“I love robotics!” exclaimed one excited Compton Unified middle schooler as he ran excitedly into the Board Room of the district’s headquarters. The room and front lawn had been transformed into an immersive and interactive computer science playground, filled with dancing robots, maze-racing robots, a ‘smart’ soccer ball, LEGO robots solving a mini-city’s water issues, remote-code-controlled bowling balls, drones, Chrome Books and iPads.

Fellow students and representatives from tech innovators Apple, Google, 9-Dots, Blizzard and Vidcode engaged the young Compton scholars, who came from middle and high schools across the district. Travelling from table to table, one could hear students, teachers and exhibitors all speaking the same language—coding and how it can be used to solve problems, create games and make robots go.

Students also had the opportunity to hear from Compton Unified alum Anthony Mays. Mr. Mays shared his experiences growing up in Compton, life lessons he learned, and what eventually led to his success as an engineer at Google. “You have to be willing to preserver, even if you stumble and fall,” he shared with one group.

“You all know what they say about Compton…well, I wanted to change that and now it’s your turn to change that and represent your city well,” he said while encouraging the group to pursue careers in tech, “They should think of us as scientists, engineers, and business people—great things come out of Compton!”

The day was coordinated by CUSD’s Instructional Technology team as a part of the district’s annual Computer Science Education Week, which ran from December 4 through December 7. Computer Science Education Week spotlights programs, partnerships and student accomplishments in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math).