by Rob More
From August 8 to 25, the Beckwith Municipal Office was invaded by people and machines of the future.
Beckwith Tech Camp has completed its inaugural and highly successful 2017 season with 26 campers over the three week period. The initial response from the participants was overwhelmingly popular and looking forward to participating again.
Campers started with robotics. They designed their robots through TinkerCad, built them using Lego and then programmed them through the Wonder App and Lego Mindstorms and then competed against each other. The final competition was live streamed on the Beckwith Tech Facebook page and enjoyed by all. https://www.facebook.com/beckwithtechcamp/
The second week the campers got into the world of movie making. Using stop motion, green screen and animation principles, the campers created videos complete with sound tracks and uploaded onto Youtube. A compilation of the videos was created and uploaded at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZhiX6VstDE&t=26s
Finally, the campers got into Game Creation. We started with simulations through Powder Toy and then moved into Kodu, Scratch 2.0 and the Unity Platform. We finished off by showing them how to submit their games into Play Store and the App Store. Considering the age of these 11-15 year old campers, it is impressive to see just how much they accomplished in a week. To look at their apps, go to https://youtu.be/J8GfWjcS1rs
In keeping with the concept of STEM, we also did science experiments every day at lunch period where the campers learned how to create penny batteries, how Mentos and Diet Pepsi mix, what happens when bleach and aluminum gets mixed, making balloon slingshots, how much sugar is in pop, and how to make goo. To see the full camp, go to https://youtu.be/Dp9FR2lSx_8
It was a wonderful partnership between the campers, Beckwith Tech Camp and Beckwith Municipal Office and it is the partner’s intention to make this camp a long term proposal. Be sure and check us out again next summer.
