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High-Tech Summer Camps Teach Youngsters About Computers and Programming

Posted on: Saturday, 30 July 2005, 00:00 CDT

Jul. 30--Forget surf school.

Robot building, video-game programming and C++ classes are the not-to-miss activities at this summer camp.

Welcome to ID Tech Camps, running weekly this season in the empty dorms of UC Irvine, as well as 35 other universities nationwide. The Campbell company is among a growing number of high-tech summer programs offering kids an alternative to knee scrapes, sunburns and mosquito bites.

"A lot of parents are saying to us, 'I wish we had this when we were growing up,'" said Tim Yuen, director of the Irvine program, which offers 5-day day camps and sometimes overnight stays.

So sorry. Tech camp is only for kids ages 7 to 17. (The Irvine location is booked for the summer, but there are still spots open at UCLA.) Fifty-two campers -- 20 from previous visits -- took over a UC Irvine student center with shaded windows to block any ray of sunlight. About a dozen 7- to 10-year-olds spent the day videotaping their own film and editing photos in Adobe Photoshop. Another group was fixated on their computer screens, as they programmed their own video game.

And then there were the robots.

Actually, two mechanical "arms" that five campers had built with small motors, wires and a plastic spoon and fork, the "palms" of the robot. Using the programming language of C++, the students tweaked software settings to see which arm would toss a Ping-Pong ball the furthest.

"I thought this would be more fun" than baseball or tennis camp, said David Adamson, a 13-year-old Irvine resident.

Even though you're stuck indoors in a class-like setting?

"I don't really think of this as school because I'm actually learning something I'm interested in," Adamson said.

There are breaks, said Yuen, a UCI graduate who started working for the ID Tech Camps company six years ago. Everyone leaves their computers at 11:30 to walk to the lunch room on another part of the campus. And at 2:30 every afternoon, campers are encouraged to go outside and play team sports like ultimate Frisbee and capture the flag.

"Some of them play video games. They also bring books. And we have chess sets," Yuen said. "It's kind of hot at that time anyway." Computer camps make up 13 percent of the 2,400 camps accredited by the American Camp Association in Indiana. That's up from 2 percent five years ago. To be accredited by the ACA, the camp must pass 300 health and safety standards.

Academic camps have a much larger presence today than 20 years ago in the annual guidebook to summer youth programs published by Thomson Peterson's in New Jersey.

"It's a growing trend, because as you well know, it's a very competitive world out there for kids. It seems like from the age of two minutes, they're competing to get into college," said Virginia Armstrong-Whyte, a Thomson Peterson's sales executive who's worked in the summer-programs area for seven years.

"After the Internet started in 1995, then these programs started up. Of course, there have always been computer summer programs. Gosh, I took one in the 60s. But as a popular thing, they've really taken hold," she said.

Tech camps seem to be better organized and better funded than smaller, traditional neighborhood camps, she said. ID Tech Camp, for example, has partnered with companies like Lake Forest's Western Digital, which donated computer hard drives. Plus, the camps are located at prestigious universities.

"They must be doing something right if Princeton University is letting them have a camp there," Armstrong-Whyte said.

Many campers at this week's ID Tech Camp at UCI wanted to be there. Hyun Mike Woo, 14, signed up for the robotics course after hurting his knee at an adventure camp in Yosemite.

"I told my mom I like to program, and she found this," said Woo, an Irvine resident who plans to return next week for the video-game creation course.

"I like this better." That's fortunate for robotics instructor Zach Belzer, 20, who is working on his computer-science degree at the University of Illinois. It makes it easier to teach the class if the students are excited about the topic.

"I definitely get kids who have an aptitude for this," said Belzer, who is from Torrance.

By day four, the robotics kids are programming their own computer game in Microsoft Visual C++ software. These are just simple text games for a computer that ask the player a question, and depending on the answer they move to the next part of the game. But beyond simple programming, students are encouraged to develop their creative-writing skills.

"We're trying to influence them to have a story to the game so it has a real purpose," Belzer said.

Spencer Bruno, a precocious 11-year-old from Corona del Mar, catches on quickly. He designed a mystery game set in your uncle's mansion. Someone is stealing stuff, and you've got to figure out who.

After learning how to set up locations (in Bruno's case, the rooms of the mansion), students must connect the locations to guide players using a series of questions and answers. Answer one way, and you end up in the dining room. Another way, and you're in the library. After players learn they must track down a thief, then what, Belzer asked Bruno.

"Oh," says Bruno, typing in "= =1" -- which apparently leads the game player to a new room.

"What's going to happen here," asked Belzer.

"Go to the library. But I haven't made that yet," Bruno realized.

"You got it," Belzer said proudly.

"It gets confusing because of capitalizing letters, no spaces," Bruno said afterward. "But I prefer this over other summer camps. I'm just more into computers and technology."

AREA TECH CAMPS: ID Tech Camps offers courses at UC Irvine, UCLA, USC and UC San Diego.

Prices range from $649 for the weeklong day camp to $999 for overnight stays. Details at internaldrive.com Giant Campus' Cybercamps has locations at UCLA and UCSD, for ages 7 to 16.

Weeklong day camp is $599. The Woot! camp, featuring tournament gaming and game modding, is $499 for ages 13 and up. Details at cybercamps.com Find more high-tech camps at Thomson Peterson's site, petersons.com/summerop, and the American Camp Association, acacamps.org.

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Source: The Orange County Register

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