(DALLAS) – The University of North Texas’ highly anticipated Robocamp 2008, which provides youth with exposure to robotics and engineering will take place Monday through Friday, June 23 through 27 at the UNT Dallas Campus (7300 Houston School Road). An earlier Robocamp is scheduled for June 9-13 at UNT Discovery Park (3940 North Elm Street in Denton). The advanced workshop and Robocamp for counselors will be held and July 14-16 (Monday through Wednesday) at UNT Discovery Park.
This year marks UNT’s fourth year to offer the program at the Dallas Campus. In past years, the program targeted young women. For 2008, the program has been expanded to include young men and young women in grades 8-12, thanks to a $102,000, two-year grant from the Texas Workforce Commission and a $30,000 grant from the Motorola Foundation. Each camp will be limited to 20 participants.
Participants will spend half of their camp time on robotics, and the remaining period on engineering design, critical thinking and programming topics. Each camp will incorporate an individual or team design competition, with certificates and prizes awarded to the best designs.
"Attendees will get hands-on exposure to engineering and are able to hear from guest speakers who show the campers what they need to do now to prepare for a future in science and technology," said David Keathly, a lecturer in UNT's Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Keathly is co-director of Robocamp along with Robert Akl, UNT assistant professor of computer science and engineering.
Akl added, "An additional two camps will be closed enrollment for students in the Lewisville Independent School District. We plan to offer more of these mobile camps in other North Texas school districts in the coming years."
"We are pleased to be able to continue and expand these summer camps with support from the state of Texas and the Motorola Foundation, without having to charge for the summer camp experience," said Krishna Kavi, chair of UNT's department of computer science and engineering and a co-principal investigator on the Texas Workforce Commission grant.
For the first time, the College of Engineering will also be hosting two camps for 20 middle school and high school counselors. The three-day camps will be eligible for continuing education units. Finally, an advanced robotics workshop will be held for those young women who have previously attended any of the Robocamps in 2005, 2006 or 2007. It will run concurrently with the counselor camps.
"These workshops will offer students the opportunity to work with a number of different robot and software platforms to develop some interesting and unique designs and applications of their own," Keathly said. "The camp will be relatively unstructured, so students should only attend if they would like to seriously pursue advanced concepts of their own creation."
Members of UNT’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering will conduct the camps with assistance from students from the College of Engineering. There is no charge for the day camps and lunches are provided. Registration closes April 15, but early registration is recommended as the camps fill up quickly.
For more information about the camps, contact David Keathly or Dr. Robert Akl with UNT's Department of Computer Science and Engineering at (940) 565-2767, or at: www.cse.unt.edu/robocamp.
The UNT Dallas Campus, which operates under the authority of the University of North Texas in Denton, currently offers junior-, senior- and graduate-level courses leading to bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees. Once freestanding, the University of North Texas Dallas will begin recruiting its first freshman class for admission in fall 2009.
Registration begins March 1 for all Robocamp locations
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