Summer Camp seems like a natural place to engage kids in making. We’ll take a look at a summer camp for young Makers in Sonoma County and then look at online Maker Camp on Google Plus.
Comstock Summer Camp
For the month of June, the Comstock Maker Camp in Santa Rosa offered 50 or so middle-schoolers hands-on experiences in making. This summer camp was organized by the Boys and Girls Clubs of Sonoma County along with the Santa Rosa School District. The camp took place immediately after the end of the school year and took place on the school grounds. The campers worked and played indoors as well as outdoors and took several field trips.
Young counselors were recruited from the Project Make program at Analy High School as well as engineering students at Santa Rosa Junior College. Four teachers from Piner High School also participated, developing fun projects for the campers. These projects included marshmallow shooters, squishy circuits, CO2 cars, kites, and Rube Goldberg devices.
Laura Hendrickson, the school prinicipal, wrote an email thanking the staff: “Every student with whom I spoke, absolutely LOVED the camp and were so grateful to all of you. The remarkable activities you all produced in such a short time was truly inspirational and I could see that the adults were having as much fun as the kids! Yay to creativity!”
For more information on the activities and to see photos from the Comstock Summer camp, visit the Comstock Maker Camp page on Google Plus page created by Isaac Alexander. Also, check out the terrific Maker Camp photo gallery created by the local Press Democrat newspaper.
Maker Camp on Google Plus
What if you can’t find a Maker Camp in your area this summer. Good news. There’s Maker Camp, a virtual summer camp for teens, with a focus on creating, building, and DIY-ing. It’s free and open to all, and runs from July 16th through August 24th.
- Each weekday morning, a new project will be introduced by an expert camp counselor who will walk campers through the steps to build the project. Materials lists will be posted in advance so campers have time to find supplies for the next day’s project.
- Each afternoon, campers can join the camp counselor in a Hangout on G+ to talk about the project and look at photos campers have submitted.
- Every Friday, we’ll be taking campers on epic “field trips” via a G+ Hangout!
Every day has a theme!
- Maker Monday
- Tinkering Tuesday
- Weird Science Wednesday
- Theoretical Thursday
- Field Trip Friday
How to join in
Maker Camp is all about interactivity and participation! Be ready for the first day of Maker Camp by building your profile on G+ today and adding MAKE to your circles. Once you’re on G+, you can interact with friends and other campers and follow along with Maker Camp’s daily projects. Then show their creations with photos and videos!
Camp starts Monday, July 16th!
For more details go to: makezine.com/go/makercamp.
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