ECE Department Hosted 2-Week Workshop on Computing for High School Students

LACC 2023 News Materials

Los Angeles Computing Circle (LACC) is a 2-week program hosted by the University of California, Los Angeles, which aims to acquaint high-school students with essential subjects in computing. This program utilizes a series of modules spanning various areas of computer science and computer engineering. Additionally, students benefit from engaging presentations delivered by esteemed faculty members and industry experts. 

The UCLA faculty behind LACC are Professors Puneet Gupta, Mani Srivastava, Lara Dolecek, Nader Sehatbakhsh, and Yang Zhang. This year, Nader and Yang took the lead in organizing. The student coordinators are Siyou Pei (advised by Yang) and Justin Feng (advised by Nader). 

The program was held online over Zoom from 7/10-7/20, and at UCLA on 7/21 (voluntary). The goal of this program is to provide students with a broad overview of topics and some practice that will give them a head start in pursuing future studies in STEM fields related to computing. Through the modules, students used Python to solve a series of coding problems related to the module topics. Moreover, they received mentoring from an enthusiastic group of UCLA Ph.D. student instructors from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and the Computer Science Department.

In LACC 2023, we covered 5 modules:

  • Introduction to Computer Science and Programming
  • Algorithms
  • Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence
  • Mobile Applications
  • Embedded Systems and Mixed Reality

Guest speakers presented topics including:

  • Robotic Process Automation
  • Engineering Experiences: From Inspiration to Impact
  • Supply Chain Security
  • A Primer to Computer Architecture

For additional information about the program, see our website:

https://sites.google.com/site/computingcircle/home

A picture containing text, clipart

Description automatically generated

======================================================

LACC-2023, we selected a group of 76 students from 46 different schools.

LACC-2022, we selected a group of 70 students from 42 different schools.

LACC-2021, we selected a group of 57 students from 30 different schools.

LACC-2020, we selected a group of 35 students from 27 different schools

Photos

Siyou Pei (left one), Richard Lin (left two), Prof. Nader Sehatbakhsh (left three) and LACC person in the classroom after finishing the last module

Group photo at the Bruin Bear Sculpture in the morning

Students received their certificates for LACC 2023 after the closing ceremony

Nathan Nguyendinh from UCLA IEEE was introducing projects to students

Siyou Pei, the student coordinator, was announcing eligible students for the certificates.

Students were listening and thinking

Students were experiencing virtual reality

Students were discussing and thinking

Students put on a virtual reality headset

The student was troubleshooting an embedded system

Students were working together as a team

Students were programming the board

Acknowledgement

Instructors:

Noor Nakhaei

Gaofeng Dong

Pragya Sharma

Dylan Kupsh

Chris Liu

Brian Wang

Pooya Aghanoury

Richard Lin

Siyou Pei

TAs:

Koushik Jandhyala

Karthik Jandhyala

Darsh Anup

Jason Guieb

Luke Collins

Maan Patel

IEEE Volunteers:

Nathan Nguyendinh

Arunan Elamaran

Evan Bird

Theo Zhang

Tim Jaques

Joshua Burpee

Guest Speakers:

Helena Zhang

Pooya Aghanoury

Moumita Dey

Nader Sehatbakhsh