By TESA STRASSER

The Press-News

There are many diverse kinds of summer camps. There is soccer camp, band camp, Boy Scout camp, and wrestling camp, to name a few. Now there is another kind of camp: engineering camp.

Students from Perry, Sandy Valley, East Canton, and Canton Local met at Canton South High School to learn about engineering concepts. Sounds boring, doesn't it? Well it was anything but boring. The curriculum, written by The Society of Management Engineers, made learning enjoyable and pertinent to real life.

Three different camps were offered during three consecutive weeks. During the first week 27 grade 3-5 students met at Faircrest Middle School for the Gateway Camp. The second week 19 Canton Local 6th grade gals met at Canton South High School for Gateway Academy. The last week 20 male and female students from the four school districts met from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. for a second week of Gateway Academy.

Among the activities included in the week of camp for young ladies only was the opportunity to dismember old electronics equipment as they learned about the components. Then they designed jewelry from salvaged parts. There were many other engineering activities offered during the three weeks of camp. Given masking tape and newspaper teams of students were asked to build a structure that they could fit into. They built bottle rockets and set them off measuring the height and then redesigned and re-measured to try to improve. Robotics and much more was included in the curriculum also.

Tom Bratten, director of career and technical education, is very pleased with the opportunity to offer this fun learning time to the youth of our community. He proudly pointed out that, "Canton Local is the first in the state and second in the nation to offer engineering classes at the elementary, middle and high school levels." The goal of the camps is to spark interest in the field of engineering and the Project Lead the Way course of study at Canton South High School.

Teachers for the camps were Kendra Lewis, Jennifer Kruger, Brian Mohn, Mark Holshu, John Pye and John Philippi. Student helpers were Sarah Ceo and Laura Bevington.

The students were bussed from a central location in their own district and lunch was included in the camp.

A grant from the Society of Management Engineers and another grant from the State of Ohio made this opportunity possible.