Ben Guansing

Stratford Middle School San Jose Campus

Middle School Math, Engineering and Computer Science Instructor

Ben Guansing has been teaching middle school for the past 17 years and is an autodidact especially when it comes to technology. He has enjoyed being a Linux user since 2004 when Ubuntu 4.10 Warty Warthog was released. Always keeping an eye out for technology education integration, he was introduced to the LEGO Mindstorms NXT Robotics system in 2006 by some students who needed a coach for their FIRST LEGO League team. Ben ended up being involved with FIRST Lego League through 2014 as a coach, referee and judge. In 2012 the Linux based Raspberry Pi caught his attention and he later became a Raspberry Pi Certified Educator in 2016. The 2014 Maker Faire was a turning point experience getting exposed to the Maker Movement. He has since then been introducing Raspberry Pi, Arduino, BBC Micro:bit and the Adafruit Circuit Playground Express to students and piloting other technologies such as 3D printing in the classroom. Maker Education has become one of his passions. During the 2016-17 school year he had the pleasure of working with the Quest Institute's ISS beta program for students to use the LEGO EV3 to program an experiment to be sent to the International Space Station. In 2017 he tried out the Arduino CTC 101 classroom education platform with some of his after school club students.