Jumpstart Lab Courses

It all starts with Ruby Jumpstart. If you’re looking for your first introduction to Jumpstart Lab courses and programming in general, this is the course for you. You’ll jump right in and create real, useful projects. But, at the same time, you’ll build a solid foundation to build upon when you pursue our Rails and Facebook courses.

If you have completed the Ruby Jumpstart or have some programming background, then you’re ready for Rails Jumpstart. Ruby on Rails is a powerful web application framework that has become hugely popular in the past few years. It is relatively easy to develop with and can be used for simple sites like this one, or gigantic ones like YellowPages.com and RevolutionHealth.com. You’ll spend the two days working through a single project, going from an idea to a finished product.

Adobe Flex is a software development kit for creating rich internet applications using Flash. In this class you’ll get started developing with Flex. Attendees should have some programming background like Ruby, Java, Javascript, C++, etc. Familiarity with Flash is a plus, but not essential.

In this advanced course you’ll learn how to really maximize the Git source control system beyond just simple commits and revision tracking. This session is led by Scott Chacon from GitHub.

Robotics are an amazing way to introduce people, especially young people, to hands-on science and engineering. Robotics Jumpstart is the first of our community workshops: a one-day event where we can get together and goof around with some fun technology. We’ll use Lego Mindstorms NXT kits along with some activities created by Lego, Carnegie Mellon, and our own. Attendees will learn to build simple robots, write computer programs to control the robot functionality through multiple input sensors, and make it all work.

HTML and CSS are the foundations of the web, so if you want to publish or manage content on the web you’ll need to know them. This course is designed to get you up and running with basic markup and design. Want take documents and format them for a web browswer? Need to work with content inside a Content Management System? Want to make tweaks to your website without calling in a designer? Both HTML and CSS are easy to pickup, you’ll be proficient in no time.

The SQL language started over 40 years ago, but it is still critical to just about every application involving large quantities of data. If you want to use MySQL, PostgreSQL, or Oracle databases you’ll need SQL. Even if you use an “abstraction layer” like Microsoft Access or Ruby on Rails, understanding the SQL underpinnings are essential to effective usage. In the SQL Jumpstart you’ll dive into databases including the design of an initial table layout, creating and modifying tables, creating queries with joins and intersections, automating calculations, and tending data — everything you need!