Sophie Sonnenfeld photo
Synai Hill at “Summer DAEz” workshop on Wednesday.
Synai Hill had no idea how to make a movie or build a website at the start of summer. Four weeks later, she’s a digital pro.
Hill picked up her skills at the new Summer DAEz Workshop for New Haven high schoolers at District Arts + Education (DAE) on James Street. The program, which launched this summer, teaches 16 to 18-year-olds basic skills and some more advanced techniques in designing websites or short films.
Summer DAEz Workshop students in “Building Intentional Websites” speak with Mayor Justin Elicker.
Hill is one of 21 students total enrolled in the first session of the program this summer. While she doesn’t want to go into coding professionally, she plans to use her new skills to market her clothing brand, “Chocolate Drip.”
“It’s fun!” said 16-year-old Hill. The hardest part for her has been remembering certain codes for placing information on the website.
The program is free and students are not required to have any prior experience in film or coding.
The second four-week session begins next week. So far, over 40 students are slotted to participate in the second session. Applications are still open for the program to reach nearly 50 participants.
In hopes of garnering some more interest for the second session, DAE hosted a group of 20 Hillhouse high schoolers on Wednesday.
Hillhouse students visit the Summer DAEz program.
They showed off some of their gadgets and sample projects from the first session for the group.
Mayor Justin Elicker was invited to tag along with the group and check out the program.
A 17-year-old student present said he is very interested in the program.
He wants to be an engineer but has never learned how to code. “I see the opportunity.”
Head of Education and Communication Kyley Komschlies said that the program has been going “really, really amazingly well. They’re all really engaged with what they’re doing.”
Students in the website building track have designed sites for various businesses, guitar lessons, and an e‑sports league page.
He said that the most difficult part for many of the students is shifting from ideas to actually creating something in a “non-natural form of art.”
They spent the first week of the camp storyboarding and gauging interests before teaching them three different code sections of website building. These include HTML for content, CSS for style with fonts and colors, and Javascript to make it more interactive with search bars, login pages, or videos uploaded.
Mayor Elicker (left).
Some students have added Twitter updates, discord servers, memes, and videos to their pages with those coding tools.
The program’s daily schedule lasts from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., with students offered breakfast and lunch each day. Students work individually on their websites or movies until 12:30 p.m., have lunch from 12:30 to 1, and then end the day with a mixed curriculum of design thinking and digital detox time until 3 p.m. During that afternoon time, Komschlies said they create boards and outlines for a “more communal conversation piece” such as creating empathy maps.
Students play with virtual reality headset.
Some of the issues that have popped up in those sessions are helping teenagers connect with their emotions, connect across distant friend groups separated by racial boundaries in high schools, and connecting them to work opportunities. Komschlies said discussing these problems allows students to “take on some of those solutions to make change in those areas.”
On Monday and Wednesday, “Digital Detox” consists of talks and teaching practices about self-care.
Optional hangout time takes place from 3 to 5 p.m., when students run animation programs, virtual reality world-building, and “Tuesday Tea” chats with tea and cookies.
Space at district for DAE program.
Students can also come in during that time to do extra work.
“We do in the future what we did in the past because the same people are in the room making the future that made the past,” DAE Co-Founder and Executive Director A.M. (Al) Bhatt told the group of Hillhouse students. “And so why this thing matters to me is because I need you in the room when they design the next technology.”
Bhatt spoke about growing up as an immigrant and his first job working in a Fair Haven laundromat and then at a gas station. As he moved into the tech industry, Bhatt said, “very few of them knew what it was like to work at a bullet-proof gas station at 15.”
“I am hoping that we light a fire under these kids and I don’t much care where that fire goes. Wherever they go I’m happy with, as long as they go somewhere as a result of this.”
A.M. (Al) Bhatt: “hoping that we light a fire under these kids.”
Bhatt said they want to encourage the teenagers to approach each project with the mindset of bettering humanity. “If a problem isn’t solved or a product isn’t built with a specific intent to better humanity it’s a waste of time.”
On Wednesday afternoon, 17-year-old Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School student Christopher Cazarin was editing a short film he wrote, directed, and shot over the past four weeks. He stars in the film, which he said is about “existentialism,” as the lead character Levi trying to find his purpose in life. The scene Cazarin has been working on follows Levi to a first therapy session.
Christopher Cazarin.
Cazarin said he has “always been passionate” about film and has acted in musicals including Rent and The Lion King. The most difficult part for him has been figuring out how to place shots and edit the audio.
On Saturday, family and friends are invited to view the student work at a showcase.