STEM Projects for Learning programming
Ammar is a Software Developer with Asha Hope Amanaki and has been developing a tool that helped us keep a database of our volunteers. The entire STEM based project was developed using Google Apps Script. Ammar initially joined us as a inter via Hillsboro Chamber of Commerce. However, his passion for programming kept him going on the project and he finally completed the project that helps us store the information of all our volunteers. We had covered earlier in our series of Volunteer Spotlight, however this conversation was recorded after he has completed his project.
Hi Ammar, Thank you for sharing your experience with us. Tell us a little about yourself to our readers?
My name is Ammar Mukadam. I am a junior in high school and I live in Portland Oregon. I really like playing kind of any sport, I really like soccer and basketball. I am actually on the Soccer team
At Asha Hope Amanaki, what were your roles and responsibilities as a volunteer in the team?
So, I started off working with the Hillsboro Works program, so I guess through them I was able to work as sort of an intern into build the database project, and then once the summer was over for that, I switched to being a volunteer and trying to continue the project, so I stayed with the program. I made a volunteer database system so we can input new volunteers and then choose what day they want to volunteer, what activities they want to do, and then once you have a big database so that we can edit any part of them or like any part of their kind of data set of okay now they want to volunteer o Monday and Tuesday instead of Monday and Wednesday or we can delete them from the database and yeah, that’s the whole of
Could you tell us more about the Hillsboro Works Program?
Yeah, so what the Hillsboro Works program is, it’s a bunch of different careers including STEM that they offer high school students to intern in and get more experience on, as well as providing professional development courses on. So, we had a course on how to look at money and how to save money as well as how to advertise yourself, and stuff like that. So, with these meetings, you kind of got more knowledge on how to get a job and maintain a job when you’re older. So, it was really a great experience.
For students interested in participating with us, what would you say, you learnt from this opportunity?
I really liked it. I think that I had like the flexibility to kind of do what I want, but also the mentors were really great and guided me in the direction I needed to go. Like, I think that beyond just volunteering I really learned a lot, so it was really great.
Was there anything particularly helpful that the mentors helped you with or just in general?
I think the biggest thing was often when I got a problem I’d like jump right into it and I wouldn’t really look at the big picture of like “how do I solve this problem”, you know I thought that was wasting time, but really like that was the best solution to think about all the elements of the problem and then I could find a way faster and efficient solution.
What made you want to volunteer, other than it being an extension of the Hillsboro Works program? Was there anything else that motivated you?
I think I really wanted to finish the current project I was on, but I just really liked the experience, so I wanted to continue it, and I was learning a lot, so I thought it was great.
So, did volunteering at Asha Hope Amanaki help you elsewhere or did you anticipate that it would help you elsewhere maybe with college applications or a future job that you might want?
Yeah, I think I’m definitely going to put it on my college applications and hopefully it will help me get into the University of Washington. So, we’ll see.
Since the program was based on a real-world project and is being directly used by Asha Hope Amanaki, were there any challenges executing STEM based projects ?
I think that yeah, it made it feel more real. I think in school sometimes you want to take shortcuts and stuff, but I think knowing that it was really going to be used by the organization made me care more, and really want to make sure that there were no mistakes or nothing wrong with any part of the program.
Since the program was based on a real-world project and is being directly used by Asha Hope Amanaki, ?
I think that yeah, it made it feel more real. I think in school sometimes you want to take shortcuts and stuff, but I think knowing that it was really going to be used by the organization made me care more, and really want to make sure that there were no mistakes or nothing wrong with any part of the program.
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