I-Camp offers technology fun for kids during holidays
December 1, 2008
By Rebecca Steele
Edara Daum (from left), Treehouse Community Outreach Coordinator Celene Mielcarek, Gabby Mendoza and Sydney Weber pose with several large bags of gently used and new children’s clothes that members of Issaquah Girl Scout Troop 121 recently delivered to Treehouse, an agency committed to improving the lives of children living in foster care. Learn more about Treehouse at www.treehouseforkids.org. Contributed
The city Parks and Recreation Department is partnering again with Children’s Technology Workshop to hold its second i-Camp on Dec. 29-31.
CTWorkshop is a global company that joins with community organizations around the world to give children in local areas the opportunity to attend the camps. During i-Camp, children use a wide variety of technology to explore, create and invent new things.
Children ages 8-14 can design robots, video games, animation, digital video and digital art while attending i-Camp.
Parks and Recreation Coordinator Cathy Jones said she’s very happy to be partnering with workshop staff to make i-Camp possible in Issaquah.
“As a recreational coordinator, I strive to offer a variety of programs that will attract all types of kids with many different interests,” she said, adding that she believes i-Camp is a great opportunity for children to boost their self-esteem, and to promote science and technology for girls.“In the previous summers, we had an even number of boys and girls, which was great,” she said.
Liz Director, regional director of i-Camps for the workshop, said she also believes the camp has proved to be a wonderful experience for both boys and girls.
The camp consists of 11 different adventures for children to choose from. These include Expedition Egypt, Fashion Designer, Architect, Mission to Mars and many more, including the new Music Adventure.
“I-Camp gives children the ability and confidence to be creative and invent new things — the skills they learn for many different technologies are highly important for kids of this day and age,” Director said.
One of the main aims of i-Camp is to inspire children to be creative with technology.
“In the Mission to Mars adventure, kids make an object out of Legos. They connect what they have made up to a computer, and later they can make a movie about their adventure and what they made,” she said.
Each of the adventures can be done over three whole days or three half-day sessions. The half-day sessions can be either in the morning or the afternoon. After children register for i-Camp, they then arrive on the first day and choose their adventure.
The adventure guides are university and senior high school students. Many of them are studying science and engineering or have worked in the education system.
“They all have a really high interest in technology and working with kids,” Director said.
Linda Deupfch, from Renton, has registered her 12-year-old son, Duncan, twice for i-Camp.
“We were looking for a program that would expand Duncan’s knowledge and interest in computers,” she said. “I found the program online and it looked great — Duncan had a lot of choice and was able to pick what he liked.”
Duncan, from Snoqualmie Middle School, did videogame design in his first year and stop-motion animation last summer.
“I learned how to make stop-motion animation, how to use a green-screen and how to make 3D video games,” he said.
“The best things about i-Camp were that I got to learn a bunch of new stuff, I got to show my parents what I made and the directors were really nice and friendly,” he added.
He wants to go to another i-Camp, because there are more adventures he wants to do.
“They have a lot of new programs open,” he said. “Next year, I would like to go back and do architecture.”
The cost for three full-day sessions (from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.) is $355. Half-day sessions (from 9 a.m. – noon or 1-4 p.m.) are $195. A 10 percent discount is allowed for siblings. Learn more about i-Camp and the different adventures it offers at www.ctworkshop.com.
Rebecca Steele is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory.
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