Welcome back to School! Here’s a short slate of dates for student competitions and one for classroom funding.

September 5 — Allen Distinguished Educator DIY Guidelines grants for K-12 classrooms (<=$1000) applications close.

• More info from Allen Distinguished Educators 
• Blog post summarizing the program

FIRST(tm) Robotics programs have a two part registration: nationally, with FIRST, and locally for events managed by the Oregon Robotics Tournament and Outreach Program (ORTOP). See ORTOP’s website.

• JrFLL registration is now open for grades K-3.
• The FLL Challenge for ages 9-14 will be released September 30; tournament registration opens in October.
• FTC National Team Registration is open for grades 7-12; The FTC Kickoff is Saturday, September 10. See ORTOP’s FTC Blog.

Thanks to U.S. Representative Greg Walden for letting us know about the Congressional App Challenge for students not yet graduated from high school, and to Melissa Stiles from his office, who visited SuperQuest Southern Oregon to tell us about available resources and mentoring in District 2. Registration is open now, closes November 2. App must be original, and written since November 2, 2015. Program summary blogged here.

NCWIT’s Aspirations in Computing Awards for High School Women for grades 9-12: applications open Sept 1 and close November 7. The judging in this program accounts for available resources, so Oregon has had winners from high schools without programming classes or few community resources. 

CS Education Week 2016 is Dec 5-11. Consider doing an Hour of Code event for any age of student from preK-college or in the community. Resources available from CS Education Week, Hour of Code, and code.org.

October 8, 2016: SuperQuest Fall Conference. More info soon.

Respectfully submitted,
Jo Oshiro,
jo@oregoncsta.org