» The Camp Blog

Meet Intern Gabriel Vazquez

austinkids — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 13:00:22 +0000

The Museum has several summer interns who help out with everything from day camp coordination to marketing. One such intern is Gabriel Vazquez who is at the Museum as part of the Smithsonian Latino Center Young Ambassador Program. The mission of this leadership development program is to cultivate Latino culture while fostering education in the arts, science and humanities. The program matches graduating seniors with museums in their area so that they can get the professional and leadership experience.

Gabriel at camp Engineer It!

During his time at ACM, Gabriel has been an Assistant Teacher for the Engineer It! camp, conducted research about visitor demographics and given tours of the museum. Gabriel says he serves an essential role to be a role model to children and motivate children to pursue scholarship. He also remarks that he has learned a lot from working with kids and attending the camp field trips, where he was able to talk to the heads of the Bio-Medical Engineering department at University of Texas.

Gabriel is from San Marcos, TX, and is interested in Bio-Medical Engineering. He will begin his freshman year at University of Texas at San Antonio this fall and after that join the Bio-Medical program at University of Texas here in Austin.

Thanks for all your help, Gabriel, and best of luck with your next adventure in college!

Calling All Super Sleuths: Get a Clue Camp

austinkids — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 13:00:32 +0000

The more you have it, the less you see. What is it?

Read this post to find out!

This week, the Museum is holding a Get A Clue camp. During the week kids get the chance to be a real gumshoe by learning about the mystery behind science and science behind the mystery. They have opportunities to explore optical illusions, learn problem solving skills by cracking codes, and even get to solve a real mystery!

Get A Clue campers navigate a "Laser" Alarm System to reach a vital clue!

Have you ever heard of a man named Sherlock Holmes? He is a fictional character famous for his sleuthing and detective skills. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is the author of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Holmes and his partner Dr. John Watson. They solved many mysteries together even when given only a small amount of clues. If you’d like to learn more about Sherlock Holmes, click here!

Keep reading this post to discover a list of detective supplies and to find the answer to the riddle!

It’s fun being curious and figuring out mysteries. To be a detective you’ll need:

a magnifying glass
a pad of paper (to write clues or suspects in)
a sleuth kit (to store all your tools)
a camera
a pen
a measuring tape

The steps to be a good detective you need:

Be yourself. You’ll want to blend into a crowd.
Carry a camera. There is always something interesting to see and maybe you’ll need to remember what you see.
Have an eye for detail. Observe your surroundings; you never know what you’ll spot.
Learn to read people’s faces. Watch body language and see if it matches what they say.
Practice asking questions. You’ll need information from people and don’t want to make them uncomfortable while doing so.
Keep notes of what you find.
Never jump to conclusions.
Be suspicious.
Be careful. Don’t put yourself in danger.

If you follow steps like these and practice your problem solving skills, you may discover your detective abilities. You may even find the answer to a real mystery such as what really happened to your mom’s car keys.

Tell us about being a detective and what you have learned!

(The answer to the riddle above is: darkness)

Campers fly Up, Up, and Away!

austinkids — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 13:00:37 +0000

Campers release homemade hot air balloons.

This summer ACM hosted a new camp focused on flight. Up, Up & Away camp took children on field trips to study various air and space topics. Afterwards campers participated in activities dealing with how animals and aircraft take off and stay up in the air.

A camper blows up a balloon to propel a home-made hovercraft.

Campers visited the University of Texas’ Aerospace Engineering lab to learn about rockets, Austin Nature and Science Center to visit birds of prey, the University of Texas Heliostat to learn about the sun and it’s gravitational pull as well as tour Camp Mabry Air Force base. As you can see, much fun was had by all!

Campers ride a hovercraft!

Campers visit the UT telescope

Watch some videos of our trip to the University of Texas Heliostat:

The Heliostat at the University of Texas.

A Heliostat is a solar telescope that has a movable mirror that tracks the sun. On their visit to see the University of Texas Heliostat , campers learned about the sun, sunspots, solar flares and other solar activity.

Looking into the UT telescope.

Here are some videos showing what we learned about sunspots and the effects of magnetic fields on the sun:

Diagram of a Heliostat

Technology Camps in the House!

austinkids — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 21:28:26 +0000

Here at ACM, our mission is to equip and inspire the next generation of creative problem solvers. Our robotics and technology camps are good examples of the fun ways we inspire creative problem solvers. This summer we held three such technology camps at Silicon Labs. At the conclusion of every camp, campers presented their their work for their parents and friends to see. See a slide show of our work here on the ACM Vimeo Channel.

Program, Animate, and Create!

Programming the robots.

Campers designed games and animations using Scratch (see our post about this children’s programming language here). At their final presentation, parents got to play camper’s games, watch their animations, and explore what they made using circuits, motors, lights, and more.

Campers demonstrate their robots in Robot City

Mindstorming a Lego Village

Our Lego Village camp focused on designing an interactive LEGO Mindstorm village. Our village included a flower garden, a zoo, a car wash and an airport. Campers also completed various challenges by learning how to program sensors and motors for their robots.

Treasure Hunters!

During this camp, campers had to build a special kingdom for Queen Nandua. We programed robots to find and retrieve treasure without falling into traps that were set for them. Imagination and creativity were a necessity for this camp!

Test running the robots.

We had a great time at this year’s Technology Camps and will be offering more next summer. See you there!

Get programming with Scratch

austinkids — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:30:08 +0000

The Museum holds summer programs that strengthen digital fluency, which includes more than browsing and interacting, but also creating and designing. A great software program that allows kids to do so is Scratch, a downloadable programming software and online community for sharing, discussing, and remixing interactive programs and games.

A screen shot of Scratch program editor

Scratch is specifically designed to foster interest in computer programming, something not considered popular among kids. Scratchers who program and share interactive projects learn mathematical and computational concepts in addition to how to think creatively, reason systematically and work collaboratively.

Here is one featured game, Egypt Pyramid, that was created with Scratch by a student Scratcher: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/dunvegan5/768740

(NOTE: make sure you use your arrow keys to navigate through the pyramid tomb).

A camper writing a program with Scratch.

During our recent camp, Program, Animate, and Create! , our campers designed games and created animations using Scratch. By the end of camp, campers made game controllers for robots, programmed sensors and motors to make a Future House, and an interactive mini-golf course. Here is a video of the campers hard at work:

2011 Program, Animate, and Create! video from Austin Children’s Museum on Vimeo.

You can download Scratch here (http://scratch.mit.edu/) to start creating your own interactive games, stories, music and art!