Review of Calgary Summer Camps: Royal City Soccer, JunioTech, Quickdraw, STEM Learning Lab
Summer camp can be an amazing experience for kids, while the cost to parents can be significant. The following are some brief notes on our family's experiences with each...
Royal City Soccer
www.royalsoccer.com/alberta
This was our boys' favorite summer camp. Each day begins with soccer-related activities, individual and group instruction, and some healthy competition. The afternoons end with swimming in an outdoor pool, weather permitting, or indoor games if there is rain. Memorable moments included a game where kids took on the instructors, awards for being a good sport, take-home soccer balls, free necklaces, free candy, and photos sent home with a final email. The instructors were excellent with children, and the other kids in the camp had great attitudes. Lots of varied activity kept kids busy and happy.
Bonuses: early dropoff times, late pickup times, professional handling of paperwork.
JunioTech Robotics
www.juniotech.com
We chose this camp for robotics and programming content, but our boys ended up enjoying it for the atmosphere and the lunchtime games. The NAO robots glitch occasionally, and it helps if kids have a solid programming background (Python) as the builds can get a little technically complex. The instructors were friendly and relaxed, and the treatment of children was professional. Taking multiple weeks of robotics courses, additional teaching assistants, and pre-built routines that kids could modify would have helped our kids get even more out of this summer camp.
Bonuses: lunchtime games, professionalism.
Quickdraw Animation
www.quickdrawanimation.ca
If your children love drawing and animating and working solo on their projects, then this can be a great summer camp. Instruction centers on traditional animation techniques, such as cut-outs and stop-motion, as opposed to digital (which would be easier to follow up with at home with PCs). At lunch, kids were provided movies to watch, resulting in our son coming home and really needing some exercise. The instructor was laid-back, the class generally had a good atmosphere, although a couple of kids got bored and a bit disruptive. Still, a pretty good class.
STEM Learning Lab
www.stemlearninglab.com
Our boys gave the robots used in this course a higher rating than the NAO robots used in the JunioTech camp, because they were easier to work with and glitched a bit less. The programming interface was visual and easy to work with, but there was less to learn that would be takeaway to higher-level robotics courses. Unfortunately, with the programming aspect being easier, the instruction moved too slowly, and as you can see, the kids have to share a laptop and robot, which resulted in only half the productivity, since the children really don't need to team up based on the level. The atmosphere was less friendly, kids were getting bored, and some of the teenage teaching assistants were acting unprofessionally. When I brought this up with an instructor, she criticized my child rather than addressing my concern. Lunchtimes were spent in free play on a playground, where there were some conflicts between children over the use of playground equipment. The main instructor was good, but in other ways, more attention needs to be paid to improving the tone and the experience for this camp.
www.royalsoccer.com/alberta
This was our boys' favorite summer camp. Each day begins with soccer-related activities, individual and group instruction, and some healthy competition. The afternoons end with swimming in an outdoor pool, weather permitting, or indoor games if there is rain. Memorable moments included a game where kids took on the instructors, awards for being a good sport, take-home soccer balls, free necklaces, free candy, and photos sent home with a final email. The instructors were excellent with children, and the other kids in the camp had great attitudes. Lots of varied activity kept kids busy and happy.
Bonuses: early dropoff times, late pickup times, professional handling of paperwork.
www.juniotech.com
We chose this camp for robotics and programming content, but our boys ended up enjoying it for the atmosphere and the lunchtime games. The NAO robots glitch occasionally, and it helps if kids have a solid programming background (Python) as the builds can get a little technically complex. The instructors were friendly and relaxed, and the treatment of children was professional. Taking multiple weeks of robotics courses, additional teaching assistants, and pre-built routines that kids could modify would have helped our kids get even more out of this summer camp.
Bonuses: lunchtime games, professionalism.
www.quickdrawanimation.ca
If your children love drawing and animating and working solo on their projects, then this can be a great summer camp. Instruction centers on traditional animation techniques, such as cut-outs and stop-motion, as opposed to digital (which would be easier to follow up with at home with PCs). At lunch, kids were provided movies to watch, resulting in our son coming home and really needing some exercise. The instructor was laid-back, the class generally had a good atmosphere, although a couple of kids got bored and a bit disruptive. Still, a pretty good class.
www.stemlearninglab.com
Our boys gave the robots used in this course a higher rating than the NAO robots used in the JunioTech camp, because they were easier to work with and glitched a bit less. The programming interface was visual and easy to work with, but there was less to learn that would be takeaway to higher-level robotics courses. Unfortunately, with the programming aspect being easier, the instruction moved too slowly, and as you can see, the kids have to share a laptop and robot, which resulted in only half the productivity, since the children really don't need to team up based on the level. The atmosphere was less friendly, kids were getting bored, and some of the teenage teaching assistants were acting unprofessionally. When I brought this up with an instructor, she criticized my child rather than addressing my concern. Lunchtimes were spent in free play on a playground, where there were some conflicts between children over the use of playground equipment. The main instructor was good, but in other ways, more attention needs to be paid to improving the tone and the experience for this camp.
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