Technology Day Camp Overview

Due to an overwhelming response, all slots for the camp are filled for this year. If you are interested in being placed on the waiting list, please contact Nathaniel Bird (bird@cs.umn.edu). Sorry for any inconvenience.

The Technology Day Camp is a week-long 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. This year will be the fourth for this program.

The camp this year will take place from 8:30 am- 3:30 pm from Monday, August 18 to Friday, August 22, 2008. The camp will begin and end each day in Walter Library, although many of the activities will take place in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science building. Transportation will be provided from BEST Academy and Harvest Prep to the University of Minnesota. The transportation schedule will be posted two weeks prior to the event.

The following are the primary activities the kids will do this year:

• 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 is 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 our graduate student volunteers.