What is an AP computer science student to do when you've already taken the AP exam, but there's a month left to the school year? With LVHS teacher Mr. Rodney Snyder, we are developing a "working with data" curriculum where students will learn the basics of parsing CSV files, reading JSON from a webservice, and using SQL with SQLite.

Working with LVHS teacher Mr. Jose Rodriguez, we are planning on holding an ACM-HSPC-style coding contest specifically for Loudoun Valley's students completing the 'Computer Math' intro to computer science course. The competition is currently planned for Saturday, June 11th. We hope to have some donations to use as prize money by then!

Last year we had three students participate in a day of the RubyNation conference, exposing them to a taste of softare engineering as a career path. This year, two of our students are speaking at RubyNation this year, and we expect another small student group to participate.

We are the proud recipient of a donation of over 60 4-5 year-old laptop computers (~40 pcs / ~20 macs), as well as monitors, keyboard, mice, and assorted cables and peripherals. With several students, we are going to prepare them for use. While not all machines are functional, we are going to put together a ~15 station mobile linux classorom, a ~15 station mobile mac classroom, and ~15 monitor/keyboard/mouse stations suitable for use with Raspberry Pis. Leftover equipment will become 'loaner' equipment or be otherwise recycled.

Last summer a group of students met weekly at a local library to do independent rearch projects including building a Z80-based computer from first principles, studying a college-level Coursera course on algorithms, and prepping for ACM-HSPC programming competitions. This summer we expect to invite several high-performing students to participate in a similar program.