Tech Kids Summer Camp, 2008


In July of 2008, Rackspace launched its inaugural Tech Kids Summer Camp! Partnered with UTSA, Rackspace hosted a two week long technology summer camp for twenty kids. Eighth and nineth graders from NEISD, SAISD, and children of Rackspace employees sat through classes taught by Rackers on everything from "How the Internet Works" to "Basics of Web Server Software".

Shaggy taught the Internet theory class, I (tweeks) did the DNS, hardware and webserver classes, and Ernest did a "Good Webdesign" session, and then folks from our creative design group got into web site aesthetics and logo design. Overall, it was a great experience for all.


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On the forth day of Tech Kids, were the Internet and DNS theory classes.
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This was held at the UTSA downtown campus. Very nice technology classrooms!
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This is the "DNS Death-match Lookup" contest.
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The kids were to look up real A records in pages of DNS data that I taped into real phone books.
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The winners had to be the first ones to write down the IP for their FQDN. :)
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Later on Thursday was Server Hardware Build day. (DCA Brandon Warde as one of our "Hardware Gurus")
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Dale, another of our hardware gurus assisting the kids with the pre-build contest overview.
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Most of the kids had never been inside a computer before.
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They really got into it.
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Some parts were rather tricky...
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Especially the CPU heat sink seen here.
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Joe Wiese and Louis Cintron were a big help as hardware gurus!
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Dale Bracey really loved working with the kids, and they loved his shoes. :)
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The kids were really sharp.. and seemed to really love hanging out with Rackers.
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Team "Toon Squad" built their server and had it booting and running in UNDER seven minutes!
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The "Rackspace Stunnas" was right on their heels at around 7 minutes. :)
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Two of our hardware gurus.. We all had a really good time and answered many questions.
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Afterwards, the kids really got into playing around with Ubuntu (our test boot CD).
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I was just happy to get a break from talking.. :)
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Kirsten (left) is the daughter of a Racker and already runs Ubuntu at home! :)
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The next day we tag team taught. I did Web server theory and setup and Ernest did an HTML & CSS coding class.
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The kids really got into the material.
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They were really excited as they got apache up, and wrote their own first web page on the new web site.
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Some of them asked really great questions...
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It was tiring, but well worth the time and energy.
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I think the JR high boys really liked Sam. hehe.. :)
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Can you pick out the teacher in this shot? hehe..
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Pizza Time!
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Even young coders have to come out of their caves every few hours. :)
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Other "guru Rackers" made an appearance and hung out with the kids too.
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This girl Dejanique was really sharp. A freshman in HS, she's already taking college courses and will graduate at 17!
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Ahhh.. high school art work at it's finest. :)
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The last class on Friday folks from our creative group come and talk to the artistic side of web graphics design work.