Offered the week of July 22-26 from 12:30-3:00 pm at First Congregational Church, 36 Main St, New Milford. Maximum 6 campers.
Learn the basics of simple circuits, and soldering electrical components like resistors, capacitors and LED lights onto circuit boards and see them work. Learn to design and test circuits using free software.
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Grades 6-12. 1-day workshops, or 1 to 2 hour sessions in multi-day classes and week long summer camps. In-person only.
Circuit boards are the heart of every electronic device we encounter. In this class, you will learn about every step of the process, from design to prototyping to fabrication.
- learn about the many steps involved in manufacturing printed circuit boards with hands on work and a virtual tour of commercial fabrication processes.
- start with a simple circuit and the simple electrical equations and math involved to make sure that the circuit will operate correctly and safely.
- learn how breadboards work by actually creating that same circuit, testing it and making electrical measurements to compare with your math.
- create the same circuit using perforated board and soldering.
- learn basics of circuit design software such as Eagle or NI Multisim to design the circuit. You will have a professionally made version of the circuit, designed by Robotics And Beyond and fabricated by a circuit board manufacturer, and solder the devices onto the board and see it work.
Requirements: some experience with soldering or circuit fundamentals
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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)