HooverCamp: High school students teach coding, entrepreneurship to children

When Shaams Nur was a sophomore at Hoover High School, he noticed what he considered to be a lack of coding education in Alabama and wanted to help change that.

In late 2019, he began planning with friends Leo and Victor Song to create what they called HooverCodes, a camp for children ages 8 to 14 to learn how to code using a website called Scratch.

After success in their first camp in the summer of 2020, they expanded in November and December into what they call HooverCamp, which offers weeklong courses in both coding and entrepreneurship. They conducted the camps again in June of this year and plan to repeat the effort in the summer of 2022. 

In elementary school, Nur was in the enrichment program with the Songs. They were taught how to code using Scratch. 

“We wanted to make sure that everyone could have that equal opportunity,” Nur said. 

HooverCamp classes are two hours long. In the coding class, participants learn the history of coding and other important things about the technology industry. Throughout the week, participants create their own coding project.

Students in the entrepreneurial class look over case studies about customers, study what makes a startup business good and learn marketing skills. Everyone makes a business plan on Google slides, and a guest judge comes in to judge each of their pitches.

This year in the entrepreneurial class, fourth grader Alex Roy pitched a business selling bookmarks that contain seeds for planting. All of his proceeds would go toward saving rhinos. 

It kind of showed us the potential of HooverCamp. The most amazing part isn’t even how she [Sara Hwangs] is 5 years old or how she made it [an animation] in under five days. It’s the fact that she used coding to amplify her voice and be an activist.

Shaams Nur

In the summer of 2020, 5 year old Sara Hwangs in the coding class created an animation called “Love Knows No Colors” that depicts four little girls of different ethnicities. She composed and sang a song to put in the background of the animation. 

“It kind of showed us the potential of HooverCamp,” Nur said. “The most amazing part isn’t even how she is 5-years-old or how she made it in under five days. It’s the fact that she used coding to amplify her voice and be an activist.” 

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey sent an encouraging video to students in this summer’s camp, wishing them good luck and naming them “the future of coding and STEM.” 

The HooverCamp so far has had guest speakers from the Alabama Department of Education, the University of Alabama, the University of South Carolina, the University of California, Berkeley, Mercer University, Kind, Microsoft, Khan Academy, Google, Coursera and alumni from Yale and Brown universities. 

Nur and the Songs donated $500 of the registration fees they received for the classes to Hoover High School for the purchase of calculators and $400 to the Hoover Public Library for webcams and children’s books. 

Though HooverCamp brings many things to the children who sign up for it, their reach is still limited because of fees and time constraints. Nur said it would help if public schools could start teaching children more about coding and entrepreneurship in elementary or middle school.

“I think they are doing a good job with coding because they do the hour of code every year,” Nur said. “But when it comes to entrepreneurship, I think we need to have a lot more exposure.” 

Ron Dodson, who is retiring Sept. 1 as assistant superintendent of instruction for Hoover City Schools, has overseen curriculum changes for the system. He said in the last four or five years there has been a call to look at computer technology proficiency and entrepreneurial skills in a broader context than just electives. 

Entrepreneurship is given attention in a ninth-grade career prep class in which students discover they can work for themselves if they want to, but for the most part it is a separate thread of the business academy, Dodson said. 

However, coding is getting more attention. 

Hoover started the Riverchase Career Connection Center two years ago to help prepare high school students for a variety of careers, including coding. It has a complete career pathway for programming called the Cyber Innovation Academy, which prepares students for a career in coding. 

However, the center was started right when the COVID-19 pandemic happened, so it hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves, Dodson said. 

There also is little agreement within the computer technology world as to which skill sets should be the focus. 

“In the I.T. sector, it really is like getting on your horse and riding out West, and there’s not a lot of sheriffs around to tell you what to do,” Dodson said. “It’s exciting and a little uncertain in terms of how we as schools prepare for that.” 

Dodson said he is completely on board with Nur’s efforts to teach children coding and entrepreneurial skills at an earlier age. He believes it will build confidence in the younger children’s minds so they aren’t as intimidated by computer science when they get to high school. 

“I think the most important thing is to share the opportunities,” Dodson said. “What we’re trying to do is allow kids to make choices earlier … and know what those options are to give them confidence. That’s the importance of those earlier years.”

For more information about HooverCamp or to register for a future camp, email hoovercodes@gmail.com.