UMKC, Google Fiber Host App Camps Through Aug. 5
For some students at App Camp, politics served as inspiration for their app development.
“It’s all anyone talks about now,” said Jalen (Lincoln College Prep, 9th grade), co-creator of “Wack a Mole,” an app designed to poke fun of presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton.
Jalen and his partner Brandon (University Academy, 9th grade) brainstormed the idea as they were contemplating a unique concept for their App Camp final project.
“You try to hit their faces as many times as you can to get points,” Brandon demonstrated.
App Camp, a week-long camp hosted by the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s School of Computing and Engineering and Google Fiber, is designed to provide 9th – 12th grade students the necessary skills to program an application for an Android smartphone. Classes are taught by School of Computing and Engineering undergraduate students.
For many participants, the best part of App Camp was simply being on the computer all day. After all, kids their age are considered to be among the most tech-savvy generations – the latter part of the Millennial (born 1980-2000) generation and iGen (born 2001-2013).
“I tried to show my dad our app, and he was so confused,” said Sarah (Home School, 11th grade). “And he’s supposed to be a computer genius!”
Sarah and her partner Nidhi (Blue Valley, 9th grade) created a culinary app that provides recipes based upon each user’s course selection: appetizer, dinner, dessert. The creativity and skill in each group’s app creation was both unique and exceptional.
During App Camp, students spend four days learning to code and build their own apps, and on the final day they conduct a marketing presentation at Google Fiber Space. Awards are also presented on the final day for Best App, Best Presentation and other categories.
App Camp is hosted in three independent sessions: July 18-22, July 25-29 and Aug. 1-5. Every summer, UMKC’s School of Computing and Engineering partners with local STEM companies to offer hands-on summer camps for youth at no cost. The goal of each camp is to inspire future generations to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
“It’s fun to learn new things,” said Sarah. “With guidance, we can get an app done in 45 minutes.”
Kelsey Haynes | Division of Strategic Marketing and Communications