The KCI is partnering with De Anza College Community Education this summer to offer new engineering day camps for 6th through 9th grade students. The program, Mechatronics: Electronics, Mechanical Engineering and Coding, will be offered twice during July. This highly innovative engineering camp is capitalizing on the interest of both students and parents, and provides opportunities for students to have access to creative, hands-on experiences that are fun, educational, and challenging. The camp also supports a project-based learning approach to STEM topics, where students work on creative problem solving.

During the five-day camp, students will design and build intelligent machines by learning to weave professional engineering and development tools together in order to build complex Internet of Things (IoT) machines. All tools introduced in the program are used in professional engineering environments. During the camp, the students will be guided in various areas, from using tools designed for education to more complex tools used in industry. The goal of the camp is for students to learn to see the world of machines as accessible, modifiable, and hackable.

Students will experience a breadth of activities from iterative design to machine control theory and practice, and they will have the opportunity to build their own touchscreen Linux tablet computer. Ultimately, the camp is a crash course in integrated engineering, teaching students to use a variety of tools in conjunction with each other.

What sets this camp apart from others is its integrated focus. Most student camps focus on a single discipline—for example, coding. During the Mechatronics camp, students will learn to handle equipment such as power saws, CNC cutters, soldering tools, and 3D printers. They will also gain experience using hardware like Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) controls. Finally, students will be introduced to coding such as Java and Python.

Consider visiting the Mechatronics camp this July, which will take place at De Anza College, and check out what students are building. To arrange a visit, contact programs@krauseinnovationcenter.org.