Offered the week of August 5-9 from 9:30 am – 12 pm for students entering grades 7 – 12, or by permission Explore and become fluent in the world of FL Studio, a professional-level Digital Audio Workspace (DAW) used by producers and music makers around the world. Students will gain a basic understanding of how to navigate, configure, and operate FL Studio, as well as how to create electronic tunes
Offered the week of August 5-9 from 9 am – 3 pm for students entering grades 8 – 12, or by permission In our 2024 Advanced Robotics camp, students will use the Arduino Elegoo robotics system, using cameras and programmable motors and sensors to develop a vehicle that can operate by remote control and also in self-driving, autonomous mode. In our prior Advanced Robotics summer camps, our goal was to
Offered the week of August 5-9 from 9:00 am – 11:30 am for students entering grades 7 – 12, or by permission This topic provides a great introduction to important concepts and skills in illustration, graphic design, concept art or 2D animation, using ProCreate. Procreate is a professional-level software package used widely in industry for films, video and advertising and used in many of the top animation college programs. A
Offered the week of August 7 – 11 from 9:30 am – 12 pm for students entering grades 7 – 12, or with pre-requisite skills This 1-week, half-day camp has two objectives: 1. Introduce students to fundamental concepts and tools used in the development of real-world software platforms, and 2. Conduct students into the beginning level of free courses offered by AWS Educate so that students can continue self-paced progress
Offered the week of August 8 – 12 from 9:30 am – 12 pm for students entering grades 7 – 12, or by permission This topic provides a great introduction to important concepts and skills in illustration, graphic design, concept art or 2D animation, using ProCreate (https://procreate.art). Procreate is a professional-level software package used widely in industry for films, video and advertising and used in many of the top animation
WE APOLOGIZE BUT THIS CAMP IS CANCELLED DUE TO LOW ENROLLMENT Offered the week of August 8 – 12 from 9 am – 3 pm for students entering grades 9 – 12, or by permission In our 2021 camp, our Advanced Robotics group began with a brand new, Power Wheels electric car and stripped it down to only the most basic parts. By adding sensors and microcontroller boards, and adapting
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.
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)