We were thrilled to open our doors at Tech Hill Commons at the beginning of June to welcome students from the  Metro Action Commission to offer our 5th annual Summer Youth Technology Camp .  The camp students are from the ages of 13 to15, who are older siblings of members of the MAC’s Head Start and Early Head Start programs.  This population is representative of the agency’s Two-Generational/Whole Family approach to impacting the social and economic mobility of families in poverty.  Each student was selected from a competitive application process to receive a free membership into our 9-week advanced tech camp.  Our camp is designed to expose students to the world of technology through hands-on experiences, stimulating analytical thinking, growing confidence in skills, inspiring creativity, teamwork and a love for continuous learning.

Our NTC teammate, Susan Charest, was able to instruct a digital art class using an Apple pencil as a paint brush and the Procreate app as the canvas.   The class learned how to create a self-portrait by inserting a self-photo, and using oil paint to enhance the photo on how they see themselves.  Some word art was used to express what couldn’t be painted and special effects were added for flare.  The camp broaden the students minds on how a digital artist can have many career paths such as video game design, web design, architectural design, mobile apps and animation in movie and television.  Susan was able to bring in byproducts of her digital art that included t-shirts, canvas tote bags and note cards.  The camps ended with the students being able to learn just what a .jpeg file is and how they can save their portrait as a file to share with people or to places that can print on all kinds of products.   After the camp session was over, each student seemed proud of their self-portrait, and we are led to believe that under each mask there’s a painted smile.