Summer Camp 2025: July 14-18

This week was full of creativity and problem-solving as the kids made great strides on their projects. Our Scratch group let their imaginations run wild, creating unique storytelling projects and interactive games that showcased both their coding skills and artistic ideas. The Python group was so excited about their work that many didn’t want to stop—even during breaks, they asked to keep their laptops so they could continue refining their code and experimenting with new ideas. Meanwhile, the Micro:bit team focused on prototype designs, blending coding with hands-on engineering to bring their concepts to life.

It’s inspiring to see how hard the kids are working to stay innovative, whether through building stories, solving coding challenges, or designing real-world solutions. 

On Friday, Python campers finalized their projects for the gallery walk. There were so many creative presentations. One game was an interactive challenge to escape an island. Your choices resulted in whether you could break free or not...but there was an intentional glitch to catch gamers off guard!

Scratch campers finalized their projects as well. There were so many excellent projects featuring elements seen in video games and movies, like Minecraft, dragons, and "Five Nights at Freddy's". 

Campers in our micro:bit sessions also had showed off some excellent projects as well! One of the students made a helmet that could light up. The constant wires, glue, and creativity resulted in an impressive project. Most importantly, a happy smile too.

On Friday, it was pizza day! Kids split up in lines to either get cheese or pepperoni, and then it was a rush to get leftover garlic sauce and peppers! 

 

In our Code Your Own Adventure camp, your children are creating their own interactive choose-your-own-adventure stories in Scratch by coding flow charts, user inputs, and conditionals to move their original story along. Along the way the player makes choices in the story that takes our adventurer in different directions. 

Question to ask your budding coder: Who are your main characters (sprites) are and where is your adventure heading?

 

In Code Your Own Adventure in Python (Python 2), your children are using what they learned in Python 1 along with new skills such as implementing conditionals, functions, and user input to build their own custom adventure stories. Campers are using their creativity and problem-solving skills throughout the week to come up with their unique adventures.

In our micro:bit Wearables camp, your children are working on their very own prototype designs such as wearable art, fitness apps, or wearable safety devices. This week we are already seeing creative inventions such as a hat to teach you to dance and a tool to help the blind navigate safely.

Question to ask your budding inventor: What kind of wearable are you creating, and what will it do?

 

👉 Scratch is available for free at https://scratch.mit.edu/

You can create an account and save all your children’s projects online and share them with the rest of your family and friends.

👉 You can access Python for free on Trinket at https://trinket.io/home

Trinket is a free online site that has coding lessons in Python and more!

👉 You can purchase a micro:bit Kit at https://www.microbitkit.com/ 

 

Reminder: Pizza Party Friday!

Children who don't want pizza should bring their lunch, and everyone should still bring their snacks. We will also be having a "Show and Tell" for students to present to their classmates and families. If you are available to join, the Scratch room will present first at 2:30PM, and at 2:45PM we will all go see what the Python and micro:bit rooms have made.

micro:bits

Building Games in Scratch