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Volunteer
What's needed Looma's 'system' requires four elements: hardware, software, content and user skills.
Volunteers are welcome wherever we can match their time and skills to Looma's needs. For example:
Hardware: Assemble Looma; refine the charge controller design for Looma's battery management
Software: Gamify in-class reviews and lessons; enable smooth video recording, editing and sharing
Content: Gather or make relevant photos, videos, stories; classify & tag content to link with lessons
User skills: Identify 'best practices' for Looma and incorporate them in teacher training videos
How volunteers are involved Most of our volunteers have taken part as a group (grade school classes, summer camp participants, or college teams) which undertake specific, time-bound projects. There are many opportunities for both teams and individuals. For example:
Grade Schools
In 2013 the Northglenn STEM Magnet Lab School's fourth graders learned about the bridges we had built in Nepal in a workbook published by Boston's Museum of Science. The held a fundraiser and sent their $ which were used to build a WireBridge.
In 2017 hearing of the plight of the earthquake refugees the second grade "Penny Warriors" of Madison Elementary School in Skokie collected a small mountain of coins which provided reliable light for more than a dozen families. And the Penny Warriors of 2019 upped the bar by collecting enough coinage to equip another school in Nepal.
In 2018 the entire middle grades of Menlo School searched the Internet for videos to augment lessons for their Nepal counterparts.
Summer Camps
From 2012 through this summer of 2019 20-25 high school and college volunteers have contributed their summers to build prototypes, code applications, gather content and script lesson plans. Students also help with business, publicity, web design and more!
This is a six to seven week program for local High School students. LE supplies them with a collection of tools and programs and gives them creative freedom to improve LE's products. For the past few years, the students have focused on the hardware and software of LE's education program, LOOMA. At the end of the program, the students present what they've come up with to the community.
College Teams
Student teams at Dartmouth, the Colorado School of Mines, Santa Clara University, Stanford and UC San Diego have made major contributions to Looma and LE's other projects.
Individuals
Exceptional help has come from individuals who volunteered to conduct 'due diligence' research in Nepal, to guide our summer interns, to solve key electrical puzzles, to craft the first lesson plans and to expand Looma's dictionary.
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