realized they had a shared passion, which they’d discovered at a young age.
But they found there weren’t any coding programs for them offered in Sonoma County.
“I found a lot of people agreeing with me, that the programs were much scarcer here than in urban areas,” Yoon said.
Thus began 404 Found Code. It’s a curriculum entirely made up by the Maria Carrillo high schoolers, designed to teach coding to students between the ages of eight and 18 at no cost.
The group designed a fully functioning website for students in the program to assess their progress through a dashboard, and they uploaded tutorials for any website viewers to easily access.
They then turned the curriculum they wrote into eight class sessions, and partnered with the Sonoma County Libraries to begin teaching the basic coding concepts to young Sonoma County learners.
“We wanted to provide that education and the joy my team found when we were creating our own projects,” Yoon said.
The young coders at Rincon Valley maintained a sense of excitement throughout the session on condition functions, as they created blocks of code on Python, a specific, rudimentary coding language.
Many were excited about what the future could hold if they learned to master the system.
“I really want to try to code a game,” said James Turner, who is 9.
Another student, eight-year-old Myles Cheese, had the same hope. He showed interest in coding last school year, both in video game coding and robotics.
“We had been really interested in coding for about a year,” Myles’ mom, Heather Cafferata said. “We actually had to take him all the way down to San Francisco this summer, because there were really no camps up here … It was a trek.”
When the 404 program became available in the same area where Myles goes to school at Austin Creek Elementary, she enrolled him right away.
“It's amazing, because we have so many tech companies up in Santa Rosa, but this is the first I've noticed of a free program like this,” Cafferata said.
One local tech company, Keysight Technologies, a Santa Rosa-based electronic manufacturer, has caught wind of the group’s mission and contributed $2,500 in funding this summer.
The high school students have used the money to buy branded T-shirts and a Google workspace, for the team to better collaborate and grow the nonprofit.
The group also received $2,000 from Microsoft Azure; server credits from Linode, a company that creates an online cloud to store information; and $2,500 from Digital Ocean for the group to maintain their website on the company’s server for two years.
The funding was a major boost for the 404 group, said website developer and Maria Carrillo junior Shengkai Huang.
“It allows us to post assignments and I can easily manage their accounts, because little kids, they often forget things, and it's a really big hassle if we go to a different website and they forgot their account,” Huang said. “It allows us to customize a lot and improve their experience.”
Huang, like the other leaders, also teaches the weekly sessions. Often, they take turns explaining one aspect of the coding concept before rotating out and helping students one-on-one.
“My favorite part is when the kids get really excited … about: ‘Oh, look, I did this. Now I want to do that. Teach me that,’” Huang said.
Another 404 Found Code leader, Zheng, said her favorite part of teaching the young coders is being able to encourage girls toward coding, especially given the gender disparity in STEM fields.
Both Huang and Zheng were involved in the development of Sonoma Hacks, Sonoma County’s first youth coding competition.
“I was crestfallen last semester when I saw the number of girls in the 404 Found class dwindle to just one,” Zheng said. “At school, the coding club registrations consisted of all boys and one singular girl — me. So at the beginning of this 404 Found semester, I encouraged the girls to stay and bring their friends.”
The next step for the coders is expansion.
The partnership with the Rincon Valley Library is the first of many, they said. They hope to connect with coding clubs at other high schools across Sonoma County, to share their software with and help them get connected with their local libraries.
Expansion will require additional funding, which Yoon and other leaders are searching for through partnerships. Community members can also donate to their cause directly through the 404 Found Code website.
“Second, as we open more chapters around this region, we'll need more and more funding to provide the same high quality of our program at each location,” Yoon said.
They are also hoping to begin robotics classes, which will require funding for student kits and building curriculum.
The small but mighty team is focusing on making more partnerships with libraries and schools — for now.
“The problem with having just one branch in the Rincon Valley Library is that there’s children driving 20-30 minutes to attend our classes,” Yoon said. “It’s painful to watch because we wanted to provide accessible education.”
©2024 The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
