309 South Street, Suite 3
New Providence, NJ 07974
908-795-2368
Empower Kids to Code, Build and Lead at BITS Camp
By Kieran Kern
The kids are back at school so we’re all looking for fun, extracurricular activities for them. Amid a sea of soccer, ballet, and football, how about a choice that fires up their engineering brains, and gets them moving? BITS Camp brings kids on an ‘Adventure in Tech’ that gets them excited to learn and connects that learning with hands-on real-life experience.
Dedicated father, husband, and self-professed hacker, Jason Nichols is as excited about the possibilities of code and AI as a kid opening a new Switch. He opened BITS Camp to introduce kids to all facets of computer programming from screens to screwdrivers. These unprecedented courses are geared to get campers aged 8 to 14 on a path where they build skills upon skills to achieve goals such as coding games and building AI Robots.
In campers get to know how a computer works and what its components do using a screwdriver. This class lays the groundwork for computer programming from the hardware and terminology to the logic and programs. BITS Campers discover the why behind computer programming and how to apply it in their projects.
The kids learn to code while playing an online multiplayer role-playing game as a part of Team BITS Camp. Campers who are new to coding start by using everyday language in the syntax of the most widely used languages.
What sets BITS Camp apart is that the coordinating project design that coincides with what the students have learned is not dictated from the top down. During the campfire, at the beginning of class, Jason and the campers plot out or tweak project designs in their notebooks and the Smartboard. Wrapped into this opportunity to build it better, campers are learning leadership, communication, and problem-solving skills.
This summer, BITS Camp hosted a Smart Greenhouse. Over the course of five days, 11 campers, equipped with pencils, notebooks, and whiteboards, brainstorm their own designs, inspired by the original plans, a 6′ x 3′ x 3′ PVC greenhouse with a 1′ deep soil bed with a smart irrigation system and solar powered grow lights. Their creativity ignited and the group collaborated on two overall designs. Our campers were divided into teams based on the design that compelled the campers. One plan was larger holding multiple containers of soil, while the other was more compact and efficient. The consistent theme between both teams was that everyone was given the chance to design, code and build.
Start the school year off right, with kids excited to code, build, and lead with BITS Camp.