All-Arts, Sciences & Technology Camp

The clock is running. You’ve got till the end of camp to cast, film, edit, and market a film in competition with other teams hoping to win the coveted “Palm Door” prize.This is an intense course modeled after the “48 Hour Film Festival.” You will take Film Challenge as both your morning AND afternoon class.Things may get a little tense as we get close to deadline, but if you’re really into film and like the thrill of competition, this is the course for you. em>This is a FULL DAY COURSE; you will take this class for both your AM and PM class choices. $25 class fee.

Sample activities: Direct, star, and edit your own class film project

You say you want to come to summer camp and take all of the art classes, but you only get to choose two? Bummer! Think again! In Arts Mix, you’ll get to experience all different types of art, including painting, mixed-media sculpture, fibers, printmaking, screen printing, and more!

Sample activities: Printmaking, screen printing, 3-D sculpture, and felting

At the dawn of time, early humans drew pictures to represent what they saw every day. Those were mostly cave drawings of woolly mammoths and dinosaurs. (OK, maybe not dinosaurs.) Things have changed quite a bit over the last 300,000 years. We can help make your still life drawings come to life before your eyes. It’s just like magic! Well, not JUST like magic, but it’s close! (At least cavemen would be amazed.) Limited enrollment. $15 class fee

Sample activities: Stop-motion animation and hand-drawn animations

Hey, kids! What time is it? It’s time to pick up those pencils and give cartooning a shot. What’s that you say? You can’t draw a straight line? Not even necessary! Some of the world’s best cartoonists can’t draw one either, but has that stopped them? No way! After a few lessons you’ll amaze even yourself! (Actual amazement may vary… our lawyers told us we had to say that.)

Sample activities: Basics of drawing original characters, facial expressions, and fun captions

If you like to blow stuff up, this is the class for you! Wait! Did we say that out loud? Because there are certain restrictions on what we can really do in our camp chemistry class, you may not get to mix up thirty different types of strange chemicals to create fiery reactions (that would be really dangerous!), but you will learn what you can safely do in your own local chemistry lab. You’ll be amazed at all the cool chemistry projects you can do with basic materials found around your home!

Sample activities: Chromatography bandanas, bubble investigation, and paper marbling

Back in the day when digital music was something new, you had to have all these weird instruments, wires everywhere, mixing boards, amplifiers and, we suppose, some kind of musical ability. Today, all you need is a computer and a keyboard. The next thing you know, you’ll be conducting your own symphony (or something a little more your musical style). Rock on! Limited enrollment. $15 class fee

Sample activities: Write your own digital music using a keyboard and computer

One difference between digital and film photography is that what you see isn’t always what you get. Digital photographs can be manipulated in hundreds of ways so that the original shot may bear little resemblance to the finished product. Find out what you can do after you shoot the shot. You’ll be amazed. Limited enrollment. $15 class fee.

Sample activities: Creative camera tricks and shots and using photo editing software

Since camp occurs in the summertime when nobody is (seemingly) concerned with fashion, this is an excellent time to plan your strategy for fashion in the fall, or later in life when you may decide to wear something other than jeans and flip-flops (it could happen). Your wardrobe says a lot about you, and we don’t have to tell you the importance of proper accessorizing, color coordination, or style…do we? Imagine learning to create your own fashion line and matching jewelry, and even use a sewing machine to create real accessories!

Sample activities: Learn to draw fashion croquis, create an original t-shirt design.

A really long time ago someone said, “You know, this mastodon would taste a whole lot better if we put it in the fire for a while—and a little ketchup wouldn’t hurt either.” Voila—food chemistry was born! Food chemistry has come a long way since then and has given us such magical things as mayonnaise, crème brûlée and Velveeta (mmmm, Velveeta). Welcome to our kitchen laboratory where new exciting (and hopefully edible) food products are being discovered and re-discovered daily. You gonna eat that?

Sample activities: Make your own pickles, soft pretzels, butter, chocolate fudge, and more

Who-o-o-o-o are you? Who-who, who-who? Would you believe that a mysterious crime was committed the same day we arrived a camp? It’s a good thing we will have all of these campers to help us solve it! We’ll use the same types of crime-solving technology they use in real crime investigations (OK, well not all of the fancy high-tech gear, but some pretty cutting edge innovations) to solve the crime. Who is the culprit? Is it the camp director? Nah, couldn’t be.

Sample activities: Blood splatter, fiber and hair analysis, facial recognition activities

High above the Earth in silent orbit, 32 NAVSTAR satellites constantly transmit their microwave signals to the Earth below. Somewhere on a college campus in the southern United States, a student activates a switch on a handheld device and glances at a digital readout—getting closer, ever closer, just a few more steps.The student checks the coordinates again: they’re right on top of it! There’s more to navigation than just GPS, and we’ll learn some of that too, but treasure hunting with GPS devices is a blast! Limited enrollment. $15 class fee.

Sample activities: Map building activities, using a GPS system to hunt for geo-caches, and team-building activities

It’s pretty safe to say that we adults have screwed up the planet and now don’t have a clue how to fix it. So, we guess it’s up to you guys. Explore some of the latest technologies; fly a fifty-foot solar kite, get the scoop on recycling (it’s not just for cans and bottles anymore), build a solar oven, and examine the consequences of global warming and our obsession with fossil fuels. Don’t wait for everyone else to save the world, step up and do it yourself!

Sample activities: solar kite flight, solar ovens, and environmental artwork

We’ve heard about people like you. You willingly watch HGTV and maybe have an issue or two of House Beautiful or Architectural Digest stashed in your room. Now you can design a room (or two or three) using a computer program. Learn the basics of interior design and then select furniture, carpets, colors, and accessories for your dream bedroom, den, kitchen, home theatre, you name it!

Sample activities: Create an original design board and use Google SketchUp to decorate a home.

The Middle Ages were a dark time in the history of human civilization. What was it like to live in these times? Books and movies make it seem pretty glamorous to be a king, queen, or knight. Sure you get to live in a giant castle and be waited on by peasants and serfs, but what was life like for everyone else? Construct your own coat of arms, design your own chain mail jewelry, and experiment with high-tech medieval weaponry—the dreaded catapult! And did we mention gargoyles? Let the siege begin!

Sample activities: Felting, design your own family crest, gargoyles, and chain mail jewelry

Pick a number between 10 and 100. Double it. Subtract 13. Divide the resulting number by 4 if it’s odd, by 3 if it is even. Add the number of days in February during a leap year minus 7. Divide by the number of fingers on your left hand (we said “left”) and you get (drum roll, please) your shoe size! You don’t? OK, the important thing is that, if you took the trouble to do this math problem, you probably will think the stuff we’re doing in this course is ten times as much fun: Origami, card tricks, launching rockets, and a NUMBER of other cool and exciting things.

Sample activities: Mobile making, rocket launching, card and dice probability games

Do you remember how you felt when something you believed to be true your whole life turned out to be a big fake? Well, like those two guys on the Discovery Channel, we’re going to put some popularly held myths to the test. Unfortunately, the university won’t let us use any explosives experts for this course. (Darn!)

Sample activities: Build your own catapult, chemical reaction experiments, Mentos and Diet Coke

We all love pottery. There is just something indescribably satisfying about taking a cold lump of clay and making it into something. It’s a contemplative activity. Kind of Zen-like—if you’re into that sort of thing. And even if you’re not, who cares? It’s still big fun.

Sample activities: Coil and slab construction pottery, wheel-thrown pottery, Sculpey clay (polymer clays)

OK, OK, enough already! Jewelry making is back, and the bling you make is yours to keep, share or sell on E-bay (it could happen). One of man’s (and presumably woman’s) earliest forms of self expression, jewelry making is an art that combines function, aesthetic and symbolism. It’s also a lot of fun!

Sample activities: Create several pieces of original jewelry

You’ve read about it and now you can try it for yourself. Build huge city-destroying robots out of LEGOs. Bring civilization to near collapse and subjugate mankind to your will! All right—it’s not quite that dramatic but you do build normal size robots and program them to do lots of cool things. Later in life you may realize your dream of world domination using the skills you learn in this class. $25 class fee.

Sample activities: Experiment with LEGO Robotics kits
Please note: This is a full day course and will count as both AM and PM class choices.

People have been building and launching rockets for centuries. They’re used for entertainment and warfare (remember “and the rockets’ red glare”?) They’re also handy when you want to send huge payloads into space. All the uses have one thing in common: to defy gravity if only for a moment. Learn about thrust, acceleration, and vectors (and a lot about gravity) and then STAND BACK!

Sample activities: Construct and launch a model rocket

There is a moment on every roller coaster ride when suddenly the clickety-clickety-click sound of the climb stops and everything is peaceful and serene. Then, just as suddenly, the bottom drops out and you plunge 50, 80, 100 feet straight down! AAAAGGHHHHHHH. The rest of the ride is a herky-jerky blur of up, down, sideways, over and under…and then you stop and get off. That’s sort of a day-to-day description of this course as you design the most extreme roller coaster in the world while calculating all those important things that keep people’s limbs from coming off and cars from flying off into space. What fun!

Sample activities: Create a model and digital roller coaster, acceleration and velocity experiments