Ramaz Technology, Engineering, and Coding: The Department of the Future
An Introduction to RamTEC
TEC Classes: Grades 9 & 10, and half of 11
I am delighted to share with you the progress of the first few months of the new RamTEC department. TEC is a new mandatory class for all students in grades 9, 10 and 11. In addition, there are three 12th grade TEC electives. Grades 9 and 10 participate in the CIJETech program, a curriculum used in many Jewish day schools and adapted by our incredible faculty (see page 11) to fit our school’s needs and schedule.
By Nicole Hirschkorn ‘22
For the first two years, students learn engineering and coding principles through hands-on experience and labs. The students work on projects in small groups, and problem-solve engineering obstacles through experience-based learning. Many of the skills RamTEC is solidifying for our students are transferable to other classes, like learning to overcome problems on their own and learning to make clear and effective presentations. In 11th grade, half the year is spent on engineering and the other half on coding in Python.
When the class first began, we skimmed the surface of circuitry. The first day of class consisted of an exercise, where we were given two wires, a battery and a lightbulb, and were asked to build a simple circuit to light the bulb. It was a unique hands-on experience that pushed us to think outside of the box and problem-
This newsletter is composed of summaries of the TEC courses and clubs, all written by students. I hope you enjoy reading about what has taken place in the first semester of the year as much as our students have enjoyed participating and learning thus far. On behalf of the TEC faculty and the Upper School administration, we are very excited about the positive feedback we have received and the future growth of RamTEC. Lenore Brachot Science and RamTEC Department Chair
RamTEC is an advanced, hands-on, state-of-theart class. The course has taught us the basics of coding, circuitry and engineering. As the class progressed, we delved deeper into the complexities of technology.
solve. In middle school, most of us had never seen anything like it. As the weeks progressed, we delved deeper into circuitry. We learned complex ideas, such as resistance, Ohm’s Law, voltage and current. We then moved on to building complicated circuits incorporating breadboards, which are experimental models of an electric circuit. The next step was to connect breadboards with Arduino boards. An Arduino board consists of a physical circuit board and software that runs on a computer to write and upload code on to the Continued on pg 2
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physical board. Through Arduino boards, we learned the elemental structure of coding, and through this, how to manipulate and control LED lights. We learned how to create complicated systems of signaling through the LEDs, from blinking on and off, to Morse code, to traffic lights.
TEC Classes: Eleventh Grade Coding Semester By Max Rubinchik ‘20 Coding is a new addition to our curriculum this year; it was a little nerve-wracking because I have minimal coding knowledge and didn’t know what to expect. All the nervousness was gone after my first class. We started off with learning about how and why the computer works the way it does, which sparked a sense of curiosity. There are a lot of coding languages, but we focused on Python 3. Then we started learning and writing basic code with careful help from Mr. Vovsha.
“Coding is a great addition to the The next stage of our technology and engineering education was learning how to control small servo motors through the Arduino boards. The motors that we worked with had propellers that were controlled through code with the Arduino computer software. We learned how to manipulate the direction that the propeller spins through precise mathematical calculations with angles. I feel that I’ve already benefited from taking this course, and can’t wait for another semester of in-depth hands-on learning.
curriculum because it teaches us different ways of approaching problems that are not exclusive to coding.” The initial steps are crucial to know well because the foundations are important no matter how advanced a coder is. We moved slowly at first to make sure that everyone was on the same page and understood every important detail. The whole semester was built upon the foundations, with each lesson adding something new to complement what we had previously learned. Continued on pg 3
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One of the most interesting aspects of coding is looking at a problem and being able to think of a code that will help solve the problem. We were able to get through a lot of code, and at the end I was able to code the game “Battleship.” Coding is a great addition to the curriculum because it teaches us different ways of approaching problems that are not exclusive to coding. We learned how to work around problems when we are stuck and learned how to get through difficult problems that look terrifying at first. It will also be very helpful for us later in life when we are introduced to new technological advances.
advanced features. Many innovative ideas were suggested, such as a portable battery that transformed the excess heat from the drink into power, a mug with a stabilizer to assist people with Parkinson’s disease, and a collapsible cup. Then we began learning about the history of computers and discussed different types of computers. One example is supercomputers, which are incredibly powerful and can fill up entire rooms, but cost millions of dollars; there are only about 100 in the US. We were separated into groups, and we were each given a type of computer to research and present to the class. We also covered specific elements of computers, such as processors and binary code.
SENIOR TEC ELECTIVES Introduction to Technology and Engineering By Noe Horowitz ‘19 On the first day of this class, Ms. Joshi gave each of us a piece of paper so that we could write what we wanted to learn regarding technology that would be helpful in the future. We started the class with a unit that focused on the principles of engineering, specifically the different steps of the design process. There are eight different steps: identifying the need or problem, researching the need or problem, developing possible solutions, selecting the best possible solution, constructing a prototype, testing and evaluating, communicating the solution, and redesigning.
“Nowadays, coding languages have become some of the most widely acquired skills. ”
As our first lab, we applied the design process in order to invent a transport mug with
Excel is paramount when analyzing any type of data, yet many users do not even scratch the surface of its potential. We were taught how to use some of the features that it offers, such as functions and graphs. Nowadays, coding languages have become some of the most widely acquired skills. This is why we started to learn how to use Scratch, a block-based visual coding program. We designed many different programs: from creating a virtual piano to games to a short movie about the ten plagues.
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Introduction to Computer Science By Nathan Haron ‘19 In my Intro to Computer Science class this year, we studied the fundamental principles of computers and learned the basics of Python, culminating in students coding their own comprehensive final projects. Throughout the course, we learned about the basic operations of the language, running loops, calling functions, and creating lists and dictionaries.
I personally enjoyed learning the real-world applications of these programming tools. Using Python lists, for example, we examined the different ways to sort through, organize and manipulate data for our convenience. Much of what we learned also helped us better understand the concepts taught in our math classes. Using “for loops,” we figured out how to display the exact steps involved in summation notation, and how to run summation programs to meet our exact conditions.
“I personally enjoyed learning the real-world applications of these programming tools.”
For my final project, I decided to make a piano simulator, in which, when a certain computer keyboard key was pressed, a certain desired note would be produced. I also created a physical image, which illustrated which computer key corresponded to each note of the piano. Additionally, I created a recording option, which allowed the user to play back a list of notes that were pressed. To implement this project, I had to use many of the topics covered in class, as well as conduct some outside research and consult with Mr. Vovsha, the course instructor.
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HSS Computer Science By David Adler ‘19 Ramaz’s HSS Computer Science class covers the Computer Science AP curriculum, and so much more than that. We started off the year learning about the fundamentals of computer science. We learned about how a computer transmits information, what types of data structures one would need in order to make something useful with code, and the different types of coding languages. We then delved into how a computer actually reads code. Every coding language has a compiler associated with it which “translates” the code into binary - those 1s and 0s you’ve probably seen in a movie.
The next thing we covered was the concept of object-oriented programming (OOP), which is what most powerful languages make use of. The idea behind OOP is that the coder can make a new data structure and specify the properties of that data structure as well as different processes, called methods, the data can undergo. For example, one can make a data structure called “square” with a “side” property and “area” method. This way, the programmer can create new squares and specify their side lengths before referring to those squares in their code. They can also call the “area” method and the computer will find the area of that square. It is important to understand that one can have two identical squares, but they are still not the same squares. The programmer gives names to different objects throughout the program. Continued on pg 5
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Java - the language this course studies - is an object-oriented language, and actually requires a class to run any program.
“I think the greatest thing I took
away from this course was the ability to look at a problem and create a precise way to solve it each time.” After discussing OOP, we started studying recursion, which is when a method or algorithm uses information it receives by running the same method with a different input. For example, the well-known Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13…) is an example of a recursive method - to get the next number, you must use the past two numbers in the sequence. We learned what the computer actually does while executing a recursive method - it creates a stack to store the information from all the calls of the function until it reaches the “base case” (in the above example, the first number), and then “pops” each value off the stack while plugging them into their respective method calls. We each had to choose a project to complete by the end of the semester. I chose to make an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tic-tactoe program which is impossible to beat. The program uses the minimax algorithm to work. The idea is that the program takes in
the board, creates a tree of all possible moves and all possible results of each move, scores each result, and moves those values up the tree. The program then chooses to move in the space with the highest score. This was a relatively simple use of minimax, but it is often used in more complex settings such as chess. I think the greatest thing I took away from this course was the ability to look at a problem and create a precise way to solve it each time. Everyone goes through certain thought processes every day and rarely stops to think about what their brain just did, which is what coders must simulate. This course has trained my brain to look at these thought processes and define exactly what happens while someone performs them in order for me to then convert them into code.
RamTEC CLUBS Coding Club By Sophia Kremer ‘20 and Ayelet Monas ‘19 Coding is basic literacy in the digital age, and it is important for students to understand and be able to work with the technology around them. Having students learn how to code prepares them for the future. Knowing how to code is just like knowing another language. It fosters creativity and experimentation, and allows students to apply math to real world situations. After realizing the importance of knowing how to code, the two of us decided to create a Coding Club. The club is open to all students, regardless of their coding background. It allows mathematically inclined students and those interested in technology to utilize their talents outside of the classroom, and at the same time give those interested in learning Continued on pg 6
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how to code the opportunity to do so. The club meets every other Thursday in Room 704 with Mr. Vovsha as the faculty advisor. The club’s curriculum began with the basics. We used Codeboard.io, a webbased IDE that teaches programming, to explore Python 3, a basic language
“Coding is a crucial skill to learn,
because it is becoming the most in-demand skill across industries.” that acts as the building blocks for more challenging parts of the curriculum. The club also took advantage of its large number of members and diversity of
skill sets to create the Ramaz Upper School TECH Team, which comprises an advanced group of students that have prior experience and would like to move on to more challenging languages with aid from Mr. Vovsha. This group is currently working on a school app that pertains to the daily social and organizational needs of the student body. This app will enable a separation from the academic components of a student’s life which is located on Schoology, where students have access to assignments
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and interact with teachers. The personal and social aspects of a student’s life will be situated on this new app. Specific functions will include locating lost items, publicizing daily school lunches, club groups, and organizing a student’s schedule. Coding is a crucial skill to learn because it is becoming the most in-demand skill across industries. A job market analytics firm found that there were as many as 7 million job openings in 2015 in occupations that required coding skills. It also found that programming jobs
“Students want to be creators, not just consumers, and the future is dependent on new ideas that will attract human interest.”
overall are growing 12 percent faster than the market average. Coding skills are a necessity across five different job spectrums: information technology, data analysis, art and design, and science and engineering. To many students, Coding Club is very attractive because it allows the students to understand the behindthe-scenes of the mobile devices or laptops that they spend hours of their days with, whether it’s scrolling through their social media feed or playing the latest racing game. Students want to be creators, not just consumers, and the future is dependent on new ideas that will attract human interest. New technology is being created every week, and in order to keep up with the momentum of the fast-paced world, one needs to have fundamental skills that can be acquired at the Ramaz Coding Club.
Engineering Club By Josephine Schizer ‘20
are building miniature versions of games like Wac-A-Mole. Another popular project is a car robot of some kind. Students who chose to build cars are using Arduinos, motors and motor shields to run the car along with a PS2 controller to direct it. This project also requires writing code for Arduino.
“One student is continuing his This year, the engineering club is meeting twice a week after school to work on various projects. Each student in the club had the opportunity to choose a project to work on, and the students are working in groups. One group of students is building their own drawing bots, learning how to use stepper motors and Arduinos to create a robot that can hold a pen and draw certain things with code written in Arduino. This project helps students gain experience creating circuits with Arduinos and stepper motors in addition to practicing writing code in Arduino. To code the arm to move to certain locations on a piece of paper, students are using trigonometry to create a program that sends the arm to a certain (x,y) coordinate by forming specific angles between the two pieces of the arm.
project from last year by working on writing code for his robotic arm that will allow it to open his locker for him.�
A few other students are building robotic arms using Arduino. Some students in the club built these arms last year, but many freshmen who joined engineering club for the first time this year chose that project. One student is continuing his project from last year by working on writing code for his robotic arm that will allow it to open his locker for him. Another group of students is building a secret knock box using Arduino and a scale that only opens when the correct secret code is tapped out on the box. One student is building a drone. Another student is attempting to connect to the internet using only an Arduino. So far, the engineering club is having a great year. With the help of Dr. Nironi, students are learning a lot and working on many cool projects.
Another group of students is working on a hardware project that is entirely based on circuitry without any code. These students
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CIJE Hackathon | Winter 2019 By Sally Neugarten ‘22 Earlier this year, five students- Sydney Eisenstein ‘22, Jonathan Schnipper ‘21, Finley Horowitz ‘22, Levi Lesches’21, and I, supervised by Dr. Nironi, went to Yeshiva University to compete in the first ever
reports that other residents look down on her because she requires a lot of patience to be around. We decided to expand upon a comment one of the presenters made; she asked her for a Hebrew Braille pen-pal to
“The prompt was aimed at helping make the lives of the elderly currently residing at Jewish assisted living facilities easier.”
CIJE-Tech (Center for Initiatives in Jewish Education) Hackathon. The prompt was aimed at helping make the lives of the elderly currently residing at Jewish assisted living facilities easier. We received four people’s medical situations after listening to two heads of facilities talk about the project, ranging from neglecting to take their medication to not being able to make friends due to sight impairments. All 12 schools present were given 4 hours to team together and use their skills to make a device connected to a NodeMCU controller to help out with a specific scenario.
A NodeMCU controller is a WiFi-connected micro-controller that doesn’t need any wires to receive information from a network. The Ramaz team decided to help a woman who felt that she was at a social disadvantage because of her visual impairments, as she
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befriend. We took this comment and worked on a solution; we decided to make a “BrailleBox,” which receives words in both Hebrew and English from a website we made, and converts it into Braille, raising up to 6 pins attached to servos designed to represent the raised dots in Braille. Throughout the 4 hours, everyone vigorously worked on both the hardware and the software, fixing problems wherever they came up. Levi and Sydney mostly worked on the code, while Finley, Jonathan and I focused on hardware. We worked on the project until the very last minute, and the box and its complementary code is reflective of this. After presentations from all the schools, it was finally time for the announcements for the winners. Ramaz came in third place, behind MTA in second and Frisch in first. This event was educational and fun, and it increased our understanding of how both hardware and software work.
Personal Reflection on RamTEC By Anna Braun ‘22 I will start by saying coding has never been one of my favorite subjects. In my past school, we had computer class, and though I was successful, it simply wasn’t that interesting to me. For this reason, it had come as a great surprise to me when I realized how much I actually liked RamTEC. This semester in TEC class we have learned to take mathematical ideas in coding and apply them to forms of engineering.
that without them the world would likely be very different. For instance, we had learned to power a lightbulb through a circuit. Turning on and off a switch is something we don’t even think about and seeing something that we regularly consider as “simple” being broken down so that we could know how it worked was fascinating to me. Then, again with the servos, seeing how mechanics work through electronics – I loved this. It is also incredible for me to think just how many functions an Arduino has, and how many we have already used with it!
I came to realize that coding was so much more than memorizing inputs that would display words on a computer screen. Although the “displaying of words on a screen” may be considered a big deal, it wasn’t this factor that made me attracted to the class; rather it was how it could affect today’s most obvious contraptions,
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CIJE Innovation Day | May 19, 2019 On Sunday, May 19, two of our ninth grade TEC classes and three of our tenth grade TEC classes will be participating and competing in the CIJE Innovation Day held in Holmdel, NJ, from 1–5pm. Over 1500 students will be presenting their capstone projects. Working in small groups, our students identified a problem and are designing their own solution.
If the car is in range of another object, the car knows to brake before colliding into the object. The four of us will be building a mini-version of a self-driving car. We will be using an ultrasonic range sensor on the car to prevent it from crashing; it will turn when it has a wall on its side, and brake when there is one in front. We will be testing to see if the car turns effectively and can avoid objects with ease. The result of our project will be safer driving and fewer car accident-related deaths.
“Coffee Cooling Calculator”
By Jacob Davis ’21, Eitan Linhart ’21, and Michael Olenick ‘21 Each team is given a budget of $75 for materials. Through these capstone projects, students learn about the engineering design process, write abstracts about their project, study how to budget, develop their presentation skills, build scientific poster presentations, advance their ability to work in a team, and solidify engineering concepts along the way. Projects will be judged in various categories, and one in particular is the student elected project, where students will choose their favorite project. Good luck to those participating! Below are two sample abstracts of our students’ capstone projects. One is a selfdriving car and the other is a device to measure cooling time for a hot beverage.
“Self-Driving Car”
By Will Kremer ’21, Josh Rubinchik ’21, Yehudit Rogosnitzky ’21 and Yadin Ukeles ‘21 In the US, the 4th leading cause of death is motor vehicle accidents. A simple solution to this problem is a car that can navigate itself.
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The purpose of our project is to create a device which can accurately tell users how long it will take for their hot beverages to cool to a certain temperature determined by the user. The device will measure the temperature of the outside air and then of the drink, and will then prompt users for the size of the drink and their desired temperature. The device will then tell the user exactly how many minutes it will take for the beverage to reach the desired temperature by using Newton’s law of cooling. The device will feature a numeric keyboard and a temperature sensor. The preliminary testing for this device will involve calculating the coefficient ‘k’ for all standard sizes of coffee. With that information, the formula will be able to calculate the required cooling time with great accuracy. We are confident that this device will completely eradicate the problem of burnt tongues from hot beverages.
Faculty Ms. Nisha Joshi Ms. Nisha Joshi is brand new to Ramaz this year. She came here with many years of experience teaching STEM courses, heading educational technology and IT, and coordinating school wide STEM events at her previous schools. Ms. Joshi teaches half of the ninth, tenth and eleventh grades, as well as teaching a senior elective and two senior mini-courses. Ms. Joshi’s favorite part of teaching Tec this year is witnessing “that the girls are equally interested in learning about technology as the boys. Students are making connections between technology and their other subjects and learning the skills of troubleshooting and problem solving.”
Dr. Fabio Nironi Dr. Fabio Nironi has reduced his number of math classes to initiate the RamTEC department. He teaches half of the tenth grade TEC classes, in addition to ninth grade Honors Geometry, 10th grade Algebra and 12th grade Discrete Mathematics. He is also the faculty advisor for the Engineering Club. Dr. Nironi brings his engineering background and passion for the latest technology into his teaching. Dr. Nironi’s favorite part of teaching TEC this year is “watching students play with new toys”.
Dr. Ethan Rotenberg Dr. Ethan Rotenberg has reduced the number of chemistry classes he teaches to join the RamTEC department. He teaches half of the ninth grade TEC classes in addition to three tenth grade chemistry classes. Dr. Rotenberg brings his creativity and knowledge to the TEC curriculum. His favorite part of teaching TEC this year has been “watching students acquire skills and use them to figure out on their own how to accomplish new tasks”.
Mr. Eli Vovsha Mr. Eli Vovsha left the math department to teach solely in the TEC department. He teaches half of the eleventh grade TEC classes, in addition to two senior courses (Honors Computer Science and Introduction to Computer Science) and mini-courses. Mr. Vovsha is the faculty advisor of the coding club and the chess club. His out-ofthe-box thinking and coding skills are appreciated by his students. Mr. Vovsha’s favorite part of teaching TEC this year is “watching the growing enthusiasm for coding among the students”.
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The Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein Upper School of Ramaz in the Morris & Ida Newman Educational Center 60 East 78th Street, New York, NY 10075
Special Thanks to the Aronow Family for their generous support of STEAM programming at Ramaz