Last Thursday, a room full of youth ages seven to 17 at Sacramento State University campus were busy working to complete different projects ranging from robotics to video games, due at the end of this week of iD Technology Camp.
Jamiel Khan is the Director for the Sacramento campus. “We offer opportunities for youth to gain real world experience working with the technology to solve problems and produce tangible products, such as iPhone apps,” Kahn said.
iD Technology Camps is a family business, founded by Kathryn Ingram & Paul Cauchi, that started in their garage in Silicon Valley over ten years ago. Today, iD Technology Camps are hosted at California State University, Sacramento, and U.C. Davis campuses in the Sacramento region, as well as over 50 prestigious universities across the country, including Stanford, Yale, UCLA, and MIT.
The primary objective of the iD Technology Camps is to help children create a better future by training them on how to use their imagination and apply technology to solve real world problems and respond to opportunities. “This requires personalized instruction”, Kahn said. “And so the student to instructor ratio is maximum 8:1.”
Hence, iD stands for “internalDrive” of the human heart and mind.
Auburn resident, Alicia Snyder, is the robotics instructor. According to Snyder students ranging in age from seven to 12 years take turns performing different roles to build functional robots. The roles include designer/engineer and programmer. “The designer/engineer conceives and develops the blueprints for the device,” Snyder said. “And the programmer does the implementation.”
Half way through the week the kids switch roles.
Kala, nine years old, has been attending the Sacramento campus iD Tech Camp for the past two years. “It is really cool camp,” she said. “You learn a lot. We learned how to build a battlebot and a drag racer.” Kala proceeded to list the various components involved, such as sensor and movement blocks. “We test and learn to fix the mistakes,” she said. “It is so fun to learn here. The teachers are awesome.”
To learn more about iD Technology Camps, go to: internalDrive
Parent Resources
- Banana Moments: Help for Parenting in the Network Culture
- The Authority In Me (asserting parental authority in the social network)
- iD Technology Camps
- CyberParenting Topics on The Fish 103.9FM Tuesdays
- Follow Joanna @CyberParenting
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