GIRLS ONLY STEM & DESIGN | Grades 3-6 & 7-12 | July 29-August 2

Robotics And Beyond is again offering a week-long summer camp in STEM and Design, dedicated just to girls. Sometimes they just need their own space! 

Campers will be grouped by grade level: Grades 3-6 and Grades 7-12. Registration limit of 10 in each grade group.

Camp tuition is $420 but we hope to offer full and partial tuition waivers from sponsors. We want as many young women as possible to have the opportunity of these experiences. If you would like help with the tuition, just ask – visit our Tuition Assistance page to apply!

The camp will provide experiences in robotics, coding, energy and electricity, graphic design and animation, and 3D design for 3D printing. The majority of instructors will be high-school and college-age girls and women professionals, providing inspiring role models.

Each day will have four periods of just over an hour each. Each topic will occur in the same period on each day of the week. Groups of grades 3-6 and 7-12 will remain separate for the topics of robotics, coding and energy and electronics, with the material scaled to each age group. Campers may choose between graphic design and animation or 3D design/3D printing for one period where all grades will be together. For details on each topic, select a link below. Computers are provided for all topics where they are needed.

– Robotics

– Introduction to Coding for Grades 3-6

– App Coding for Grades 7-12

– Energy and Electricity

– Graphic Design and Animation

– 3D Design for 3D Printing

 

REGISTER NOW

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Date

Jul 29 2024 - Aug 02 2024

Time

9:00 am - 3:00 pm

Location

The Maxx
94 Railroad St, New Milford, CT 06776

We are here to help your kids discover their talents and start applying STEM principles and problem solving in everyday life. This is your chance to help us raise another generation of independent thinkers. DONATE TODAY to help us maintain our classes, provide necessary training to our young mentors, and ensure access to all. Together we help keep this community educated and help our children build a better future for everyone.

 

Introduction to Robotics using LEGO NXT or LEGO EV3

 

Grades 3-6 & 7-12. 1-day workshops, or multi-day classes and week long summer camp, 2 hours/class. In-person only.

Build a robot and learn fundamentals of programming and robotics engineering with LEGO’s programmable NXT or EV3 robotics system of controller, motors, sensors and Mindstorms software. The use of NXT or EV3 system will depend on the student’s age and experience. Students will work in pairs but exceptions may be allowed to work alone. Once students accomplish required tasks and simpler challenges, they can choose from higher level challenges or build a more complex robot of their own design or one provided by the instructors. Depending on availability, students may also be able to use robots to solve FIRST LEGO League competition missions. The final class will include optional robot battles within a 4 foot arena ring where students test mechanical design and programming strategies against each other.

 

Learn about LEGO Mindstorms

Learn more about EV3 and NXT

Introduction to Coding

 

Grades K-8. 1-day workshops, or 1 to 2 hour sessions in multi-day classes and week long summer camp. In-person or Online.

No keyboard skills necessary! We created this topic to help the youngest students learn very basic concepts of coding. Our goal is to provide the basic skills and understanding needed to allow them to begin our coding topics in Scratch, Java and Python. We use non-computer activities to illustrate some concepts. We use the online resources Code.org and Scratch to gain coding skills while playing and creating games. Students will also create accounts that will save their progress and projects, and work on them from anywhere from a computer or a phone or tablet.

 

Learn more about Code.org

Learn more about Scratch

Introduction to App Coding

 

Grades 3-12 in grade-appropriate concepts and activities. 1-day workshops, or 1 to 2 hour sessions in multi-day classes and week long summer camp. In-person or Online.

App Lab is an excellent, free programming environment (from Code.org) for building and sharing apps that will work on phones or tablets. Apps can be as simple or as complex as the student wishes to create and include animations, graphic art, user interaction and more. The workshop and classes are designed to quickly introduce App Lab as a fun and powerful tool. Students learn fundamental coding concepts and how to create and control buttons, text, images, sounds, and screens. Coding is done using simple-to-use programming blocks chosen from menus of blocks. The blocks can be easily converted to JavaScript code, allowing students to grow into their first text-based coding language.

 

After learning some basics, students can begin a simple app project like "Choose Your Own Adventure", "Greeting Card", or "Personality Quiz" app. They can also view and learn from more projects featured on the code.org/applab page. All multi-session classes will include a mini “hackathon” where students collaborate to create an app for a specific goal, and share their project with the other teams.

 

Students can continue to use App Lab at home on any laptop and many devices, at no cost.

 

Prior coding experience needed: none

 

Learn more about App Lab.

Energy and Electricity

 

Grades 3-12 in grade-appropriate concepts and activities. 1-day workshops, or 1 to 2 hour sessions in multi-day classes and week long summer camp. In-person only.

This topic uses fun and engaging activities to introduce interesting concepts of energy, the different forms of energy and changing one form of energy to another. The activities open young minds to what energy and power really are, and how renewable forms of energy can be used to create the power their world needs. Examples of energy sources or forms are mechanical, thermal, wind, solar, and electrical.

 

Students will also learn basic concepts of electricity and very simple circuits, and learn what soldering of circuits is all about.

Introduction to 2-Dimensional Graphic Design and Animation with Fire Alpaca

 

Grades 3-12. 1-day workshops, or 1 to 2 hour sessions in multi-day classes and week long summer camps. In-person or Online.

Explore true artistic graphic design, in 2-dimensions, with the free, open-source software FireAlpaca, and learn to create animations of your work. Students will create their own account and can continue using the software year-round. Student projects from summer camps will be stored as a video on our YouTube channel. FireAlpaca is an open-source graphic art alternative to Photoshop and has the added benefit of animation. This  is a great way to start learning about graphic art software and animation concepts and skills in general like layering, textures, color palettes and much more. This topic provides a great basis for learning about more capable animation software in our other camp topics like Krita and Pro-Create.

 

Requirements:

 

- The only requirement is an interest in graphic art and creating your own, original art and animations.
- Keyboard (typing) ability is needed only for saving and opening design files.
- Installation of Fire Alpaca on the student’s home computer is required. The software is safe to download and use. Instructions will be provided for downloading and installing the software if needed.

 

Learn more about FireAlpaca

Tinkercad - Introduction to 3D modeling and 3D printing

 

Grades 3-12 or by permission. 1-day workshops, or 1 to 2 hour sessions in multi-day classes and week long summer camps. In-person or Online.

Tinkercad is a great way for students interested in 3D modeling and design to get a feel for what working in a 3D environment is like! Tinkercad is a free, introductory educational software created by engineering software company Autodesk. Tinkercad runs in your browser so it requires no software download and allows you to create an account and save your projects. Students will learn how to create, dimension, combine, and customize pre-generated and custom drawn geometric shapes to create basic models, parts, and inventions. Tinkercad has many other fun uses like electronics and “brick building.” Tinkercad is also the perfect start for moving up to Autodesk Fusion 360, which is our choice for teaching higher levels of 3D modeling, product design, mechanical design and making prototypes. Each student can choose one suitable model to be printed by Robotics And Beyond and picked up in New Milford or mailed to the home.

 

Requirements:

 

- Computer access (Windows, Mac, or Chromebook all work!)
- Access to Google Chrome (other browsers may work but Chrome is what we base our classes on, so certain aspects may differ on Safari, Firefox, Edge, etc.)
- An Autodesk Tinkercad account (a tutorial for making the account will be sent to parents before classes begin)

 

Learn more about Tinkercad

Tinkercad Wikipedia