Viewing: Renbrook Summer Adventure
July 19, 2013
July 11, 2013
Building Renbrook, Slow Motion Video, Stop Motion Cartooning
The senior campers have done a great job working to build the Renbrook campus within Minecraft. While we won’t complete the whole campus this session, I have enjoyed watching the campers work to create the map with their own creative twists and interpretations. Seeing them figure out how to recreate visual details within the cubic constraints of Minecraft has been interesting, and I’m so pleased with what they’ve developed. (I will figure out how to post the playable file for the campers to use at home at the end of session 2.) The session two campers will continue the work of these session one senior campers.
Challenge campers have focused on high-speed, slow motion video. They have filmed many scenes of video at 240, 480, or 1,000 frames of video per second. (Normal video is 30 frames per second – or FPS – so when played back, one second of video shot at 240 FPS becomes eight seconds long, one second of 480 FPS video becomes 16 seconds, and one second of 1,000 video becomes 33 seconds long.) Rather than uploading individual videos, I am stitching the videos into a single video that you will be able to access here.
https://vimeo.com/70185305
Free Choice campers this week have worked to make their own cartoons using stop motion animation software. By drawing images on dry erase boards and photographing them before making small changes, the campers have created some impressive cartoons. Click on the Camper Creations link to access the campers’ creations.
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss
July 2, 2013
RSA’13 Is Off and Running!
Welcome back to another wonderful summer at Renbrook Summer Adventure! I was sad to miss the first week of camp (I work in one of the school districts that ran quite late this year.) but I am so glad to be back! Our senior technology campers are focusing on Minecraft this session. Last year, many of the campers managed to get Minecraft installed on our computers, and after much effort, they managed to convince me of its value. This summer, Renbrook has purchased licenses for our lab, and we have our own Minecraft server running. Our campers are building a collaborative Minecraft map that takes players on a tour of the Renbrook campus. In order to learn the size, layout, and scale of campus landmarks, we are using aerial photography from Google Maps (BORING!) and – of much more interest to the campers – footage filmed onboard remote control helicopters. We just set them up yesterday and have enjoyed working with them so far.
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss
July 31, 2012
Working Hard During Camp’s Last Week
This is the final week of Renbrook Summer Adventure, and all computer campers are working very hard to complete their projects. In the mornings, challenge groups are putting the finishing touches on stop motion animation projects in iMovie by adding backgrounds (to replace green screens), musical selections, sound effects, and more. Other challenge campers are finishing recording and editing their radio shows, and some eager students are continuing to create basic programs using BASIC on the TRS-80 CoCo2 and on the Model 102 laptop.
Meanwhile, the senior campers are making great headway with marketing their products. Their radio shows are finished and will be posted soon, and their video commercials are nearly complete. This week, senior campers are working to create their print ads (using Adobe InDesign) and their websites (using WordPress). More coming soon!
Finally, as a relaxation at the end of the day, Free Choice campers are playing selected computer games. Originally, I started out by offering computer versions of popular board games, but I extended it to other thinking, strategy-based games. The favorites have been physics-based games, like Demolition City. (You can access all the links on the right side of this page.)
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss
July 20, 2012
Session 2 Challenge Groups
In this session, we have nearly twice as many computer challenge campers as we did in the first session! This means that there are usually several different activities going on in the lab at one time. This week, we had students working on my old TRS-80 color computer (c. 1981) by programming their own “games”. Other groups began to film their own stop motion films, plan their own radio shows (in the style of radio shows from the 1940’s) and plan their own video projects! There’s always something interesting happening in the lab!
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss
July 20, 2012
Session 2 Senior Camper Group
This session, senior campers are working to create marketing materials for two products. One pair of partners has invented a (fictional) pair of headphones called the Althearica (Alter hearing) that alters your brainwaves to immerse an individual in the experience of watching a TV show or movie. The other pair of partners is marketing new uses for pool noodles. They’re selling a GROWN pool noodle plant that can not only be fun in the pool but can also be a tasty snack, a foundation for a totem pole, a flight tool in an emergency, and more. This week, both groups developed product “bibles” that specified what their products can and cannot do, and after learning a bit about logo design, the two groups created their own product logos. Yesterday and today, the campers scripted out their own radio shows that I plan to have them record and edit on Monday and Tuesday. Next Wednesday, the campers will start creating their own print advertisements.
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss
July 18, 2012
Finishing Up Comic Books
This week has been the last week we offered the Comic Life free choice activity. After three weeks, we have over 20 outstanding comic creations! Kids (hopefully) brought home printed copies of their comic books, but they are also available on our site (on the Camper Creations page) for your easy access and sharing.
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss
July 11, 2012
Creating Commercials
It’s interesting to see how our two senior groups are taking different approaches to filming their commercials. The shape-shifting pill group is using an interesting blend of photography effects to blend their filming with videos that we found on YouTube. This lets them create footage that appears to show people shifting into animal form. Very cool! They’re also experimenting with using Scratch to create animations for their group. The TRS80 Minecraft group is creatively making videos within videos by filming commercials that people in their video are watching. (Confusing to read, but awesome to see!) These campers are showing creativity and innovation that impresses me each day!
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss
July 10, 2012
Radio commercials are finished!
Lots of work went into creating two short advertisements for fictional products! Besides shifting their mindset to the lesser-used “tell, don’t show” approach, the campers also edited their recordings to make their speech sound perfectly fluent (no “ums” or repeated words or unnecessary pauses) and adjusted audio levels for the best sound quality. They also selected musical selections and sound effects to enhance their recordings. Both came from some royalty-free websites that I like to use (which you’ll find linked on the right). Yesterday, the groups started to storyboard their video commercials, and they plan to start filming and editing today. We also created their base websites which, right now, look as plain and dull as can be. I hope to give the campers a chance to sign in on Wednesday so they can start customizing their culminating project!
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss
July 6, 2012
Quiet on the set!
The campers who are creating their own radio shows are doing a great job! All groups have finished writing the scripts of their shows, and most groups have either recorded their own radio show or are about to record their show. The next part is the fun part: using Freesound and Kevin MacLeod’s sites to download royalty-free sound effects and music clips to go into their radio shows. All projects will be posted on this site as they are completed.
Posted in Renbrook Summer Adventure|By Jon Moss