Caterpillar Races at Short Hills!

At Short Hills, our Robotics-Animals class started off the week by making caterpillars! We know that the only thing better than animals are robot animals! The campers learn to make their animals and then test their work by racing!

Imagination and Invention in Paramus!

This week campers are learning how to draft plans and dream big! Whether they are brainstorming their dream house or thinking up the next cool gadget, our campers are enjoying exploring their creativity.

In Pre-Architecture, our campers are working with their teacher to find patterns of building they see in their favorite cities, and also choosing what design styles they prefer. They have also drafted plans of their own house, but how they would like it to look!

Our campers in Shark Tank Entrepreneur have chosen their "big ideas" which they will work out throughout the week. Their goal is to have their products accepted by the special-guest "sharks" on Friday.

Engineering with Makey Makey uses an innovative system that allows our campers to make any objects into computer controllers. The versatility of the product, computer, and our campers imaginations makes the possibilities endless! Some results so far? A coin piano, a play dough drum set, and pencil-drawing video game controllers!

In Detective/Spy Lab our campers enter the world of detectives and spies by uncovering the science involved in evidence gathering and analysis. They will observe, detect, and investigate evidence while also building spy tools such as binoculars for data collecting. They are currently working on their secret spy safes and they will have other campers decode their work!

Interior Design is a class that helps our campers pursue interests in design. This course will show them how to transform plain living spaces into beautiful and functional rooms. They will examine the details of rooms in order to design a space from the floor to the ceiling. They are currently examining room measurements and color combinations that can be used to transform a room into a beautiful living space.

War & Peace Game Theory at Somerset

Somerset - Week 5

Do you want to have your own country? Do you want to solve problems? Do you want to have power? If you said yes, War & Peace Game Theory is a great class for you! This week, we have War & Peace Game Theory at Somerset and the students are working hard to negotiate with other countries in order to solve real-life problems without going bankrupt. We can't wait until Friday to see how this game turns out.

Our Livingston Youngsters Meet Scratch Jr.!

Our youngsters are in for a fun week here at Livingston! This week, they're learning the basics of programming with Scratch Jr.! Each youngster is working hard to create scenes that fit their interests. Some youngsters have decided to create their own music videos set to their favorite songs, one is working on an animal scene featuring a polar bear, and another is working on a scene starring Scratch the Cat himself! We can't wait to see what their scenes look like once our youngster programmers are done with them!

We love the song "How Long"! One camper prepares her version of a music video!

What is this polar bear going to do next? A programmer works hard to decide...

The fun also doesn't stop there! After some hard work with the iPad, we encourage our youngsters to get on their feet and get moving to some Go Noodle dance-along videos with songs like "How Long", "Fight Song", and "Bye, Bye, Bye"! It seems as if we not only have talented programmers, but also some talented dancers! Counselor Kelsey thinks they'd give N'Sync a run for their money!!!

Scratch the Cat is caught in the land of shapes! Watch him go!

Another camper prepares her music video by deciding which song to go with!

Inching our way towards a fun week in New Milford!

     Campers began their week in New Milford by creating inchworms in their Robotics Animals class.  Campers displayed a determination to find all the pieces to build their robots, and were taught the skill of programming them to move.  At the end of the class, the campers held a race to see whose was fastest!  No matter what place they finished, everyone felt proud of completing their robots AND everyone received IVY points!

Scotch Plains Week 5 - Flight and Aerospace Engineering

Week 5 in Scotch Plains has started off very strong! This morning the campers took on the challenge of creating a wind tunnel out of foam paper and tape and demonstrated it with a fan! They also designed and created a tower out of index cards that can support a stuffed animal.

Halloween Mascots and Battle Bots

Halloween in Summit was a big hit, even our parents got involved with momma bird coming to pick up her baby bird at PUDO! Our staff was also smurfed out with Papa Smurf, Chef Smurf, Clumsy Smurf, Scaredy Smurf, Brainy Smurf, and Smurfette (not shown) making an appearance. In the classroom, one of the highlights this week was a battle bots event happening in our robotics vehicles class. All week the kids have worked on individualizing their robots through appearance and powers. Their designs were put to the test today when each robot entered the arena to fight for the production excellence award, bragging rights, and a much envied cash prize of 5 ivy points. It was a tough battle but this camper's bot came out on top, using his overhead swing mechanism to fend off his opponent!

Experiments in Flight and Aerospace

Chatham Week 4

            Up, Up, and Away was the moto of the week by creating rockets and various other flying objects. These objects were tested with weights and many other variables to see which goes the farthest, longest, and fastest. Today we did an egg drop challenge. The campers had to create baskets for their eggs to keep from breaking when landing on a hard surface. Below are the videos. One camper was lucky enough to not have his break.

Original Games at Short Hills!

The Video Game Creation class for Beginners at Short Hills finished making their original games this Friday. They got to save their games to bring home and had fun playing with their friends' games too! These future game-makers had a great time this week.

Treasure Chest Day at Scotch Plains Week 4!

Fridays in Scotch Plains are always highly anticipated as the campers can cash in their Ivy Points and pick out a great prize from the treasure chest! All of the campers have worked hard throughout the week to make sure that they had plenty of Ivy Points to get the best prize possible. Fidget spinners have been a big hit throughout the weeks, yet occasionally a camper will take a cool pen or bouncy ball.

Choosing a prize is a difficult choice!