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Eleven-year-old Zoe Reid watched a robot she had assembled and programmed, along with her lab partner 12-year-old Tony Sabia, as it motored along and picked up a ring with a fork-shaped arm.
"That's awesome," she exclaimed. "It's cool that you can make all these different things. I never knew there were LEGOs like that."
Reid, who attends Bennion Elementary in Taylorsville, is among hundreds of budding computer scientists who spent one or more weeks this summer at a University of Utah camp modestly dubbed GREAT (Graphics & Robotic Exploration with Amazing Technology.) In four years, the program has grown ten-fold, from 35 middle school students to 350 students in elementary, middle and high school.
Campers learn how to use computer programming to create animation, design video games and power robots. The one- and two-week camps wrap up next week.
David Johnson, a computer science professor and creator of GREAT, said he hopes to inspire students to study science and engineering at the University of Utah.
"We're trying to show them computer science and robotics are fun activities — engaging, exciting, creative things," Johnson said Friday. "Hopefully, they will prepare themselves in high school to come to our university."
Johnson also wants to wipe out stereotypes of computer science being for "lone geeks in their basements." All of the projects at the camp are collaborative. Kids work in pairs and teams. Plus, they are taught by university students who are "cool people," Johnson noted.
The camps, which include a daily snack, cost $185 per week. Novell, Microsoft, NVIDIA Corp. and Hill Air Force Base offer financial support to the camps. Eighty students attended this summer on scholarships.
On Friday, students were creating video games with zombies and aliens, animating Harry Potter-themed cartoons, and designing an elaborate, mechanical chain reaction with handmade robotics. The latter, known as a Rube Goldberg machine, started with a marble running down a ramp and was designed to end with the lights going out in the room and a projector illuminating the GREAT logo.
Milo Marsden, an incoming sophomore at West High, said he's not sure whether he will go into computer programming, but he's leaning toward a science-related career. This week, he's been designing a video game modeled after the 1978 arcade hit Space Invaders.
"If you don't go to camps like this or try new things, you will not know what you like," he said. "When I come here in the morning, it's 9. I'll sit down and I'll look up and it will be lunchtime. … It's a process that is engaging."
More information
O Learn more about GREAT summer camps at the University of Utah. > http://bit.ly/o3FFxP