Student Technology Assistants (STAs) – Digital Learning & Scholarship

The Student Technology Assistant (STA) Program at Trinity College is designed to foster the integration of a variety of instructional technology tools and services into courses in support of the teaching and learning mission of the College. Faculty and students can obtain instructional support on a broad range of issues via this program.

Meet the Team

Myri B. Ayala

Hello! I’m Myri and I am from Asuncion, Paraguay. I am part of the class of 2025, and I am majoring in Computer Science. I am thrilled to be part of the STA team and look forward to working with you. Please feel free to stop by if you have questions or need support!

Chris Yi

Hi! I’m Chris from Farmington, Connecticut. I’m in the class of 2026, and I am double majoring in Computer Science and Music and one of the pipe organ students. I’m really glad to be a part of the STA team and looking forward to working with you.

Darian Mehran-Lodge

Hi! I’m Darian, class of 2027. I am majoring in Mechanical Engineering, and I can’t wait to work with you!

Gabby Koomson

Hi! I am Gabby and I am from Takoradi, Ghana. I am class of 2027, and I plan on double majoring in computer science and economics. I am super excited to join the STA team and look forward to an incredible journey with you all!

Francesca Azevedo

Hi! I am Francesca and I am from Bridgewater, Massachusetts! I am in the class of 2027 and am majoring in biochemistry. I’m happy to be a part of the STA team, I look forward to working with you.

Pema Wangchuk

Hello! My name is Pema, and I am from Bhutan! I’m in the class of 2028 and planning on double majoring in physics and mechanical engineering. I am thrilled to be part of the STA team and look forward to working with you!

Justin Chan

Hi, I’m Justin and I’m from Hong Kong. I’m a freshman and I’m excited to help out with any projects you may have!

Explore Our Spaces in the Center for Learning

Contact Us

If you have any questions about our services or need assistance,

please feel free to email us at sta-help@trincoll.edu.

Posts from the STA desk

Canva For Beginners
Canva is a free-to-use online graphic design tool that students can use to create various types of designs, including infographics, marketing flyers, and short videos. This is a quick overview of Canva. This will provide you with general instructions for first-time users of Canva. So, if you are new to this design tool, please continue reading. Step 1: Setting up Your Account If you choose to sign up with your email, you will receive an authorization code from Canva sent to your email address. You can set a password in Account settings later. Step 2: Finding and Customizing Templates If you want to find a pre-made template: If you want to create your own template: You can easily find thousands of inspirations from the templates provided by Canva, but sometimes, it is overwhelming to browse through all of them. The best tip is to search for the right keywords. You can follow the structure below: style + theme + topic + category. Step 3: Customizing Your Own Designs For beginners, the variety of elements may be overwhelming. But one of the most effective tips is to “keep it simple.” Don’t overload your design with too many elements, as it can confuse the visual message of the images. Step 4: Download and Share Your Designs To share files: To download the design: On Canva, designs are automatically saved. To organize your designs into separate folders, you can select “Save to your folder”. For printing, PDF is best for both documents and print designs. You can save an individual page of your design, a range of pages, or the entire design. If you need any assistance with Canva, require templates from a Canva Pro account, or need advice to enhance your design, the STA desk can help you! You can contact STA desk by emailing sta-help@trincoll.edu or visit us during our open desk hours.
Tinkercad
Tinkercad is a free, web-based computer-aided design (CAD) platform that is simple to learn and use. It features a block-based design system where users can modify shapes by either combining them (additive design) or cutting away parts (subtractive design). This makes it a flexible and beginner-friendly tool for those new to 3D design. Pros of TinkerCad Cons of TinkerCad How to get started The Tinkercad website offers tutorials and step-by-step lessons, starting from the basics.
Quick Guide to using Fusion 360
Fusion 360 is a 3D CAD/CAM design software and a part of the Autodesk suite. With a Trinity College e-mail address, you can obtain a free education license that provides access to Fusion 360. To activate your education license, go to Autodesk Fusion for Education webpage, and follow the instructions. You will typically be able to verify your student status once you verify your Trinity e-mail. Pros of Fusion 360: Cons of Funsion 360: Tutorials:
Making Cricut Stickers
Cricut is a free, easy to use software to use for creating 2D designs for a variety of purposes; at the STA desk, we offer vinyl stickers/labels, buttons/pins, paper/card cutouts, and more. Here are some of the projects we’ve done with the Cricut machine in the past! Creating a project in Cricut is easy, and we’re here to help with every step. Here, we’ll outline a quick sticker project you can follow along with. At our desk, we offer printed vinyl stickers that you can design yourself (more on that later). We recommend filling an entire sheet before printing. Our sheets are 8.5in x 11in (21.6cm x 27.9cm) with a transparent background. First, open the Cricut Design Space app. It’s free to download and to create an account on all platforms. On Windows, visit the Cricut website. On iOS/macOS/Android, simply download from the App Store/Google Play Store. After you log in, click the “New Project” button in the top right. Here you’re free to create whatever designs for stickers you want. There are some fun ways you can do this; Once you’re done creating your sticker design, upload to Cricut where we’ll do some final customizations to make sure your sticker turns out perfect. As an example, I’ll be converting a design I saw on a T-shirt into a sticker. Upload the image into your project in Cricut by pressing “Upload” on the left hand side. Upload your image and click Continue. We should remove the background using the magic wand tool. Click on the background and it will remove pixels of similar colors; you can adjust how effective this is by changing the “Tolerance” number at the bottom. A higher tolerance removes less similar colors, while a low tolerance removes only very similar colors. Make sure to erase any holes that you may want to be transparent. Here, use the eraser tool to remove any stray pieces from the main design. You can adjust the size and zoom in to clear outlines better. You can turn on “Preview Single Layer” in the top right corner to make sure you didn’t leave any details. Once you’re done, click the “Apply and Continue” button in the bottom right corner. Choose “Flat Graphic“, “Continue“, and “Upload“. We have our graphic, and now we should make sure the size is correct. Select the image and drag the corners. You can see how big the image is in the dimensions. Note: If the box around your design is too big, you may not have removed all of the stray pieces from the background, and you’ll need to reupload and remove the background again. Alternatively, you can crop the background using the Slice tool. Now we need an outline for the Cricut to cut around. Select the newly trimmed image and click “Offset” in the toolbar at the top left. Here, you can choose how thick you want the outline to be, and whether or not the corners are soft. This will depend on how big your sticker is, but generally from 0.15in to 0.25in (0.381cm to 0.635cm) is a good size. If the offset is set to white (or white enough), the background will be transparent. If you want a colored background, click the color square at the top and choose a color. Select both the offset shape and the image and click “Flatten” at the bottom. You can repeat this process for all your designs. Press “Make” in the top right and see if your designs fit the page. Go back and resize if they don’t. That’s it! Afterward, come to the STA desk with your design and we can help you print it immediately. Keep in mind this process is just one of many different ways to create a sticker. The STA desk is open to help you design the perfect sticker, even if you have no idea where to start, or encounter any issue. We can always help you explore different ways to design stickers, and don’t be afraid to experiment. Have fun!
How and When to Submit a Ticket
This is a quick walk-through on how to create a ticket, specifically for the STA desk!At Trinity, our Library and IT utilize a work distribution system centered around job tickets. You (students, faculty, and staff) can submit a ticket for any IT-related issue on campus, whether it is for a computer in a lab that isn’t working correctly or an issue accessing software. The STAs are a part of that system and this post will detail how to enter a ticket for STA help. Using tickets is a great way to submit a request for help if you aren’t in the library or if the STA desk is closed. The STAs are happy to help with a variety of tech-related issues, but some example issues worthy of a ticket include being unable to connect to eduroam, Microsoft Authenticator issues, 3D print requests, equipment inquiries, and general assignment support etc. After submitting a ticket, an STA will contact you and be able to communicate both through the ticket portal and via email to resolve your problem. Let’s dive straight in! First, spawn your way onto the webpage: https://trincoll.haloitsm.com/ Choose the last option at the bottom of the page that says “Login with Active Azure Directory” Click on “Make a Request” from the homepage and select Digital Learning and Scholarship/STAs. You can also view other tickets you’ve input previously from the “My Tickets” button. Select the type of request from the options and click “Request this service” Some jobs may be reassigned to an instructional technologist, which is one of the benefits of submitting a ticket rather than stopping by the desk. It ensures the correct person is handling your problem. Add a summary or title to your request. e,g “Request to become 3D – Printing Certified”Fill in some more details of your request in the details section. You can use the various functional tools to add images, URLs etc. If you’re getting an error message attaching screenshots can be particularly helpful. Include as much relevant information as possible.Upload any files that come with your request and hit “Submit” Voila! you just created your first ticket and someone should contact you shortly.The STAs will be working hard to get your request resolved.