Tech 101 Kids Presentation at Iglesia Cristiana Damasco

On July 11th, I gave a presentation at the Iglesia Cristiana Damasco in San Jose, Costa Rica.

This was my first ever presentation outside of the US. It was also my first ever presentation in Spanish. I was really nervous. But the church I was presenting at was the church my mom attended before she came to the US, as well as the church I went to for the first few years of my life. And most of the crowd were people that knew since I was a baby. So I relaxed up and began my talk.

I started with a presentation of who I was and some of the projects I’ve worked on at MIT. Then I talked about the robots I’ve built throughout my life using tech toys like LEGO Mindstorms and Arduino.

Then we presented the MaKey MaKey, a circuit board that can turn any household object into a computer keyboard. I wanted to set up a piano made out of bananas, but the sound wasn’t working. Instead we had volunteers come up to play Flabby Physics using a slice of bread as the spacebar.

Then Bryan gave a demo of the Horizon Fuel Cell Car, a toy car powered by water.

After that, we presented our Rubik’s Cubes. Rubik’s Cubes are known as a test of intelligence. I see them as a test of memorization. There’s a set of algorithms (patterns) that, if you remember them, will let you solve the Rubik’s Cube real easily. In our previous workshops, we’ve even taught elementary school kids how to solve Rubik’s Cubes.

My brother Brandon boasted being able to solve a Rubik’s Cube in 1 minute and 21 seconds. So we put him to the test. On stage, in front of everyone, Brandon was able to solve his Rubik’s Cube in 1 minute and 20 seconds, beating his previous record by one second.

After the presentation we let everyone to hang around and play with our tech. And they hung around and played with our tech..for a whole one and a half hours! I didn’t expect them to stay so long, but it was warmly surprising that everyone enjoyed our presentation so much.

The kids lined up to keep playing computer games with a slice of bread, carrots, and potatoes. Even a parent was testing out the fuel cell car, setting it to charge and asking about it’s wattage. Brandon and Bryan on the spot even taught some of them how to solve Rubik’s Cube.

The presentation was a success and they want us to do more. Thank you to Iglesia Cristiana Damasco and thank you to everyone for your support, Tech 101 Kids is now international.