Stetson HackerSpace to present website-building workshop

Cory Lancaster January 10, 2019
an overhead shot of women working at laptop computers during hackathon

Non-techies can learn the basics of building a website at an upcoming workshop this month.

A shot looking down on three women working on computers at 2017 Hackathon.
Stetson’s computer science club is hosting a series of workshops leading up to its annual hackathon in March. Above, university students from around the country attended the second annual hackathon in 2017.

A new series of computer/tech workshops presented by Stetson HackerSpace, the university’s official computer science club, is designed for Stetson and area high school students with no computer experience. Students from all majors and backgrounds are welcome to attend.

The next workshop in the series, Build and Deploy First Website, will be held 2-4 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 26. Participants will learn the structure and syntax of basic HTML and CSS. They also will receive a skeleton of a portfolio website and will update the HTML to include information about themselves and edit the CSS to style and position elements on their page. Then, they will deploy their new website.

Each workshop will be held in the computer labs (rooms 317 and 322) in the Lynn Business Center, corner of Woodland Boulevard and Michigan Avenue. Participants can pre-register for any of the free workshops by emailing [email protected]. Students also can register at the Lynn Business Center on the day of the workshops, but only if space is still available.

Heyley Gatewood

Two hacking workshops were held during the fall semester, and the final workshop, Hacking Alexa, will be 2-4 p.m. Feb. 23. In that session, participants will learn the basics of how to build skills for Amazon Alexa to run on Alexa devices, such as the Amazon Tap or Echo.

Heyley Gatewood, a junior double major in computer science and mathematics and one of the workshops’ organizers, said Stetson HackerSpace hopes the workshops will provide students with the confidence to attend Stetson’s annual spring hackathon, even if they don’t have a computer/tech background.

A group of students sit around a table and computers, talking.
Students enjoy the hackathon in 2017.

The hackathon, now known as the Greater Central Florida Tech Faire + HatterHacks, is a three-day event in which students from universities and high schools throughout the state gather on campus to participate in tech workshops, app-building competitions, networking with big-name tech companies, and other activities.

The Greater Central Florida Tech Faire + HatterHacks will be March 29-31. Other details will be released soon.

— Rick de Yampert