This is our 10th year offering summer camps in Arlington and 7th year in Montgomery County!
Click the link below to take you to more information about your camp.
Arlington - Marymount
End-of-Week Update
On Friday, our new Strawbees campers had a grand opening for their Micro-City! Their city included residential areas, power plants, a corn farm, fire departments, airports, and shopping centers. These campers put in so much effort into making this project come to life! Strawbees instructors, Catelyn and Abbey, worked hard to make this class fun, informative, and innovative.
Python campers presented their codes and projects to their families and friends. One of the projects involved geometric shaping! Students in Python often tie their math knowledge into their projects to create impressive designs.
Our Scratch camps attract Harry Potter fans! During the gallery walk, there was a student who created a Harry Potter-themed story. The audience put their names into the project, which then took them through a wonderful adventure.
micro:bit campers were extra innovative this week! There were designs made by students that required the movement of your wrist to make the project come to life! Another design, featuring a cute koala, required the use of a headband to present a message!
Mid-Week Update
We kicked off the week with so many fantastic projects already in creation!
Reminder: Fun Friday Presentations & Pizza
We will be having pizza for lunch on Friday, so if your child would like to have pizza, please send them with $5 by the end of Thursday (if you haven't already) and we will add them to the pizza order list.
We will also be having our camp-wide project presentations for each camp starting at 2PM. We invite all families to come by to see our young coders’ projects from each of our camps. Whether you can or can’t make it, or need to show up later than 2PM, your child will have their project saved on their online account and on our public Google Drive, which will be accessible at home. More information will be sent in our recap email after Camp has concluded (email will be sent the following week).
Strawbees + micro:bits
This week we piloted a new camp using Strawbees (building materials made with straws), micro:bits, and other materials like LEDs and motors to create a city with buildings, lights, roads, and many other cool features.
Halfway through, campers have finalized their climate, topography, and biome! These features will affect how they wish to design their city. The decision for a city layout is not an easy one since there is so much they want to include in their city. Creative elements such as city halls, shopping centers, residential areas, and city transportation are all on the list so far!
On Friday at about 2 PM the campers will host a ribbon cutting ceremony to officially open the new city. Please join us for the celebration but don't worry if you can't make it. We will share lots of pictures and videos. Everyone is welcome to attend even if your camper is in a different camp.
Question to ask your budding engineer: What is your favorite part of the city you are creating?
Coding Adventures in Scratch
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.
Scratch students have focused on a lecture from Instructor Julie who showed them all the special elements Scratch had to offer. Students voiced their opinions on the elements they liked best and began using them for their own projects.
Question to ask your budding coder: Who are your main characters (sprites) are and where is your adventure heading?
micro:bit Wearables
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.
micro:bit campers began using code to program their micro:bits! Sometime's figuring out the code and getting the code to work can be tricky, but with help from our amazing instructors, the projects are coming to life!
Question to ask your budding inventor: What kind of wearable are you creating, and what will it do?
Getting Started in Python (Python 1: Turtle Art)
Your children have been learning about the basics of how to code in Python. They are learning various aspects of coding such as variables, functions, and libraries. The children are creating digital art using a code library called Turtle. So far, they have been using the "pen" function to draw their own lines, shapes, and looping drawing animations.
Halfway through the week, campers have already begun the process of debugging codes. Python emphasizes critical thinking. Instructors provide a "fill in the blank" project, where students will have something to work off of, and the rest of the code is for them to figure out!
Resources
👉 Create a Scratch account and save all your children’s projects online and share them with the rest of your family and friends. Scratch is available for free at https://scratch.mit.edu/.
👉 Trinket is a free development environment you can use to code in Python at home, available at https://trinket.io.
👉 You can purchase a micro:bit Kit at https://www.microbitkit.com/.
(Click on photos to enlarge and save to your computer.)
Silver Spring
Mid-Week Update
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.
Code Your Own Adventure in Scratch (Scratch 2)
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?
👉 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 purchase a micro:bit Kit at https://www.microbitkit.com/
(Click on photos to enlarge and save to your computer.)
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