Between personal computers and the machines in computer labs, there are about as many computers on college campuses as students. But when these electronics become obsolete, what happens to them?
If tossed into landfills, they become a big environmental hazard. But the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) has figured out how to turn them into a solution that helps out low-income students.
The school’s program, Computers to Youth, runs camps for inner-city students, teaching them about life in college and how to refurbish old computers. At the conclusion of camp, each student takes home a computer.
Dave Newport, director of CU’s Environmental Center, tells KUSA that there are 10,000 computers on campus — all of which are regularly replaced. “We can’t give away enough of these,” he says. The program “helps protect the environment. It reduces cost. But the best part is, it empowers students.”
Basheer Mohamed, a sophomore engineering major at CU, can vouch for that. The immigrant from Sudan received a computer from Computers to Youth when he was in high school. Prior to that, his family couldn’t afford one. “Between us and more privileged kids, it was really hard to keep up with them,” he says. When he got his computer, he excelled in school, became interested in engineering and even researched and applied for the scholarships that now are funding his education.
What might he be doing if he never received that rehabbed computer? “If anything, I’d probably be going to a community college if not just working,” Mohamed says. “I don’t want to know where I would’ve been without it.”
Thanks to Computers to Youth, that’s one computer kept out of the landfill, and one mind sparked to great achievement by higher education.
MORE: How to Bridge the Digital Divide
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Tag: Boulder
How to Bridge the Digital Divide
While many claim that devices are causing people to interact less, here’s a great example of technology bringing people together.
Once a week, 16-year-old Mikinly Sullivan travels to the Frasier Meadows retirement home in Boulder, Colo., to visit her friend, 89-year-old Kevin Bunnell. The two were connected through Cyber Seniors, a program that pairs high school volunteers with elderly individuals that need help navigating new-fangled technology.
The program wants to ensure that seniors are learning to use computers — not just letting the young people figure things out for them — so as a rule, the elder person’s fingers must be on the keyboard the whole time, while the teenager coaches them through maneuvers.
Bunnell is a poet, and Sullivan has been helping him organize the many poems he’s written over his lifetime. “I love listening to the stories from when he was young,” Sullivan says to PBS News Hour. In exchange, Bunnell wrote a poem in honor of the Cyber Seniors program.
Another senior benefitting from the program is Bruce Mackenzie. “I’m taking a class at the university called Hip-Hop 101,” he says, “And I didn’t know how to listen to the rap songs that are on hip-hop. And Ryan [a teen participant] showed me how to go to YouTube, which I never knew anything about. So I go to YouTube now and I can listen to all these rap songs for my class.”
While the program’s ultimate mission is to help seniors get online, Jack Williamson, who runs Cyber Seniors, says that it “helps build relationships between young people and seniors, which is rare in this culture today.”
As one student volunteer tells PBS News Hour, “I’m learning a lot from them and they’re learning from me. I have actually found through this that I think I like older people more than I like younger people.”
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The Harry Potter Producer That Gave Up The Movie Business to Help Families with Sick Children
While working as an associate producer on the film “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” Paula DuPré Pesman received a phone call from an organization that grants wishes to critically ill kids. The child’s wish? To see the movie about the boy wizard before she died.
Presman’s initial reaction was that it was impossible. But in part because her own husband, Curt, was struggling with colon cancer at the time, she was determined to make it happen.
“We figured out a way to do a rough cut,” Pesman tells the Denver Post. “We got a screening room in San Francisco. We did a screening for this little girl, Gillian. Her picture hangs over my desk…She shot me out of a cannon, basically. It became my reason to go to work.”
After granting that wish, Pesman couldn’t stop there. She continued to make the dreams of sick kids come true with visits to the Harry Potter film set and screenings. Once, she mentioned to a sick child’s father that he must have a lot of friends helping him out. “He said, ‘Are you kidding?'” Pesman recalls. “We’re living a parent’s worst nightmare. People don’t know what to say or do, so they don’t do anything.”
So Pesman made helping such kids and their families her full-time mission. “I was walking away from something I loved. I loved working on films. I loved supporting the team. And I worked 16 years for the nicest company. You don’t walk away from a perfect job.”
But Pesman did, leaving the film industry to start There With Care out of her home in Boulder, Colo. The nonprofit takes care of every conceivable need that families of critically-ill children struggle with.
Volunteers make sure these families’ refrigerators are stocked and that they don’t run out of toilet paper. They deep-clean homes for kids coming home from the hospital with weakened immune systems, and they drive families to doctors’ appointments so the parents can provide comfort during the ride. Most importantly, the volunteers listen at a time when friends can turn away out of fear and shock about the situation.
Pesman runs the nonprofit full time — but she hasn’t completely stayed away from movie-making. She’s worked with Colorado filmmakers on such projects as “The Cove,” the 2009 Oscar nominee for best feature documentary, and last year’s Emmy-winning “Chasing Ice.”
“I was a control freak as a producer,” Pesman says. “I had to get everything done, everything perfect. I don’t do that anymore. I think Curt being sick changed all of that for me. I didn’t have a choice anymore. I saw how quickly things could change and be taken from you. That’s probably why I love documentary so much. You think you’re making this movie and you’re not. You’re making this one.”
MORE: Why Every American Should Read Harry Potter
A Technological Solution to Texting While Driving
Texting while driving has become such an insurmountable problem that even state laws ban phone use behind the wheel. In fact, more than nine people people are killed and an upwards of 1,060 people are injured in crashes involving distracted driving every single day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As more plugged-in generations get behind the wheel, safety advocates are realizing the importance of finding a solution to quell the texting-while-driving epidemic altogether.
Katasi, a Colorado-based startup supported by American Family Insurance, is one of those companies chasing the answer by developing technology to cut the plug. The system works with phone carriers to identify which one of their customers is driving and blocks the delivery of data and texts to that phone while it’s moving.
Founder Scott Tibbitts, a 57-year-old former chemical engineer, spent the last five years developing the technology and partnered with American Family Insurance and Sprint to get Katasi off the ground.
Tibbitts first struck an interest for the growing concern over distracted driving in 2008, when he arrived at a business meeting in Denver. Unfortunately, the executive he was meeting with had been killed in a car accident that morning involving a teenager who was texting, the New York Times reports.
The company’s product (dubbed the Groove) is a small box which connects to a socket beneath the steering wheel. The driver simply plugs it in, sends a text message to a provided number and incoming and outgoing distractions disappear.
Using a phone’s global positioning system (GPS), the car’s telematics (a telecommunications and mobility system that sends a wireless message that a car is moving) as well as other data points, Katasi’s algorithm determines who is behind the wheel. For instance, if a car belonging to a family is taking a trip from home to school, and both parents’ phones have been located at work while the child is in the car, the child has been identified as the driver, reports the New York Times.
But Katasi does have its limits. If all members are in the car, Katasi doesn’t typically block the messages, operating on the presumption that a passenger will stop the driver from texting, according to the Times.
The company is working with two phone carriers, including Sprint, and expects to launch with a to-be-determined anchor carrier next year, according to Katasi’s Indiegogo campaign.
With a rise in distracted driving-caused accidents and the growing dependency on smartphones, it’s important to see more companies focus on finding a way to end the texting-while-driving habit. Other tools include Text Ya Later, an app developed in Texas which answers incoming texts with an auto response.
But perhaps it’s about changing a culture of always being online, along with promoting attentive driving by mandating technology like Katasi and Text Ya Later that will ultimately make the roads a safer place.
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How 3D Printing Can Teach Blind Kids to Read
It goes without saying that reading to kids is vitally important. So much so, in fact, that a couple of weeks ago, the American Society of Pediatrics issued a policy statement urging parents to read to their children every single day — starting in infancy and continuing through kindergarten at least. The organization also advised pediatricians to stress the importance of this during appointments and to hand out books to their patients, especially those from low-income households.
But what about visually-impaired children who face special challenges when it comes to reading? Not only do they have a hard time seeing the words, but they also miss out on all the colorful drawings in picture books, which go a long way towards helping young kids connect with a story.
For those youngsters, researchers at the University of Colorado have come up with a solution: They’re using 3-D printers to create tactile picture books.
Tom Yeh, an assistant professor of computer science, has been leading the team on this project for two years. They’ve created three-dimensional versions of classic picture books, such as “Harold and the Purple Crayon,” “Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?” and “Goodnight Moon.”
One happy user, Michelle Bateson, who reads the books with her three-year-old visually impaired daughter Elodie, told Sarah Kuta of the Boulder Daily Camera, “Elodie loves exploring the tiniest details. Her tiny fingers are so sensitive, she finds marks and lines I can’t see.”
According to Kuta, individual artists and the American Printing House for the Blind have been producing tactile picture books for years, but the process is labor-intensive and expensive. The University of Colorado team’s efforts to produce them with 3-D printers could give all blind kids access to these books. As the price of 3-D printers decrease, the researchers hope that families can use the online library they are creating to print books for themselves.
If you’re curious about what tactile books look like and you’re in Colorado, you can see several examples of “Harold and the Purple Crayon” created by students in Yeh’s upper-level computer sciences classes. The pages are on display at the University of Colorado’s Gemmill Library of Engineering, Mathematics and Physics.
“There’s not too many projects where you can see a very clear combination of engineering, societal impact and art,” Yeh told Kuta. “It gives all students an option to communicate through design and 3-D models.”
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The Two-Wheeler to the Rescue
Jim Turner sees the world through bicycle-shaped lenses.
He’s a two-time Motorcross National Champion who left an engineering job at Ford Motor Company to found the Boulder, Colorado-based company Optibike (which designs and manufactures electric bikes), and he’s the author of a book — The Electric Bike Book — which is about bikes (naturally).
So it’s not really a surprise that in 2012, when Hurricane Sandy struck the East Cost, Turner began thinking about how electric bikes might be useful for recovery efforts.
Inspiration kicked into high gear (pun intended!) when the Colorado floods of September 2013 stranded Turner and his family. The roads to his community were washed out, and the only way to get out or bring supplies in was on foot or by bike. (Or by unicycle, as one goofy video demonstrated.)
Turner decided to turn his early ideas into a learning experience for the industrial design students at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. (David Klein, a friend of Turner’s, is a professor there.) Turner challenged students in Klein’s class to design prototypes for a Bicycle Emergency Response Trailer (or BERT). The contest had a few parameters: The trailer had to be light enough that an Optibike could pull it, it needed to run on solar power, and it had to be narrow enough to fit on a small trail.
Students came up with designs that included solar panels for charging cellphones when a community’s power is out, emergency lights, water filters, fold-out tents, and drawers for medical supplies. One team’s BERT folded out into a table that emergency crews could use for a staging area, while another doubled as a stretcher.
Turner told Jason Blevins of the Denver Post, “It reminds me of the beginning of Optibike. This is something that hasn’t been done before. There’s so much room to be creative.” He said of the student designs, “Every one of them, I see something I like.”
So in a few years, when disaster-stranded people are in need of rescue, don’t be surprised if a fleet of electric bicycles and emergency trailers are their saviors.
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You Won’t Believe the Surprising New Uses for Old Shipping Containers
Excess shipping containers are a big problem — literally. According to Jason Blevins of the Denver Post, there are 34.5 million of them in the world. Shipping companies use each one for a decade or two, then the hulking steel boxes are destined to spend eternity in a landfill.
But more people are starting to rethink what these containers could be used for, including Rhino Cubed, founded by businesswoman Jan Burton and Sam Austin, an architect who specializes in using reclaimed materials. Launched on Earth Day in Louisville, Colorado, Rhino Cubed builds small, artful homes out of discarded shipping containers.
The company offers three models of 160-square foot shipping container homes, including a $60,000 deluxe version that contains art and metalwork and two less expensive styles with added flooring, doors, and walls. Environmentally-friendly aspects of the tiny houses include solar panels that generate energy for a refrigerator and a water tank to catch rainwater.
“We really wanted to create something that would work off-the-grid,” Burton told the Denver Post. “I like to think we can preserve Mother Nature while still living in the middle of it.”
Another Colorado project making use of old shipping containers is the 25th & Larimer building, which opened in Denver last November. The development was created out of 29 repurposed steel shipping containers, and its first tenant was Topo Designs, a company known for its rugged rucksacks and backpacks that are manufactured in the Rocky Mountain state to ensure factory worker safety. Jedd Rose of Topo Designs told Ricardo Baca of the Denver Post, “It fits within our ethos, because it’s simple. Shipping containers are already out there. You can reuse them. They’re modular. It’s such a great idea.”
With shipping container projects recently built everywhere from London to Las Vegas, it sounds like the global backlog of these steel boxes is starting to ease.
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This Special-Needs Teen Gave Herself and Her Favorite Charity the Birthday Gift of a Lifetime
Gabi Ury of Boulder, Colorado had it rough from the very beginning.
She was born with VATER Syndrome, a condition that causes a cluster of birth defects in the vertebrae, anus, trachea, esophagus and kidneys. Since birth, Ury has endured 14 surgeries to correct the effects of the syndrome, which left her with missing vertebrae and calf muscles. But her peppy spirit has remained intact despite all the time she’s spent in the hospital, and when she turned 16 on April 17, she wanted to give herself an incredible birthday present by attempting to break the Guinness World Record for the longest-held plank by a female.
Gabi has tried to break records before by constructing the longest hopscotch course and trying to put the most-ever socks on one foot. She fell short both times, but then she figured out she was a plank prodigy during tryouts for the volleyball at the Dawson School in Lafayette. She couldn’t run a mile with the other volleyball hopefuls, so volleyball coach Holly Novak suggested she spend the time performing an equally grueling exercise: planking, in which a person assumes a push-up position and holds it while resting on the forearms. The first time she tried, Gabi held a plank for 12 minutes. “I was astonished the first time she did it,” Novak told Kate Gibson of the Denver Post. “I have to give all the credit to Gabi on this. I have supplied some workouts, but she has really gone after the record.”
Twelve minutes was only the beginning for Gabi. She began practicing holding a plank for 40 minutes or more. “Boredom is a problem and distraction helps a lot,” Gabi told Gibson. She planks while watching ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ reading a book, and enjoying the company of her dog. She was aiming to break the record for a 40 minute, 1 second plank held by Boise’s Eva Bulzomi, and to raise money for Children’s Hospital Colorado while doing so.
Gabi made her attempt on April 19 at the East Boulder Rec center, and as you can see in this video, she held the plank for an incredible one hour and 20 minutes. Now she just needs to wait for the people at Guinness to verify her accomplishment. In the process, she has raised more than $17,000 for Children’s Hospital. Now that’s what we call a sweet sixteen year old.
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You’ll Never Believe What This Peace-Promoting Sculpture is Made Of
Does a work of art have the ability to reduce violence in America and inspire others to work for peace? That’s the hope of students at Centaurus High School (CHS) in Lafayette, Colorado, who are collaborating on a new piece of artwork.
The 2012 Sandy Hook shooting motivated CHS students to research gun violence for their political action class. They tracked U.S. deaths due to guns after Sandy Hook to the end of 2013, tallying a total of 12,400 reported gun fatalities. Last May, in the middle of the lesson, a 16-year-old student at Centaurus attempted to detonate a pipe bomb at the school. Thankfully no one was hurt, as a teacher discovered the device and administrators evacuated the building.
The shaken-up students wanted to do something to impress upon others what they’ve learned about violence in America, so they came up with the idea of inviting a local artist to create a sculpture from melted guns. “We figured what better way to bring awareness to the issue than build a memorial for those who died where people walk by it every day and think, ‘What is this about?'” 18-year-old student Kenny Sweetnam told Elizabeth Hernandez of the Boulder Daily Camera.
The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office donated surrendered guns, teaching the students how to disarm them and supervising the sawing of the guns so they no longer functioned. Sculptor Jessica Adams is guiding the students as they use the melted gun metal to create a sculpture out of 12,400 rods, one for each gun victim in 2013, with longer rods for younger victims, symbolizing the length of the lives they were not able to live.
Sheila Dierks, a priest at the Light of Christ Ecumenical Catholic Church who is volunteering with the project said, “By transforming these guns into art, we’re giving less power to the gun and more to the power of change we hope to see.”
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Brewers Fight Proposed Regulation That Would End Grain Recycling Initiatives
If you’re a lover of the brewsky, then Denver is the city for you.
The Mile High city brews more beer than any other American city, and the state of Colorado boasts over 140 microbreweries. So it probably won’t surprise beer lovers here in the “Napa of beer” that many brewers are using their drinks as forces for environmental and economic good, donating their spent grains — barley, hops, wheat and other grains that have been soaked in water during the beer-brewing process — to farmers who can use them to feed their livestock, instead of throwing them away.
Oskar Blues, a Longmont-based brewery, runs the Hops and Heifers program. In a process it calls “Farm to Cup,” the brewery grows hops on its own farm, uses the hops for brewing, feeds its cattle with the spent grains, and then uses the meat from these cows in burgers sold at its restaurant.
But newly proposed FDA rules threaten to disrupt innovative recycling programs such as this, forcing microbreweries to send the spent grains to landfills or else engage in a costly process of drying out the grains and packaging them to prevent anyone from touching them before they reach the farmers. For many small brewers, the cost of this would be too great and they’d be forced to choose the landfill option.
According to John Fryar of the Longmont Times-Call, Paul Gatza, who directs the Boulder-based 20,000-member strong Brewers Association, spoke with FDA officials who say they’ll change the rule before issuing new draft of the regulations this summer. “The wording in the original proposed rules was pretty bad,” Gatza said. He estimates that the new rule would cost breweries $5 more per barrel to process the grains before donating or selling them to farmers, potentially putting many small brewers out of the recycling business. That would have been a shame, as a recent Brewers Association survey found that members reuse 90 percent of their spent grains.
FDA spokeswoman Juli Putnam told Fryar that they’ve gone back to the drawing board, rewriting some of the language in the regulation in a way that will hopefully allow this beer positivity cycle to continue. Now that’s good news worth lifting a beer over.
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