Events

The 2020 Branham COVID Hackathon took place on October 24th in a new, online format. Thank you to all who attended for you willingness to work with us in this challenging time.

We had participants from every school in the CUHSD and all over the world, with students joining us from Canada and India!

Branham came out on top, with students Oleksandr Gorpynich and Lino Le Van coming in first for their innovative combination of Peardeck and Kahoot to help teachers engage students.

Branham alums and several current Branham students taught workshops for participants of all skill levels. We were again incredibly impressed by the projects, especially from our many new coders.

Check-in begins at 8:45. Make sure you arrive on time!

The primary point of communication will be Zoom: https://cuhsd.zoom.us/j/98542670347?pwd=V1BxWGNScTdpblphMlc1aFRIYmhpZz09 (Meeting ID: 985 4267 0347, Passcode: hack). This will be the link throughout the hackathon. YOU NEED A ZOOM ACCOUNT TO LOGIN TO THE MEETING. 

The 2020 Branham Winter Hackathon took place on February 2nd. Thank you to all who participated! We saw some wonderful creations, especially given the fact that many participants had never coded before.

We had middle and high schoolers participate from Branham and Dartmouth, most of whom had little or no coding experience. Yet, in just eight hours, all had functioning websites or apps, addressing very real problems from study skills to student mental health, in line with the hackathon’s theme of education.

After participating in educational sessions taught by Branham students Will and James Gardner, the participants grouped into teams of four to five and began hacking.

Students built a program to analyze emails for hurtful content, a quiz game for elementary schoolers, and a website that locates tutors among other projects, which they presented to a panel of expert judges.

We look forward to holding this event again in the future, so check back periodically for future dates!

Last Saturday, the Bionic Bruins hosted a local eight year old’s robotics themed birthday party. Our team created an open ended, engineering focused activity that encouraged kids to build, learn, and play.

We started off by dividing the kids into three equal groups, then gave each of them a pre-built, basic wheelbase. After driving around and testing out the robot, the kids quickly realized they could modify their robots to look cooler- and be more effective in battle. Using the provided assortment of VEX parts, the teams took all their robots in different directions.

Some teams focused on adding armor to their robots. Other groups picked a more offensive strategy. They built rams and outcroppings onto their robots, with the help of the Bionic Bruins team.

Finally, after they finished building, it was time to battle! The kids got really excited about getting an opportunity to face each other, battle royale style, in the arena our team set up.

Overall, this event went great and we’re excited about hosting more parties in the future. Schedule a robot party here!

This years vex robotics competion will be Tower Takeover. In this competion two teams trying to gain higher score than the opposing Alliance by placing Cubes in Towers, or scoring Cubes in Goals. For more information I will leave links below to the vex robotics website and video showcase.

Tower Takeover Showcase Video: https://youtu.be/_JVQOiw_OUU Vex Competion Info Website: https://www.vexrobotics.com/vexedr/competition/vrc-current-game

By: Alexander Goldberg

As with every outreach event, the Bionic Bruins worked hard to bring an amazing Robotics exploration activity to Girl Scout troop 60113.

We used one of our classic activities for elementary and middle schoolers: building a DrawBot. The activity gave the scouts a chance to get creative by challenging them to build an attachment to an existing robot than can successfully hold a pen or marker. The best part? Kids need no prior knowledge of robots to have fun!

Because building a full wheelbase and robot in a short time is too challenging for young kids (and even seasoned builders) to handle, we used pre-built robots from earlier in the season. The requirements for these robots are pretty light- just a wheel base and remote-control capability, which every VEX competition robot has anyway.

But, even though most of the robot is already built, it isn’t a breeze to construct a solid pen holder. Students had plenty of resources to construct whatever they imagined.

Because we designed this activity to get kids thinking, they weren’t guided too heavily throughout the design or build process. We divided the scouts into small groups, gave them paper and pencils, and watched the fun begin!

Every group had a different approach, but with minimal guidance from our outreach team, the event was an amazing success.

The kids blew us away with all their unique designs, so we’ll definitely be doing this activity again– and not just because we got cookies!

A, B, X, and G team competed in a vex tournament at Amador Valley High School on January 12th. A team and G team made it into the quarter-finals.

The Winter Wishes is an annual Branham tradition in which leadership grants wishes requested by students throughout the winter months. Throughout the weeks running up until finals small wishes are granted, such as having cookies or donuts delivered to class, but the larger wishes are saved for the Winter Wishes rally.

This year, students wished for the recognition of our club advisors, Mrs. Schremp and Mr. Turner, due to the time and effort that they contribute to our club. At the rally they were recognised with a video put together by the club and leadership, along with flowers and a gift card.

The ceremony ended with leadership granting a $600 cheque to the Bionic Bruins in order to help cover club expenses.

To learn more about Winter Wishes, check out the NBC Bay Area article about the event.

A, B, X, and G teams participated in a competition hosted at Bellarmine College Preparatory on November 17th. All teams are now applying what they learned from this competition in order to improve and update their robot in preparation for the next competition.