Teodora Baciu is part of the team that organized the Digital Skills Workshop at the U&I Summer Camp in 2023. Teo says that the satisfaction she gets from the camps and working with the children in workshops is unmatched. Volunteering for UiPath Foundation programs is truly useful: “You help some kids have a better life.”
How did you build the Digital Skills Workshop for the children at the camp?
Children need interactive content for this session, and I knew this from volunteering at the camp in previous years. Just sitting in front of a computer for an hour would bore the children and cause them to lose interest. Other than this session, most activities happen outdoors at U&I Summer Camp. Children need to be moving, and with this thought, we started building the experience.
How was the experience at the workshop?
The children were super involved. They were very pleased that they managed to create something. We created a game where they had to make a sandwich. Each child received a set of instructions that had to be pieced together. The game’s purpose was to follow the instructions exactly as they were given, without us getting involved and making decisions. The children could see that if the instructions were not good, our results would not be good. Everyone had a blast with this example. This helped them develop some programming abilities and to create automations.
We talked about physical automation; the children gave examples, like the doors at the mall that open automatically. But we also tried to help them discover software automation. We talked to them about social media, the algorithms that social media applications use, and Google Maps, which uses automation algorithms. The goal was that at the end of the course, they would create an automation themselves to understand basic programming.
What activities did you create for the children during the workshop?
We, the trainers, created a website where children could put their names and birth dates, and then they generated very precious unicorn names, such as Sparkle Flower. Then, we prepared an automation that generated diplomas with the new unicorn names. We also created a very fun little game that I think they really liked, in which they became the robots. We split the kids into two teams, and every team had a designated ‘robot’. The robot would leave the room, while the other colleagues would create a set of instructions for the path to follow when they returned to the room. The robot followed the path, blindfolded, and listened to instructions such as “Take three steps to the left”. The person who had left the room didn’t know what was happening, and the team that had written the best instructions won. It was super fun!
What does it mean to you to be a UiPath Foundation volunteer?
I am so impressed with the fact that many of the children are extremely hardworking despite coming from very challenging backgrounds. I see how diligent they are, how they have already made plans, and how they know which high school or university they want to attend, what courses they want to take, and what they want to study. This impressed me the most and made me realize that the Foundation really is changing their lives. I encouraged all my colleagues to go to camp with the children because it was literally a phenomenal experience.
For some of the children, the week they spend at camp is their only opportunity to break away from the life they lead for the rest of the year. And the fact that you can be there and support them along the way, to help them with things that don’t seem that important to you, really helps. You’re helping children live a better life.
