70 Cornell Tech Grad Students & Roosevelt Island PS/IS 217 Middle School Students Hack Halloween Today - Have Fun, Learn Scratch Coding, Build Games & Maybe Start A Business

Early this morning, approximately 70 Cornell Tech graduate students visited Roosevelt Island to teach coding classes to about 60 PS/IS 217 middle school students. According to a Cornell Tech spokesperson:

Cornell Tech grad students will head to Roosevelt Island's PS/IS 217 to teach coding classes to middle schoolers for its second "Hack Roosevelt Island" day. The student volunteers will work with 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students on spooky, Halloween-themed coding projects using the coding language, Scratch.

Led by 70 accomplished engineering, health tech, connective media, and MBA students from all over the world, Hack Roosevelt Island Let's Code RI will help show that coding can be easy and fun for kids. Through the games, kids will learn useful computational thinking methods that they can use in a variety of classes and situations.

Roosevelt island Halloween hackathon underway with #CornellTech students and excited PS/IS 217 students #LetsCodeRI pic.twitter.com/drvzaeMBcF

— Roosevelt Islander (@Rooseveltisland) October 30, 2015

SO MUCH FUN @MovingImageNYC @scratch @cornell_tech #LetsCodeRI pic.twitter.com/DoAap7fUWf

— Diane Levitt (@diane_levitt) October 30, 2015

Teaching programming at PSIS217! @cornell_tech #LetsCodeRI pic.twitter.com/ymapJVwiLN

— Maria Shen (@MariaShen) October 30, 2015

Excited to be at Roosevelt Island today with @cornell_tech to teach students about programming! #LetsCodeRI pic.twitter.com/jDgIk6jLeg

— Marissa Lowman (@marissalowman) October 30, 2015

Cornell Tech Student Marissa Lowman describes the Roosevelt Island Halloween Hackathon



and Roosevelt Island middle school student Olivia Schaefer shows us the game she built

Helping kids to code! #LetsCodeRI #cornelltech #CornellMBA pic.twitter.com/g2JfCVtaN1

— Jason Hershman (@JasonHershman) October 30, 2015

with the help of a Cornell Tech student Jason Hershman.



Olivia said that she really liked her game and its fun to play. Displaying a true entrepreneurial spirit, Olivia added that she would like to sell her games:

... to everyone across the world....

PS/IS 217 Principal Mandana Beckman learned to code Scratch too.

Teaching Principal Beckman to code #Scratch! @cornell_tech @pta217 #LetsCodeRI pic.twitter.com/tYb1QQpGMY

— Diane Levitt (@diane_levitt) October 30, 2015

Ms Beckman reported:

Our middle school students had an amazing time designing their Halloween themed games. Thank you Diane Levitt, Cornell Tech mentors and the staff from the Museum of Moving Image for planning this event for our student.

More from the Roosevelt Island PS/IS 217 Cornell Tech Halloween Hackathon from the Twitterverse.

Still dark. But time to get the bagels! Come on @cornell_tech, #LetsCodeRI @217pta pic.twitter.com/Db4c3vZ6Cf

— Diane Levitt (@diane_levitt) October 30, 2015

Bagels, coffee, tshirts, technologists. Charged up and ready to go. #LetsCodeRI ! @cornell_tech pic.twitter.com/Ajdp8ZZbVY

— Diane Levitt (@diane_levitt) October 30, 2015

So excited to teach kids to code today on Roosevelt Island! #LetsCodeRI @cornell_tech pic.twitter.com/X6CHV5qOkF

— Derek Cutting (@derekered) October 30, 2015

Making things from #Scratch #letscodeRI #cornelltech @cornell_tech pic.twitter.com/DsebJRkKpc

— Sarah Abdelnour (@just_seba) October 30, 2015

Coding spooky Halloween themed games at #LetsCodeRI w @cornell_tech & PS/IS 217 pic.twitter.com/prpTVgETjZ

— tolu o (@toluser) October 30, 2015

#letscoderi super excited for my daughter to code today! With the help of @cornell_tech

— Maggie (@Magg215) October 30, 2015

Here's the first Cornell Tech Roosevelt Island PS/IS 217 and Seniors Association Hackathon from last April.