Children and teenagers will be given a rare chance to develop their computing skills with world-class computing scientists at the first summer computing camps to be conducted by Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s Qatar Computing Research Institute, later this month.
QCRI will run two separate programmes – two separate week-long Young Makers Camps for children aged 9 to 12, and a two-week Arduino Teen Camp for teenagers aged 14 to 18 – from Sunday, 16 July to Thursday, 27 July. Both programmes are free and will be conducted at QCRI’s Creative Space Lab, within the HBKU Research Complex in Education City. QCRI’s Director of Educational Initiatives Dr Eman Fituri said that no prior experience was required for the camps, with fun activities coordinated by the research institute’s scientists.
We want kids to become creators of technology, we want them to learn how to invent and innovate and solve problems that can assist their everyday lives.’
The Young Makers Camp will provide students with hands-on challenges to encourage creative problem solving, teamwork and innovation. The children will learn design, coding and how to develop engineering solutions over five daily three-hour sessions. Dr Fituri said the second week’s activities would be different from the first for students wanting to register for both weeks of the computing camp.
Participants in the two-week Arduino Teen Camp will learn how to create electronic gadgets that can interact with the real world, in three-hour daily sessions during the fortnight-long course between 16 and 27 July.
QCRI successfully launched its Creative Space at an open house event in May. About 100 children from kindergarten to Grade 12 were registered for the event within a day of it being announced – and they didn’t want to leave.
To learn more about HBKU and register to attend any of the upcoming events, visit hbku.edu.qa.