The lab at DAE on Chapel Street in New Haven is where high school students get to explore technology through engineering, app building and web design. It’s also where they get to learn about themselves.
“What we do well is we create a container for people to explore what it is, basically, their own potential,” said Kyley Komschlies, the director of educational programing for DAE.
“They’re learning who they are and who they can be in the world, and what it is they can take accountability for in the world and what it is they can have an impact on in the world,” said DAE founder and CEO A. M. Bhatt.
“The A and the E is ‘arts and education,’” Bhatt said. “The D we use digital arts and education, disruptive arts and education, democratized arts and education.”
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Bhatt wanted to take a different look at education in the tech space and so DAE, or “day,” opens the world to students who may not otherwise have the chance to learn advanced computer science skills.
“Not only do they get to see it, they get to play with it, they get to use it and they get to learn how it works for them,” said Komschlies.
The students at DAE Wednesday afternoon were eighth graders from Hill Central Middle School. Their exercises were to take something like a phone and look at where it’s been, where it is now and where it’s going. Then, they had to think about how coding would make it work.
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“Being able to have this experience, it’s like, you can think about things that you probably didn’t even think that you’d be thinking about,” said student Nassibat Abdou Mama.
“Twenty years ago, I was them,” said Komschlies. “And my phone, I called people and I played snake.”
Now, students in the year-round high school program are learning web design.
“If they really like the coding aspect, they can go into the backend side of things and learn more about databases and how it connects to the website. If they like the design, they can do the front-end side and figure out how do you lay out a website, how do you make it appealing,” said Komschlies, who said students have gone on to work on apps, software development and robotics.
“People don’t understand that there’s so much that comes with learning how to code and so much technology because where we are today, technology is everywhere and in the future it’s going to advance even more,” Mama said.
“Even basic jobs like cashier, waiter, it all requires a bit of technology,” said student Kevin Rosa Peña. “Even though it might not be coding, it’s still important for us to get introduced to the regular basics of technology because then we’re at a disadvantage when we grow older and are looking for a job.”
The fall applications are now open for DAE's high school programs in New Haven and Stamford.
