New to the 2011/2012 school year is the St. John Tech Club.  Tech Club's charter is to empower St. John students with the tools and skills to make cool things with high technology.  

Tech Club is for creative students who want to make digital art and music videos, gamers who are ready to transition from being game players to game makers, tinkerers who want to learn how things work and build robots, and anyone who wants to learn more about how computer programs and technology work.

Tech Club is all about learning by doing and having fun applying our own personal style and design to the projects we undertake.  We will jump right into hands-on activities creating interactive projects with a minimum of lecture.

Each session of Tech Club will focus on a different type of technology based on student interest and alignment with the St. John Student Learning Expectations.

Tech Club Session 1 was all about programming with Scratch.  Students created interactive multimedia presentations and video games using Scratch.  See the links to the right for more details on what we did with Scratch, including some completed projects.

Tech Club Session 2 starting Wednesdays on March 21 will focus on robotics.  Students will work alone or in teams to plan their project, select a robot kit, build the kit, and prepare to compete against their fellow Tech Club members.  The last meeting will feature student presentations and robot competitions.  Parent-led instruction on electronics, motors, and programming along with one-on-one coaching will support the students in their efforts.

More info is on the Tech Club Robotics Page.  Ongoing updates will be made with links and other resources on the new Tech Club Blog.

We are always interested in hearing about other ideas for Tech Club.  Possible future topics include programming for the web, XBox game development, and native application software development for mobile or desktop platforms.

Logistics and Application Process

St. John parent Pat James will lead the club, and would love to have other adult volunteers to work side-by-side with students as they design and troubleshoot the implementation of their projects (use the signup form linked below to sign up as an adult volunteer too)

Señor Pablo will be the faculty advisor for this club.

Tech Club Session 2 will meet Wednesdays from 3:15 - 4:45 March 21 - May 16.

There is a $40 fee to cover supplies.

Participation is limited to 25 students in grades 6 - 8.  Participants will be accepted first-come, first-served based on the online application form. 

Participants may bring their own notebook computer or use their own flash drive with a St. John MacBook.