Silver Springs is a small town located in the desert ca. one hour from Reno, but its Silver Stage Elementary School (SSES – preK to K8) is one of the largest elementary schools in Nevada. And the high school is impressive as well. The 2015 NCLab computer programming and 3D modeling summer camp was made possible thanks to Jim Berryman-Schaefer, an enthusiastic STEM teacher, and the supportive principal Jim Gianotti. Both the students and us enjoyed every minute of it. This was the first time a school printed T-Shirts for our summer camp. For most kids this was the first time they encountered computer programming and 3D modeling. There is not a large tradition of these disciplines in Silver Springs, NV. But this will change. We will be coming back, and NCLab will be used at the school from now on.
We began the first day with the Hour of Code tutorials. After one hour we moved to the Karel course in NCLab, and after lunch to 3D Modeling. On the second day we did Karel and Turtle Tina before the lunch, and 3D modeling for the rest of the day. The students accomplished some cool creations. One of them is shown below – a moving sphere inside of a cube. The model is now being printed and all students will receive a copy. And yes, the camp was attended equally by girls and boys. Some photos are attached, starting with the sphere in a cube:
Left from right: Pavel, students, principal Jim Gianotti. Jim Berryman-Schaefer was taking the picture.
