hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr1792.txt

Episode: 1792
Title: HPR1792: An Interview with Andrea Frost
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1792/hpr1792.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 09:22:20

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This is HPR episode 1,792 entitled, An Interview with Andrea Frost.
It is hosted by David Whitman and is about 10 minutes long.
The summary is, David Whitman Interview, Andrea Frost, your English test northwest.
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Hey David Whitman here. I'm at Linux Fest Northwest and I'm talking to somebody and I'm going to have her introduce yourself so I get it correct.
I'm Andrea Frost and I'm a student at Western Washington University, getting a Master's in computer science.
I'm an active member of the Association for Women in Computing and I also have a startup to open a code school in Bellingham, Washington.
A startup?
Yes, a startup.
Very good. I want to jump back to the Women in Computing. Can you explain to the hacker public radio audience what that is?
Well, we're a club at Western Washington University within the computer science department and it's mainly focused on diversity and networking professional development.
Company talks, going to companies and seeing them, doing like salary negotiation or resume workshops or hosting an open-source day next week and we have hackathons and just a plethora of events all built around community and computer science.
Okay, what year are you in school?
I'm getting a Master's in computer science.
You're five? Is that right?
No, I actually have a German degree. My bachelor was in German 10 some years ago.
So I'm a returning student and I meant to get a math degree but I took computer science as my prerequisite for the math program, my first quarter back in school.
And I've been hooked ever since. I didn't really know what computer science was before that.
So now I've been doing computer science for three years and I'm one year away from getting a Master's.
Wow, so you've been busy.
Very busy.
You know German fairly well, huh?
Yeah, both.
Can you say hacker public radio in German?
I mean, it's probably just hacker public radio.
I want the German listeners to check that out and let us know whether that's okay.
So the open-source part of your interest, can you explain a little bit about that?
Well, I really believe that it's important to share and build community and I think that open-source contribution in general is where you can work together with the team on whatever project you want.
And there's so many options and the community for open-source tends to be very inviting and open and just like we've met yesterday.
You know, and we're having this conversation now.
It's just a very interesting group of people and there are so many ways to be involved that you can actually choose what level you'd like to be at.
And we really wanted to bring that experience of what it's like to work with open-source to the students at Western.
So this is our first time ever doing an open-source day and it's on May 9th and we're pretty excited.
So who's invited to the open-source day and what kind of projects are you focusing on there?
So it's our primary audience as students, Western students, Western Washington University students,
belling at technical college, walk community college, Northwest Indian college, high schools, middle schools, or anyone from schools basically anywhere in our area.
And then it's open to the public as well and so we're basically just trying to create an opportunity for people to learn if you want to know what open-source is and figure out how to get involved.
Here's a workshop to help you get started.
Okay, do you have vendors that are coming then for presentations there or having table set up for fair or how is it organized?
So it's not like a job fair at all in the morning.
We have a keynote speaker who is mainly a dreadful developer and he's going to speak about what open-source is, like why do we care about it?
And we're going to do a Git tutorial, so an interactive Git tutorial for the morning.
The lunchtime will be a panel discussion on diversity, ethics, and history of open-source.
And then the entire afternoon session will all be focused on finding a project and contributing in some way with the help of mentors that are present in the room.
Is there going to be a website for the open-source day where people can check out what's going on and what's happening?
Oh yes, absolutely. Hand me that flyer.
That's what are we looking at.
The green one.
Okay.
You're good at giving orders, and I like that.
Okay, so it's www.sqsmewwww.ww.edu slash eMarket slash open-source day.
And you can find information about that also by looking up the Association for Women in Computing at Western Washington University.
That's the www.sqsmewwww.
That's kind of a mouthful, but I will get the websites and put them in the show notes so people can come to them.
Great, great, great.
Yeah, so we are currently looking for financial sponsors for the event.
We've had a really hard time getting any supporters.
So we've got mentors, which is great, but it takes a lot of money to put on events.
We got hackathons and things like that tend to be an easy sell for companies.
And it was really surprising, actually, to find out that the open-source community was a little less likely to donate to our cause.
But we are doing our best to bring open-source to the community here at Western Washington University.
No, that was the money I gave yesterday was going for that.
That's right.
Because I was asked for a donation yesterday and I gave because I really like the project here.
I think I offered a check and there was some shrinking back.
Do you know what a check is?
I have a checkbook, I rent checks.
Well, there's also one of the organizers of the event.
So I think the person you talked to yesterday didn't know who to make the check out too.
That's fine.
I just find that interesting because of my age checks or my primary source of paying bills.
I still use checkbooks all the time.
And if anyone wants to donate to contribute to our event and be a sponsor,
they can also contact the computer science department at Western Washington University.
So we have a lot going on at your table and you have a little bit, what is this called?
Oh, well, so little bits is the company that basically does really accessible circuitry.
So you can just clip magnetic piece, color-coded magnetic pieces together.
This particular kit is the synth kit.
So it's a music kit.
You can make music with it.
On the other end of the table, we have the deluxe kit, which is kind of like a deluxe starter kit.
But then you can also buy individual pieces.
If your kid is missing a piece that you want, you can actually go and buy that individual piece.
And we love them.
We use them for an outreach program we do in Bellingham School District,
which is called the Creators and Innovators Club for Girls.
And it was our pilot program this year, first time ever giving it a go.
And instead of 15 or 20 girls, we ended up with 60 girls.
So it's been an interesting challenge trying to find robots for 60 girls.
But little bits have been a really great introduction for them to thinking about how circuits work.
And just in general, I'm getting excited about technology in a really accessible way.
And with that club, we've also done sewable circuits.
So we use conductive thread and LED lights and actually sew them into, you know, some clothing.
And certainly NXT robots.
They're also great, great fun for kids.
And yeah, and so next year we're expanding that program from one school to four schools.
So are you going for your PhD then so that you'll be around?
Well, I would love to get a PhD, but I also really want to live here in Bellingham.
So it presents an interesting challenge of having to move for five years or so.
So I'm very much like to get a PhD, so I just need to figure out where might be a good fit for that.
So you have a really interesting table.
I'm just going to point out that little bits is pink and that's for the girls, correct?
They kind of like the pink.
Oh, so I'm going to stop you right there because I am not a fan of the pink is for girls and blue is for boys.
So little bits actually has, there's blue, pink, green, and orange pieces.
Blue is for power, pink is for input, green is for output, and orange is just basically an extender piece or a loop or something like that.
And then you can hook Arduino's into them and stuff like that.
But the pink is really just another color in the array of colors to distinguish one piece from another,
but I would not say that it's focused on girls.
What's your favorite color?
Well, as you can see from my hat, I like all colors.
Yeah, I wish since we don't have a picture, it's nice, though, very colorful hat.
I don't want to take all of your time today, but thank you for sharing with us.
And how can people get a hold of you if they want to find out more?
And they want to leverage your expertise and your involvement in the projects?
Well, my servers turned off on my website right now, so I'll just go ahead and give my email,
which is Andrea Frost at hotmail.com.
And you can always find me through the Association for Women in Computing at Western Washington University as well.
Thank you very much for speaking.
You'll be able to find your episode on hackerbubbigradio.org.
Oh, great.
And one last thing I totally forgot.
Okay.
I am opening a code school, so you can also find me through code.ly.education, spelled all the way out.
Okay.
And I might ask you what's your favorite text editor?
Text editor? Sublime text.
Love it.
Yeah.
I love Sublime.
Yep.
Okay.
Well, thank you, Andrea, and your episode will be posted around 20 days out right now.
All right.
Well, thank you.
Thank you for the interview.
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