Option S 3: BLAST OFF! an Intro to Flight (Ages 9-12)

• Join us as we explore the basics of flight. We will learn about Bernoulli's Principal and the forces that affect flight such as Lift, Thrust, Drag and Weight
• Use our flight simulator and fly radio controlled planes and more!
• We will learn about overcoming Inertia as we make our own rockets and planes and test them.
• We will make and use Water and Air Pressure assisted rockets, Chemical rockets and Estes rockets.
• Watch our YouTube Video from Blast Off Camp Summer of 2011

Option S 5-CSI:  Crime Scene Investigation (Ages 9-12) 

To learn more about this curricula please view our Parent Letter.

Are you ready to understand the serious science that takes place behind the yellow crime scene tape? Well, this is your chance! In order to succeed at solving this crime we must unravel clues and secret messages-both invisible and cryptic. Each clue will make us learn a new skill to be better investigative scientist. These skills include:

• Learning to dust for and analyze fingerprints
• Collecting and comparing, foot prints and lip prints
• Handwriting analysis
• Using microscopes to analyze hair, fibers and powders
• Using flame test and LOTS of chemistry to analyze powders.
• Cell and DNA analysis using microscopes, models and DNA extraction
• Plant analysis
• Comparing Bite Marks and skeletal clues
• Blood and Hair Analysis

Option STR 10: X-treme Builders Camp (Ages 11-14) 

• This will be for those who LOVE building advanced and complicated LEGO Machines and the thrill of archetectural design.
• For the Science, students will incorporate engineering design into drawing, calculating and building a model frame house. They will use their own design using grid paper. They will understand and incorporate the idea of using the materials provided. Doors and windows will be designed to scale. They will then cut the wood beams and glue them together to create the scale model home.
• Time permitting, the students will also learn what is required to heat and cool a home using insulation.
• The technology is reserved for our oldest students only. If your child loves building very challenging structures with LEGO's this will be the camp for them! The builders will need to have a more in depth knowledge of LEGO building and pieces. The activities are motorized, pneumatics powered and also non-motorized. Some of the activities that they build will include a walking dinosaur, a crane, a submarine a zepplin, and a motorized cable car.
• The activities built will be use universal joints, piston connectors, knowledge of structural integrity and an imagination to step outside the box and try new building techniques.

You Tube Videos of the Cranes, Legos and the teachers from 2012 camp.
X-treme Builders Camp with Crane;  X-treme Builders Camp with LEGOS

Option R 13: Adventure Bots: (Ages 11-14) 

• This exciting class uses the LEGO® NXT MINDSTORM ™ Robots and Scratch Programming. The students will learn how programming works and will enjoy seeing the robots perform the task assigned. While there will be time spent assembling the robot, this camp focuses on programming the robot to perform the specific task assigned. See our YouTube Video of Camp Adventure Bots at Wilson Creek
• Scratch Programming: Here is the program your technology minded student has been waiting for. With Scratch, your child will learn how to create computer programs using drop and drag technology that will bring their imagination to life right before their eyes! They will have the opportunity to make cartoons, movies, video games, animate their stories and compose music all done with Scratch. When your child comes home every evening from camp ask them to show you what they created. You will be amazed!!!
• The campers will be challenged to build robots for space exploration on a fantastic planet called Pantheon.  They will need to build a walking robot to plant a flag, a scorpion robot to defend their base, a giant claw to construct new hex-based housing, and a sorting machine to sort samples of space rocks for analysis.  With each new robot, campers will learn about building techniques and be challenged to apply them to their own designs.  Students will learn about gears, cams, cranks, differentials, and levers as they build robot parts that can rotate and move back and forth.  They will learn about sensors and center of gravity as they design robots that can stand on their own feet and respond to the environment.
• This camp will work for both beginner and experienced LEGO NXT MINDSTORM Programmers. The students who are not familiar with MINDSTORMS will have a special training the first day and experienced students will start off with the assigned programs.
• 8 hour extension option:  If your child signs up for an 8 hour camp, they will have the opportunity to explore new challenges.  These challenges will be based on additional fun and exciting programming and engineering tasks, like building a remote control, steering with clapping, robot kickball, and light-fearing and light-loving robots!
• There will not be a robot that your child will take home (please see the Building Bots camp for camp that has a take home robot). This is a great place to start if you are considering a MINDSTORM Robot for your child or already have one and want to get the most out of it. It is also great preparation for First LEGO League (FLL)

Option Option AST 19 The Creators (Ages 8-12) Art, Science and Technology

• Click to see the Parent Letter for The Creators
• Art: The art will focus on drawing and painting technics for older students. Please see our art page for more information. Art will include learning perspective, Painting like the Masters, Drawing Cartoons and more.
• Technology: The LEGO Technology will support the science that is being taught. A few of the machines they will build are:
  • To incorporate sudden impact they will build a Cable Car with parachuting man,
  • To learn about centrifugal force they will build a Motorized Merry Go Round,
  • To incorporate lights, they will build stop lights and Morse code machines
• Science: In this class we will learn about cause and effect in our world.  We will focus on physics as we ask the following questions. 
  • Investigate Physics with our Balls and Tracks and Colliding Balls!
  • What is the Impact of dropping a water balloon (our brain child) from a great height and what can we do to keep it from breaking?  How can we apply that to a helmet design?  How can we reduce the force of impact?
  • What is the Impact of a vacuum on a liquid and a solid? 
  • Design a "Ping Pong Ball Launcher".
  • What is the Impact of Rotational Velocity on a sphere?  Can that give us the spin we need on a ball?   
  • What is the Impact of centrifugal force and how does that keep us in our seats on amusement park rides? 
  • What is the result of a sudden Impact on a physical object such as ball?  How can this help us in sports? 
  • What is the impact of Inertia and Friction on the table cloth and china trick?
    

This is a great camp for students with inquiring minds who want to know the reason why. Each question will have a series of cool and exciting experiment and activities to help them answer these questions.  They will also be encouraged to take it to another step and develop their own questions and experiments to prove or disprove their theories.

Please note this is the similar to the Creators camp from Summer 2012 and some experiments overlap our older after school program for this year. We are offering it again due to its popularity but please choose another program if your child has done this before.

Video of The Creators

Option AST 20 Ladies in Lab Coats: Art, Science and Programming (Ages 8-11)

Exciting new camp for girls only! Get together with your best friends and have a great week of fun, creativity and learning. They will be excited to show you what they created each day.  You will be amazed!

• Art and Design: This camp will be a fun and exciting introduction to Sewing, Art and Design. It takes skill and imagination to create your own fashion, design and Art.  We’ll begin with the basics such as learning to thread a needle, sewing a button, making cloth flowers, weaving a work of art and creating sock monsters.  Just to name a few of our fun activities. We will also create objects to decorate your room!  Students will learn how color, form and texture is used to create a successful project.

• Science:  We will focus on environmental science as we make a bio dome to take home. Learn about erosion and how to stop it, use soil and leaf chromatography to solve a crime, learn the effects of acid rain, learn how pollution can find its way into the food chain and our food, make our own thermometer, clean up and oil spill with slush powder, make a cloud in a bottle, make a battery out of lemons, make recycled paper and use it for a card, make a solar water distiller and more. 

• Programming:  We will continue with our creativity as we introduce programming with Scratch programming.  In this class we will focus on creating our own music and art on the computer! 

• For parents of girls from the owner of Imagine That!.  I am a girl (ok, all grown up now) but as a child I was no priss. I loved anything to do with science, exploration AND art.  I studied Engineering at a school where women are still a minority in many technical fields.  We want to encourage girls to have fun with science and technology starting now and leading up to a time where they can be leading scientist in the world.  We make this fun and funny and girls LOVE IT.  I would like to be part of a society where we continue to encourage our daughters to LOVE science.  Women make great scientist and can change the world!