Broadcom Coding with Commitment® Award Spotlights Child Safety at Rio Grande Science Fair
Success Stories
All-Girl Team codes "Guardian Alert" to Keep Kids Safe!
Broadcom Coding with Commitment® award was presented to middle school coders from La Joya ISD's Lorenzo De Zavala Middle School at the Rio Grande Valley Regional Science and Engineering Fair in Brownsville, Texas. Leila Gomez and Yareli Gonzalez engineered "Guardian Alert", a device that monitors children who wander out of range of a parent or guardian.
The award was presented by Maria Wronski, Chief Financial Officer and Associate Director for STEM Advancement at Broadcom Foundation and Melissa DeGandi, Program Coordinator of the Broadcom Foundation.
"Broadcom Foundation-sponsored fairs are helping to promote basic coding as a 21st Century+ skill that girls like Leila and Yareli need to become digitally literate and compete for highly skilled jobs in emerging industries built on technologies of the future."
"With their project, Yareli and Leila have combined their STEM learning with coding to solve a community problem they care about that aligns with Good Health and Wellbeing - #3 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations."
Maria Wronski, Chief Financial Officer and Associate Director of STEM Advancement at Broadcom Foundation.
Inspiration for the girl's project stemmed from Leila's concern that her mom was worried about her sister being alone at college, "Wouldn't it be cool if my sister had a necklace or something she could wear and use to help if she's in trouble?" said Leila.
Yareli and Leila became interested in learning coding during the design process for "Guardian Alert."
"I became interested in coding when I realized I could use it to create cool projects like Guardian Alert that could help people in real life, and it felt awesome to see how technology could make a difference," said Leila "I enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to make things work and the satisfaction of seeing coding run successfully. It's like solving puzzles and building something new every time!"
The duo's next step is adding GPS and an alert system to their prototype. Yareli said, "I was proud that we had accomplished something big."
Raspberry Pi Foundation offers free resources to help anyone learn how to code and teach basic coding. Visit the Projects site to get started.
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