Are You Ready for 731Day?
Where were you last year on Monday, July 31? Many of you may have been enjoying your last summer vacation, stocking up on school supplies for the kids, or going through the motions of a typical Monday—but most of the community was out in Jackson celebrating our favorite local holiday: 731Day.
Dev Catalyst Celebrates Its Fifth Annual San Francisco Trip
During the start of the 2017-2018 school year, high school students began applying to theCO’s Dev Catalyst program, a curriculum designed to cultivate and grow the abilities of students with technological talents in the greater West Tennessee area. Throughout the course of the program, nearly 800 students participated in one of three categories (Novice Web Development, Advanced Web Development, and Data Development) in order to learn teamwork skills, develop professional skills, network with tech professionals, and hopefully win the grand prize trip to San Francisco, California.
Made at theCO: Magnetic Calendar
For a few years now, we’ve been using three magnetic boards in theCO’s hallway to display photos of our members and more information about what each of them has to offer our community. While we love sharing about our folks, we decided it was time for a hallway makeover so that we can better keep CO:members and visitors in the loop about upcoming events. After seeing the finished piece, we realized this would be the perfect project for anyone to put in their own homes or offices to plan their schedules in a fun and reusable way. Here’s how we did it and how you can use theCO’s tools to do the same.
Made at theCO: Monitor Stand
Whether you frequent theCO, work in an office space, or use a computer for anything on any desk, a common problem remains. There comes a point in time when space simply restricts productivity by creating an inevitable nest of clutter. Like birds making their nests in the spring, we try to fit an impossible amount of lunch menus, paper clips, pens, and sometimes trash onto a finite desk space.
Summer at theCO
Staying in Jackson this summer? West Tennessee may not have a place to lay your beach towel and enjoy the seabreeze, but theCO is offering a variety activities to keep you busy and entertained in the upcoming months.
CO.STARTERS Grad Spotlight: Kristi Woody
Like many of her friends, Kristi Woody grew up watching Disney movies (her favorite is The Great Mouse Detective). But she didn’t really fall in love with Disney until she visited Walt Disney World with her husband on their honeymoon.
“I had gone to Disneyland a few times growing up,” she said. “And I liked it; we had a lot of fun there. But then my husband and I went to Disney World in Florida for the first time together, and we’ve just kept going back more times every year. It’s just kind of like our thing together.”
Woody, a professional photographer, started a Disney-focused Instagram account to share photos from her trips to the parks.
All About Our BizTech Roadshow
For the last few weeks, theCO has been rolling all around West Tennessee encouraging entrepreneurship through the BizTech Roadshow.
This year, one of theCO’s goals was to reach more counties outside of Madison through mobile outreach.
“We’ve been saying that for years, and really, that was the whole reason that the CO:mobile or a mobile unit even came up,” said Lisa Garner, Executive Director of theCO. “We knew we wanted to connect with these folks, and they’re not always just going to come to Jackson, so let’s go to them.”
Two Students Representing Jackson in International Robot Competition
Of the 1,500 students from all across the world who will be descending on Louisville, Kentucky, for an international robotics competition later this month, two young robot-makers will be representing Jackson, Tennessee.
Ben McCarver, a homeschool freshman, and Joshua Bernheisel, a seventh grader from a Northeast Middle School, managed to beat approximately 170 students in Tennessee to take the robots they designed in CO:bots to compete with some of the best student roboticists from all of the world, from the Middle East to Australia to South America.