Week 3 at Scotch Plains!

The campers at Scotch Plains continue to amaze us week after week!  Last week they participated in Shark Tank Jr., Engineering of Ice Cream, and Java Programming.  While classes presented unique challenges, campers created something truly spectacular in each.  Check out their hard work from Week 3!

Friday was a big day for campers in Shark Tank Jr.!  At their final sales pitch, campers presented their original "soap glove" to counselors, siblings, and parents.  What an innovative and useful product!  Click on the link below to watch their sales pitch in its entirety.  It was unanimous among all audience members - we would invest!!

A prototype of the "soap glove"

     

An outside and inside view of their storefront 

A logo for their company

An advertisement to attract customers

A model business card for the JAN Soap Company

Fielding questions from parents and counselors after their sales pitch

In Java Programming, campers worked hard to write the code for their own calculators. How cool? At the end of the week, campers tested out their calculators to see if it could perform complex computations like 343 divided by 92.  It worked!  Nice job, guys!

Campers learn the basics of Java Programming

Campers are hard at work writing code 

A close look at Java code 

Thanks for teaching us, Victor!

Finally, Engineering of Ice Cream ended with campers making more yummy treats and even presenting their original flavors.  Campers worked in pairs to create yet another ice cream flavor and used the scientific process along the way.  They formed purposes and hypotheses for their designs, taste tested their ice cream, and reflected on pros, cons, and things they could do differently.  Campers made posters to present their findings and shared these with their classmates and counselors.  Then, campers were tasked with another engineering challenge.  Using only aluminum foil, plastic wrap, bowls, cups, toothpicks, and tape, campers had to create a device that stored ice cream but also had some kind of function.  One pair created a device that held ice cream at the top but also filtered out large chunks to make a milkshake.  It worked!  Campers saved their prototype and tried it out using their own ice cream the next day.  They were excited to see their original design in action.  Looks like we have some future engineers on our hands!

Students create posters about their ice cream

Yum, yum!

An original creation.  It works!

Campers present their second flavors to the class 

Week 3 was a yummy and fun one!  Looking forward to participating in more rich learning experiences with our campers this week!