Build It Yourself:

Soap Box Derby Workshop
August 13 – 17 • Girls and Boys ages 8-12 • Cost: $640

Build the best looking and fastest racer on the planet and then compete for fame and glory on the Build-It-Yourself Gran Prix Circuit.

You will build a race car from wood, boxes and parts from a hardware store. Paint and decorate your creation so it will attract many fans. Then climb aboard and test your racing skills around an obstacle course.

You must be fast and you must look cool!
Project examples can be found by clicking here.

Scratch Computer Game Development
July 9 - 13 • Girls and Boys ages 9 - 13 • Cost: $640

If you want to be a hot shot computer game designer, this is a good place to start.

Specify the game strategy and logic. (In the Build-It-Yourself world, violence and mayhem are outlawed.) Design graphics for friendly dragons, super heroes and other whacky characters. Lay out fantasy settings. Record outrageous sound effects. Integrate all the components. Test the game with your friends and then post it on the Web for the world to play. We use Scratch, a programming language developed at the MIT Media Lab.

LEGO Robots That Earn Money
July 16 – 20 • Girls and Boys ages 8-12 • Cost: $640

Build-It-Yourself is looking for some hot shot inventors to fix the global economy.
Your mission is to build robots that create value, entertain, offer a service, put people to work, and pay its inventors handsomely. One young Build-It-Yourself engineer and his robotic sidekick earned $27.25 in one day. You will exercise the art of entrepreneurship.
Bill Gates ... the next generation of builders will soon be ready to carry your torch!

LEGO Robotic Super Heroes
August 6 – 10 • Girls and Boys ages 8-12 • Cost: $640

Your challenge is to build a LEGO Robot who has the super powers to right all wrongs and bring happy times to the homeland. Your super hero robots will compete to climb the steepest walls, tell the funniest jokes, move mighty obstacles, zip from Earth to Pluto at the speed of light, boogie to the latest tunes, and out smart the wisest in the land. You will learn the power of gear trains, modular construction, problem solving tricks, and the art of presenting your inventions.
Vile villains, scurrilous scoundrels and evil doers, bring it on!

3D Computer Graphics
August 13 – 17 • Girls and Boys ages 10-13 • Cost: $640

Build-It-Yourself is looking for a few hot shot artists and computer game designers to create knock-your-socks-off 3D computer graphics. 2D games and videos are so last fall. If you want to be a big shot game designer or animator, you will need to move from the 2D world to the 3D world. This workshop is a good place to start.

You will use 3D Blender, a tool that is similar to the professional tools used by animators and game designers.

The Mother of all Cuckoo Clocks (or Scratch Time Machines)
July 23 – 27 • Girls and Boys ages 8-12 • Cost: $640

Do you have trouble waking up in the morning? Build a cuckoo alarm clock that starts the day in a civilized way. It could tickle you, play rock ‘n roll music, spray you with water, beat a drum, tell you a joke and more. Each hour your cuckoo clock will make a critter come to life. A scratch program will keep time, play tunes, and drive motors that make your cuckoo critters shake, rattle and roll.

This challenge incorporates interesting engineering and computer science concepts such as serial vs. parallel processing and computer execution time.

Computer Graphics and Animation Workshop
June 25 - 29 • Girls and Boys 8 – 12 • Cost: $640

Civilizations are often measured by the art they leave for future generations. If we want to be recognized as a hot shot civilization, some of our art work and architecture needs help!

Your mission is to design digital artifacts, such as screen savers, Web pages, and advertisements that will make future civilizations say, “Wow!”.

You will use both pixel and vector drawing tools. You will put color theory and elements of graphic design to use creating animated cartoons and far out graffiti.

Web Site Design Workshop
July 30 – August 3 • Girls and Boys ages 8-12 • Cost: $640

Imagine that aliens from another planet are checking you out on the Web. Your mission is to design a Web site that will invite the aliens to be friends, complete with pictures, sound effects and video clips. Your Web site must describe your favorite music, pets, computer games, heroes, jokes, sports and passions. You will learn HTML code as well as the structure of a web site and the Internet.

The Build-It-Yourself Web Design Workshop will introduce you to tools that will make your Web sites jump off the screen and make your friends say, “Wow, how did you do that?”

Intro to Architecture - Build Your Dream Home:
July 9 – 13 • Girls and Boys 8 – 12 • Cost: $640

Architecture - Build Your Dream Pad Imagine that you have bought some property … by the ocean, on a lake, in a space station, on the planet Mars.
Your mission is to design and build a model of your dream pad. It might have a state-of-the-art entertainment room, a knock-your-socks-off sports arena, a soulful dance hall, an exotic rain forest, a barn for plenty of animals, and a ???
You will outline living and environmental requirements. You will use a vector graphics tool to layout your floor plan and elevations. You will estimate the cost of your design. Finally you will build a model of your dream home.

Flying Machines
July 2 - July 6* • Ages 8 - 12 • Cost: $515

You will build exotic paper airplanes, gliders, rockets, and futuristic space ships.
We’re recruiting aspiring builders and designers to be part of an advanced
aero-space development team. Your mission is to design and build a fleet of next generation flying machines that will be tested for acrobatics, distance, speed and creativity. You will learn the physics
of flight, problem solving skills, and the art of presenting your ideas.

Rube Goldberg LEGO Candy Machine
June 25 - June 29 • Ages 8 - 12 • Cost: $640

Rube Goldberg was an inventor artist who dreamed of incredibly clever machines to solve very important problems. The problem we aim to solve is that the world needs more candy! Your mission is to build the ultimate candy delivery machine. A quarter will start the whole contraption. One team’s link will hand off its load of candy to the next team’s link and so on, until finally the candy is catapulted to the customer.

You will learn about the power of gear trains, modular construction, problem solving tricks, program control and the art of presenting an invention.