Technology Day Camp Overview

The Technology Day Camp is a week-long summer day camp put on by the Center for Distributed Robotics at the University of Minnesota for local middle-school students to explore the wonders of technology, robotics, and college in general. We primarily target kids from underprivileged backgrounds, and the camp is free for the children that attend. Breakfast and lunch are provided. August 2008 marked the fourth year of the program.

We hope that the camp activities and interaction with our graduate students will demystify computer science for the kids and expose them to a collegiate atmosphere, so that they will consider enrolling in a computer science program when they reach college age.

The following are the primary activities participants get to do:

• Tour fun and exciting labs on campus.
• Program a computer using Alice.
• Build a robot bug that seeks out light, which the kids get to take home.
• Program the Sony Aibo robot dogs to dance.
• Participate in the "Robot Olympics" using the Scout robots.

The camp has been made possible by support from the Digital Technology Center, the Office of Diversity and Outreach, the Center for Transportation Studies, the Computer Science and Engineering department, the National Science Foundation, and all of the University of Minnesota graduate students who volunteer to help.