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What Happens in a MakerKids Virtual Class? A Look Inside an Hour of Learning

🇨🇦 · Maker Kids · Samantha Dinelle

July 6, 2026 | MakerKids Team A virtual MakerKids class is a live, small-group online hour where kids build real projects like games, robots, and 3D designs while an instructor guides them step by step on screen. It is not a video or an app. Kids join a real class with a real teacher, work through hands-on build time, and share what they made, all from home. All they need is a computer and an internet connection. What happens in a virtual class? A virtual class runs on the same rhythm as being in the room, just over a screen. Build time takes up most of the hour on purpose, because kids learn to code by coding, not by watching. Does online learning actually work for kids? Yes, when it is live, hands-on, and small-group. A 2014 analysis of 225 studies found students in active, hands-on classes scored higher and were less likely to fail than students in lecture-style classes, with the biggest benefit in small classes. A 2023 review of 66 studies found project-based learning improved achievement, thinking skills, and motivation. None of that depends on being in the same room, only on building, getting live feedback, and working in a group small enough that the instructor knows each kid. Sources : Freeman et al., PNAS (2014) , Project-Based Learning Meta-Analysis, Frontiers in Psychology (2023) Is a virtual class just more screen time? No, not the kind parents worry about. There is a real difference between passive watching and active creating. For kids who focus better in a quiet, familiar space, learning from home is often a plus rather than a compromise. Keep kids building all summer, from anywhere Because classes are online, summer plans do not interrupt them. Kids can join from the cottage, a grandparent’s house, or their own desk, wherever the break takes them, which makes virtual classes an easy way to keep skills sharp instead of losing ground. Kids in Grades 1 to 8 are grouped by age and build with Scratch , Python , Minecraft, robotics, 3D printing, and Unreal Engine . Keep the learning going all summer . Join a live MakerKids virtual class and build from anywhere → New sessions run every week through the summer. FAQ What happens in a virtual MakerKids class? Kids join a live, small-group online class for about an hour. A real instructor introduces one new skill, guides kids through hands-on build time, and gives them a chance to share the project they made, all from home. Are virtual classes live or pre-recorded? Live. Your child joins a real instructor and a small group in real time, not a video or a self-guided app. Do online coding classes actually work for kids? Yes, when they are live, hands-on, and small-group. A 2014 analysis of 225 studies found active classes led to higher scores and lower failure rates, and a 2023 review of 66 studies found project-based learning boosted achievement and motivation. Those benefits carry over to live online classes. What does my child need for a virtual class? Just a computer and an internet connection. The instructor guides kids through everything on screen. Do virtual classes run in the summer? Yes. MakerKids virtual classes run all summer long, with new sessions every week, so kids can keep building from anywhere over the break. The post What Happens in a MakerKids Virtual Class? A Look Inside an Hour of Learning appeared first on MakerKids .

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Meetups/Infra/2026-06-29

🇺🇸 · Noisebridge · Mcint

create page New page (Preamble: = Meetup - Infra = https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Meetups/Infra https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Meetups/Infra/2026-..-.. ) 2026-06-29 m [[Meetups/Infra]] {{meetups/infra}} <!-- header --> (TODO summary) == Introductions == * [name] - [background]. [goals for meetup, or interests to explore] * Zacchae - going to germany to give a lightning talk - impt-ly: it's motivating me to build the thing to give a talk about it * Null - might have some stuff to talk about, will come up * Heather - full stack developer, have worked there professionaly, might shift into something less AI-senstive. As a linux gal, often * Doug - about to enter work prison, like touching computer * Frank - here to talk about computers * Renaud - here to learn * Fidget / Max - I'm doing self-hosting, and I want to do more of it - I know of a Noise Garden, and I would love to help out, can't promise too much * Erik - we have 2 new NoiseGarden members (nodes) - dual xeon, 40 cores, and a NAS - has 20TB online - currently attempted to download USPTO dataset (11TB) - 2 * Elan - backend engineer - recently dabbling in "cloud" engineering, cute * Loren - backend - cloud engineer - dabbling in the NoiseGarden cluster == Lesson or Demo == * Read aloud: clarify for meetup. We are taking notes in a riseup pad (or I am--help appreciated, and links). We have meeting notes posted to the wiki. noisebridge.net, search Infra, or Meetups/Infra. (the Infrastructure page has a disambiguation link.) * Shell, web services, self-hosting, networking! * DJB (https://cr.yp.to/) - ietf process - concerns raised by DJB & others about PQC IETF TLS working group has contention Security advocates request using two signatures to cover if a cryptograph break occurs, NSA opposes the design with no argument of how a single signature increases security leaving only exploitation as a surmised motivation https://x.com/vpnet_official/status/2071650601188897084 https://action.cr.yp.to https://nsa.2026.action.cr.yp.to/ https://blog.cr.yp.to/20260221-structure.html https://secretgeek.github.io/html_wysiwyg/html.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine%27s_paradox Quine - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupper%27s_self-referential_formula Simple example: x='x=%q;printf "$x\n" "$x"';printf "$x\n" "$x" * nix DOING Understand nix https://yunz-dev.medium.com/stop-using-homebrew-use-nix-instead-b8a5077637e7 https://www.youtube.com/@vimjoyer https://github.com/nix-darwin/nix-darwin https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager Write prompt to understand nix vs brew Write nix notes flake.nix # the entry point: inputs + outputs flake.lock # cryptographic pin of every input (rev + hash) hosts/laptop.nix # nix-darwin/NixOS system declaration home/you.nix # home-manager: dotfiles, user packages modules/*.nix # reusable, composable fragments /nix/store/-name/** # immutable, content-addressed realizations nix https://github.com/DavHau/nix-portable https://git.lix.systems/lix-project/lix-installer nix on macos https://github.com/nix-darwin/nix-darwin https://nixos.org/download/ https://nix.dev/manual/nix/2.28/installation/installing-binary#macos-installation Package managers https://nesbitt.io/2025/11/15/package-manager-timeline.html Tools that grew from bash scripts from Claude: Actual language/runtime grew out of shell glue Perl. Larry Wall built it explicitly to replace the awk/sed/shell pipelines he was maintaining for Unix system reports — he's said outright that Perl 1 (1987) was "a better sh" for the report-generation glue he was hand-rolling. The whole language's DNA (regex-first, implicit $_, line-by-line processing) is shell/awk habits formalized into a real grammar. Tcl. John Ousterhout built it because he was tired of every tool at Berkeley inventing its own ad-hoc shell-script-like config/command language. Tcl is the "let's stop writing bespoke shell dialects and have one embeddable command language" project — same motivating itch as Perl, different solution shape. Make. Stuart Feldman wrote it at Bell Labs in 1976 after watching a colleague's build break because a shell script forgot to recompile a changed file — the precursor was a hand-maintained shell script doing the rebuild logic, and Make formalized "check timestamps, run shell commands" into a declarative dependency grammar. This is maybe the purest example in the entire list: the thing Make replaced was a literal shell script that didn't scale. Expect (Don Libes, 1990) — grew directly out of people writing fragile shell scripts trying to wrangle interactive programs (passwd, ftp, telnet) with here-docs and sleep hacks. Expect formalized that into a real Tcl-based control language with spawn/expect/send. Build/release tooling that calcified the same way autoconf/automake/libtool — exactly the pattern, still half-living in it. ./configure scripts were originally bespoke, hand-written shell per project; autoconf is M4 macros that generate shell scripts, so it's a formalization layer sitting directly on top of the original ad-hoc shell, never fully escaping it. rpm/dpkg packaging scripts — %post, %pre in RPM spec files and postinst/prerm in Debian control files are still literally shell scripts today, but the surrounding spec/control file format is the "formalized" layer that grew up around what used to be undifferentiated install-shell-script blobs in early Unix package management. Docker/Dockerfile — worth including even though it's recent: early "build a container" workflows in 2013 were people hand-writing shell scripts that ran inside chroot or LXC to set up a filesystem, and Dockerfile syntax (RUN, COPY, etc.) is a thin declarative wrapper where most instructions still just shell out. It didn't fully escape its shell-script ancestry the way Make eventually built its own execution model. (who be ye?) https://git.noisegarden.nexus/ https://nb.wtf/w/zulip https://noisebridge.zulipchat.com Elan NoiseGarden cluster -- 1. get on auth. (loren: we working on making that self-service from the wiki's auth), 2. check out git.noisegarden.nexus, 3. we're working on making vm's self-provisioning, 4. you can also get your own k8s namespace to run pods === CHERI - low-risk security enclave engineering === Null - is everyone familiar with secure enclaves, enclave engineering? No. So, you want to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_architecture_family Loren: I really like -- my network diagnosis scripts Where do/have people successfully used scripts, to avoid thinking? Use cpu cycles instead of brain cells? Doug: I recently had to review my code repos open source licenses on all the repos (Loren: gotchas?) certifi has a weak copyleft license, so if you modify it, you have to repost. (Loren: do you have opinions on licenses now) yes, I like the open licenses TempleOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feigenbaum_constants === annoucements - fun invites === * FPGA group (Loren): * SF Walking compute group (Loren): check primarily in zulip, vr glasses, a computer you can walk with or phone, and keyboard input * OpenCloud (open) (from OwnCloud 2 - go) -- NextCloud (open) (from OwnCloud 1 - php) * BitMagnet -- crawls the DHT for torrents, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_hash_table Catalog DHT torrents via Bitmagnet https://bitmagnet.io/setup/installation.html docker pull ghcr.io/bitmagnet-io/bitmagnet:v0.10.1-beta.1 https://github.com/bitmagnet-io/bitmagnet https://bitmagnet.io/ == Outros == * Zacchae - too busy hacking * Null - might pass along some FPGA gear to the meetup * Doug - going to read up about the feigenbaum constants - null: book "Chaos: Making a new Science" * Robert - interested in the walkable computing group * We-z - rustnet -- running it, might nix-shell rust net -- will check out OpenCloud * Frank - pay a visit to SudoRoom FPGA folks * Loren - https://tinytapeout.com/ * Kevin - found the Feigenbaum constant interesting, working on speech models * Renaud - found the quine pretty cool, * Erik - interested in NAS -- hosting <s>OwnCloud</s> OpenCloud ** Loren: some concerns about hosting - data, implicit uptime promise, push for domain and use of "email", and official self-rep, and ...concerned about file sharing, and org being about to be blamed * Max - IETF, rustnet, opencloud, bitmagnet * Loren - great * Loren ** tinytapeout - talk through ideas ** walking comupte - updates ** noisegarden - auth == after == * erik - voxcii - voxel-ascii * elan - == Questions, Discussion, or Coworking == * [Issue] = For next time = == Questions == == Readings & Exercises == * Readings ** * Exercises ** == Join online == * Try it yourself! ** Join libera.chat #nb-meetup-infra https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Meetups/Infra