Past Camps

Tech Camp 2016: Radio

See Radio Information for details on the camp stuff.

Tech Camp 2014 (June 24th-27th): Sailing through Technology

24 Students, in 4 groups of 6

Basic Concept: Students learned 3-D modeling/printing, electronics, and Arduino programming to create boats that performed various tasks. At the end of the week, boats competed in different categories. The categories were: Fastest Boat, Best steering (out, turn 360 degrees, and back to the start), Best Light Sensitivity (detects light/dark side of pool, goes away from dark side), Best Signal Detection (locates and approaches single light), Coolest Boat, and Straightest Boat (which boat can travel in the straightest line).

Star Parties: Tuesday night (Thursday was cloudy). Observe eight different objects (Saturn, Mars, Albireo, M5, M51, M13, the Dumbbell Nebula, and the Ring Nebula), and have three activities: pointing a telescope, learning to use StarWalk, and learning about Constellation Photography.

Motor test document is under Google Docs.

Blinking Light Detection: The code needed for the arduino to detect a blinking light is on the filemanager under Blink Detect. BlinkGenerate.ino is the program to run on the buoy that will make a light blink. BlinkDetect.ino is program that contains the function that returns a high number if a photosensor connected to A0 points towards a blinking light. It is a good idea to add a dark tube in front of the photosensor to limit stray light. The blinkdetect() function can be added to the searchlight.ino programs and replaces the analogread function in the main loop.

How it went: It was a great success! The campers loved it, learned a lot, and made amazing boats!

Astronomy Camps (July 8th–11th; 15th–18th): An Exploration of the Universe

Files are on the file manager

How it went: Both camps were very successful. The kids learned an amazing amount, and all had a lot of fun.

History

Yerkes Astrophysics Academy for Young Scientists (YAAYS) was first created upon a received grant from the National Science Foundation (Award #0639690). The program ran from 2007-2008. The program then came back after a few years as a program fostered to local students. In 2012 there was a single camp consisting of 42 student campers in grade 5-7, and in 2013 there were two camps consisting of 22 students each in grades 5-6 and 7-8. There were also several high school mentors involved. In 2014, we held an Engineering/Technology YAAYS in addition to the others.