Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Tuesday

We all thought we would be lonely, have a hard time making friends.  It was easier than we thought to make friends and we all have made a lot of friends.  The Heathers, being in the same dorm group, decided that one is a time traveler from an apocalyptic future and is here to warn the other Heather not to get into a bathroom teleporter.  Everyone got along great, and now we are going to be so sad when we have to leave.

The food is very good and sometimes very okay-ish.  The college food was way better than expected, or at least better than elementary school lunches.  The options are salad, pastas, and the entree of the moment.  The food takes a big part in our moods, so far we have had good conversations.

Tonight we went bowling at the rec center and it was super fun.  We had thew hole alley to ourselves.  76 girls in one alley was craaaazy.  There were so many gutter balls, but it was really enjoyable.  The whole night was amazing, even th walk back to the dorms was fun.  We're so glad we got to go.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Monday

Canoeing isn't as easy as it seems.  During the activity, it wasn't as clean as we expected.  It was very exciting for all the campers overall.  At the university, other students were attending two different labs.  One of them included programming with computers.  It was difficult at first, but once you understood the basics, it was fun.  The second lab was geopanes.  The geopanes lab involved using basic materials, like clay and toothpicks, to make elaborate shapes.  The outcome of the experiments were amazing and the campers enjoyed it.  Overall, we had a great time today.

The core class of robotics was so much fun!  We first got an intro from our awesome teacher, Kirsten.  Then we started to build our Lego robot.  Another core class we had was chemistry.  In chemistry we had an intro, safety runs, then did activities.  The first activity was interviewing another member in the class.  We then watched the teacher light a piece of tissue paper on fire and once it almost burned out, the tissue paper flew up in the air and she caught it with her hand.  Last, we did match missiles, which was really fun.  There are other core classes, but those will be talked about later.

Career night was six different people talking about their jobs in STEM fields.  For mathematics, Alane was talking about she used orgami to use in math.  She also talked about how oragami was important to us today.  She showed us how to make an oragami heart, which she used to show us the different shapes in math.  Alane taught some of our teachers today what they know about math.

The lady who talked about technology told us how she was studying law enforcement because she wanted to be an FBI agent, but they weren't letting girls be that.  She didn't want to keep studying law because she didn't want to be a lawyer, so she became a tech.  She also mentioned that technology isn't going to be the same in 10 years.

Another presenter was a women who is a GST engineer.  She started to talk about how we don't realize we use gas everday, and that new gas never has an odor; it's odorless.  She also mentioned that to become a professional engineer, you have to take two tests.  One of them lasts for eight hours and the other one lasts for 24 hours.  I thought it was pretty interesting to find new information on these careers.

(Sorry still no pictures, but I'll try to have some up by lunch time tomorrow).

Monday, June 17, 2013

Sunday

Sorry about the late blog.  As you can guess, things get a bit busy here, so hopefully starting tonight I'll get it written in the evening.

When we arrive, we find out rooms and we see that they are college dorm rooms.  We make beds, unpack, and are friendly with out roommates.  After the meeting, we meet our new mothers and counselors for the week.  We learned new things about each other, said goodbye to our parents, and took a group picture.  We came back to our rooms then ate.  Dinner was very amazing, interesting, and exciting.  Cookies, spaghetti, potatoes, cake, salad, soup, lasagna, and the chicken were some of the favorites of the girls.  We met even more people while eating.

Games were very interesting.  We got to mingle, mingle, mingle - meeting new people.  There were a lot of dancing and screaming; charades was fun and made you break out of your shell.  We also played a game learning new things about our moms and counselors.  When we played the water game - dixie cups were what we used - making it harder to move the water, so we had to use teamwork.

Posters were very creative and exciting.  They were to be used for names.  The names were very unique... such as "The cray-cray bru hahas from the twilight zone."  The day ends with blogging and sleep.

(Sorry no pictures yet, but I'll get a few up tonight).

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Day 4,2012

By Wednesday most of the girls are running around like they've been friends for years, instead of only days.  They seem to get more energy as the week goes on, while the staff to get less.  But that might be due to the fact that many of us don't go to bed until about 2 am. - Becca

Today the gold group went canoeing, while the red group went to the tech lab and the blue group went to mathemagic and the art lab.  The tech lab is pretty fun.  In it you're with Becca and you learn about computer programming.  You learn how to make a figure move across the screen by setting up a plan for the script.... it's super fun!!! The math and are labs are where you are shown how there is art and magic in math.

Today at camp it was the third day of core classes.  In Murder Mystery with Mrs. Nelson, we are closer to solving the mystery!  In motion coasters, we finished our cars and got to test our engineering skills.  In construction, we learned that art of building bridgrs.... with popsicle!

It was a long walk to the planetarium, but it was worth it.  One group did team building outside and the other went inside the building to watch an educational video.  The three activities were the Human Knot, people in a lanyard, hoolahoop around a circle, and the blindfolded line.  In the video (it was actually a planetarium show), they discussed famous women in astronomy, like Sally Ride and Carolyn Shoemaker, and their impact on history.  We also looked at different star formations.  In the end, this was one of the funnest days at Tech Trek.





Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Day 3, 2012

I promise that tomorrow I will post some pictures that we have from this week so far.  - Becca

Today in core classes we did a ton of exciting things.  In Art of Construction, we built a two-story structure of straws, pins, paper clips, and cardboard.  We did tests in Murder Mystery and learned about boiling water.  In Motion Coasters, we got to learn about Newton's 2nd and 3rd laws, and we got to start building our balloon cars.  We made posters about Women Rock in Mathematics.  There was even robot programming in Lego.  Classes were amazing.

At career night 2.0, we had special guests like a physical therapist, an accountant, and a structural engineer.  The physical therapist showed us a stretch band and let us test a muscle contractor.  The accountant talked about how she handles a lot of money and helps with people's finances.  We learned about how to make buildings safe, and she emphasized how huge the plans for buildings are. The nature researcher explained her hopes of cleaning the San Joaquin River, and told us how to not get carsick.  It was a fantastic experience.

After career night, we played Trivia Night.  We had questions about chemistry, food, movie characters, history, language arts, and lots of other things.  We also had a large debate on most of the topics.  We had one round with clickers and the next we had to write down.

Day 2, 2012

Sorry for the late post, but as you can probably imagine, things can get hectic around here.  Monday is when things really get into swing here at camp.  We have a full day of labs, classes, and other activities, plus, by this time all the girls are best friends and running around causing a ruckus (which is good).  But I'll let them tell you more about it. My comments to help clarify what they're saying are in parentheses. - Becca

This morning in our lab we did a flower designed with string along with mathemagic (fun math tricks).  We (different group) also learned how to animate and move an image around the screen in many unique ways (with computer programming).  We (another group) also went canoeing!  It was so much fun, because we kept running into trees and tipping over!  We also made foot prints with plaster.  It was amazing.

In our core classes (this one is chemistry), we made missles out of matches and aluminum foil.  It was so much fun.  In CSI class we took inventory of the crime scene.  We also went over the suspects and their motives.  We need to keep investigating. In Art of Construction we talked about building materials and structural foundations.  In Women Rock in Math we got to make a huge poster of famous people like Ada Lovelace and Galileo.  In Robotics we learned how to build a Lego robot and learned how to program the robot to do really cool things.  We also learned why robots are important and the different kinds of robots that we use today.  Also, we learned that Legos aren't just for little boys, but for everybody.

(This is about evening activities.)  With Jenny, one of the career night speakers, we learned about how the San Joaquin Valley is so polluted and it is affecting every single person in the community.  We also heard from Erica, who works for the California Department of Water Resources, and Margaret who is a nurse.  Becca talked about economics and getting a PhD, and Marty talked about how you can do one thing, and then retire and do something different, but related, if you want to.

Outside, we played two awesome games called Tarzan, Jane, Ape and Ultimate Duck Duck Goose.  It was really fun because we kept running around.


Sunday, June 17, 2012

Day 1, 2012

Things are still crazy tonight, so I'll post some pictures tomorrow evening.  For now, some of the girls wrote a bit on the first day of camp.  - Becca

The food:  Food was delicious. From the spaghetti to the red velvet cake, we were all in awe of its deliciousness.  Beverages ranged anywhere from Sprite to a cherry slushy.  They even had super sweet ice cream!  Overall, on a scale of 1-10, the food ranked a nine!  We wish we could eat like college students every day.

Roommates:  They were nice and welcoming.  It is scary at first, but when you see your roommate you see that they are nice and in the same position as you.  All of the form groups are the same way, nice and welcoming.  After the first day you realize you have nothing to worry about.

Games:  Our first day was more fun than we could have imagined!  7:00 was the activity time, and it was a blast.  We played games to help us connect with the other campers and had contests to spark rivalry between the dorm groups.  The main competition was a game about team work where we had to lie down and work with each other to fill a bucket with water without moving anything but our arms.  We then came inside, pretty wet from the fun game, and started naming our dorm groups.  It was awesome and everyone had a great time.