Photo: Leslie Brody/Wall Street Journal
A team of Stuyvesant High School students have launched Kinet-X, a company offering 4-week summer technology immersives for middle schoolers. With access to laptops, soldering irons, breadboards, and other materials, young students are building programs and devices that are usually only seen at a college level.
“I came in here one week ago having no clue what a for-loop or a soldering iron was. Today, I built a sound-to-light converter,” says Julia Brestovitskiy, a student at Kinet-X’s inaugural Summer 2016 program. Sound-to-light converters are just a small part of Kinet-X’s 12-session programs that debuted last year.
Co-Founder and Marketing Director of Kinet-X told Downtown: “Lower Manhattan, is of course, a hub for creativity, innovation, and everything in between. People from everywhere congregate here to work together, develop their ideas, and make a difference. And I think Stuyvesant is representative of that. As a prominent school downtown, with a culture of innovation and creativity, it attracted the three of us founders from the outskirts of New York to lower Manhattan and come together to build a company like Kinet-X.”
Kinet-X currently offers two programs: a Starter Immersive aimed towards students with little to no experience programming and engineering, and a Python/Arduino Immersive for more advanced students looking to further their STEM knowledge. Whatever the program, Kinet-X focuses intensely on three aspects – the seamless combination of programming and engineering for a comprehensive curriculum, real-world practicality through project-based learning, and a personalized learning experience with mentors who work 1-on-1 with students. By the end of either program, students will have expanded their knowledge base greatly and applied their skills to creating their personal, full-fledged projects combining code and engineering.
Past projects have included metal detector cars and personal security systems. The company’s founders — Adam Abbas, Allan Wang, and Chauncey Lau — are close friends attending Stuyvesant High School, an elite magnet school in NYC, and recognized together the problems plaguing STEM education. All have extensive experience in STEM: Adam, the Programming Leader, is one of CE Week’s Global Top 10 Under 20 Innovators. Chauncey, the Engineering Leader, has been the head designer of some of New York’s top award-winning robots two years running.
“Our goal is to ignite the inspirational spark of technology in as many students across the city as possible,” added Allan. With a comprehensive curriculum, project-based learning, and passionate talented instructors, Kinet-X primarily serves to inspire and educate young middle school students interested in STEM in NYC.
More information on Kinet-X — as recently featured in the Wall Street Journal — can be found at www.kinet-x.org.
