No playful experience says Silicon Valley more than a day at The Tech Interactive. The Tech in downtown San Jose is where about 200,000 schoolchildren go each year to think and act like engineers. About the only thing better is to have tech professionals and engineers supporting them as they learn. That’s where Clouderans come in.
A Cloudera volunteer helps students create thaumatropes, which are optical illusion spinners.
In June, Cloudera volunteers spent the day at The Tech assisting students with hands-on activities at the iconic science center:
Clouderans spent their morning helping young people create and explore optical illusions with thaumatropes, which are spinner toys with different images on each side. When you spin them, the two images appear to become one.
Clouderans helped students have a deeper engagement with several science activities, making the experience more meaningful and memorable.
Clouderans guided young visitors at the Tower of Power exhibit in the Exploration Gallery. The exhibit challenges visitors to choose the best strategy to power a tower with solar and wind energy.
A Cloudera volunteer help a student position panels to capture solar power to light up the center display.
“The students played with the solar energy concentrators and the wind tunnel fans until they realized that they could aggregate the outputs of the discrete elements,” said AB Srinivasan, Data Technologist with the Cloudera Foundation.
“At that point they couldn’t help but be the scientific experimenters they inherently are to try different positions of the concentrators and fan configurations for optimal impact. Seeing the enthusiasm of their efforts and the pride they experienced when they succeeded in generating the maximum jolt of power to light up the top tower and set off the siren was a joy to watch!”
Editor's Choice
