Lakewood Computer Clubhouse

Dozens of schoolchildren rush down to the Lakewood computer clubhouse during their lunch break in hopes of playing Minecraft and taking a break from school. Two of the kids start hugging co-coordinator Allison Church, meanwhile co-coordinator Hannah Dominguez tries to usher the kids towards the table. As usual, they discuss afterschool plans for animation and design projects.

In this underground tech hub, kids ages 8-18 learn the basics of electrical currents, Arduino boards (computer boards), coding, musical composition, video production, animation, digital drawing, and a multitude of engineering and science projects.

“We’re teaching them a lot of life skills, marketable skills, things that they can put on their resume. It helps to know Microsoft products like Word, Excel and PowerPoint among many other things,” said Allison Church.

“Alex is working on a DoGA project [which is an animating software], creating this large spaceship. Sadie is creating three ‘Choose your own adventure’ through PowerPoint.” Said Church

Students have already gotten some engineering experience through the clubhouse. Church and Dominguez received a recycled Pierce college kiosk a couple years back, which has now been taken apart so that the kids could make a retro video game station.

“We added a control board which was put together with copper tape and recycled buttons. The kids were taught how to put in their own Arduino board as well.”

But their creations don’t stop at Arduinos. They have also made a large Maki Maki board and Arduino board (hardware that is made to construct a computer), one student named Nate who created fans and robots out of LEGOs, they even made a ‘Banana Piano,’ where they programmed different fruits to play different keys.

The Clubhouse began as an Intel-funded project to help motivate kids into technological fields in 2002, which was originally run by Kurt Sample. Over the years, the clubhouse has had to move from several locations, including the former Harrison Preparatory campus and now Lochburn Middle school. Now Kurt has left to work elsewhere and it is up to Allison and Hannah to run the program.

Hannah Dominguez is an English major, while Allison Church is at Evergreen hoping to get her BA in education and teach art. Together they both take away valuable experiences from these creative individuals.

“It’s a lot of noise,” said Church. “’Look at what I did!’ is what they mainly say. They’re excited and want to show us what they made.”

In addition to the clubhouse, potential engineers and programmers now have the opportunity to experiment with technology.

“Once they learn how to use that, they become very tactile, since many kids learn by doing,” said Dominguez. “Teachers are scared to give computers or any kind of technology to kids, since they are so expensive and worry that kids can break them.”

Aside from these achievements, the clubhouse is facing financial setbacks. Their original Intel sponsor dropped them a couple years ago.

“They pulled out because they weren’t making money off the clubhouse, but we recently got a Best Buy grant,” said Church.

Pierce college has been supporting Lakewood computer clubhouse for over a decade, however the dynamic is changing.

“We don’t know about Pierce college,” said Church and Dominguez. “We could be moving to YMCA. Nothing is set in stone. It is mainly under the library and learning services. There has recently been a 2% cut in the budget, but that’s still quite a bit of money.”

Even with possible cutbacks, the Clubhouse still receives volunteers, including dedicated Computer science major Ellen Choi.

“Ellen is really good with kids and coding. This is basically like her internship,” says Church. “She puts in almost 10 hours a week.”

One of the clubhouse members is Aiden Turpan, who is an avid Minecraft player and takes full advantage of what the clubhouse offers. “I like to come down here any time I can. We do some achievements and play Minecraft, RPG-maker, Pivot, line-rider, and comics. I wanna be a game designer or tester someday.”