This camp has finished.

Spring Break Camp: If you love watching 3D animated movies, this is the camp for you! Discover how to create your own 3D animations just like they do in the movies. Using Blender, an open-source 3D modeling program, students, in collaboration with their peers, will learn the basics of 3D modeling and animation to produce their own short movie.

• Monday, March 25 - Friday, March 29, 2024 from 1:00-4:00pm.

• This camp is for students aged 11-14 years.

This camp has finished.

Spring Break Camp: Design your own video game! In this introductory camp, you will learn how to create your own adventure game using basic game mechanics. Design your own hero, create your own world and chose your adventure. You will learn how to code and script-program your own 2D games using Inkscape and Godot. Finally, you will be able to upload your game to the internet and play it with friends and family.

• Monday, March 25 to Friday, March 29, 2024 from 9:00am - 12:00noon

• This camp is for students aged 11-14 years.

Ever wanted to fall inside a black hole and see what happens? In this camp, you'll do that and return to tell the tale! You will learn simple but powerful tools to "hack" physics and discover the properties of black holes, from the real astrophysical ones seen by the Event Horizon Telescope and LIGO, to ideas at the cutting edge of high energy theory. Being a physics hacker requires no more than a bit of algebra and an open mind; everything else you can pick up along the way!

• Monday August 14 - Friday August 18, 2023; 9:00am - 12:00noon.

• This camp is designed for students aged 14-17 years.

Observe the hidden history of Vancouver all around us by examining the traces of its past. In this camp, we will take public transit and visit the historical neighbourhoods of the city we all love with our tour guide and history teacher, Kieran Forry. We will visit Gas Town and explore the first Downtown Core of Vancouver, learn about city planning on the seawall and discover how Expo ‘86 changed our city forever. The city’s streets and buildings have a lot to teach us, we just need to know where to look.

• Tuesday August 8 - Friday August 11, 2023; 9:00am - 12:00noon.

• This camp is designed for students aged 11-16 years.

For new and experienced coders alike, in this camp you'll create your own simple video games using PuzzleScript. Taught by a former UBC computer science professor, you will learn about coding, algorithmic thinking skills, and how to design engaging games. Everything you make will be visual, creative, and playable from day one!

• Monday July 31 - Friday August 4, 2023; 9:30am-12:30pm.

• This camp is designed for students aged 10-14 years.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is defined as "using computers to do things that traditionally require human intelligence such as visual perceptions, speech recognition, decision making, etc." How can we make computers do these things? That is what you will discover in this camp. Using a program called EdgeImpulse, you will train your own cell phone or laptop to classify what it sees, hears and feels. AI Engineers and Data Scientists will be impressed.

• Monday July 24 - Friday July 28, 2023; 9:00am-12:00noon.

• This camp is designed for students aged 12-16 years.

• No prior experience is necessary, but this camp is a great extension for those students who have previously taken our “Machine Learning, Demystified” camp.

Enhance your science learning and achieve an understanding of a variety of topics to prepare for STEM design competitions. Students will be given a series of challenges and will cooperate to design and build machines, structures, and devices that can solve real-world problems. The camp integrates resources from the current British Columbia curriculum and supplemental teaching and exercise materials from the instructor. By the end of the camp, students will possess a detailed understanding of the course topics, skills in designing and building tools and experiments and have a broader understanding of careers in STEM. Let’s have fun and see how exciting science can be!

• Monday July 10 - Friday July 14, 2023; 9:00am-12:00noon.

• This camp is designed for students aged 10-13 years.

Are you interested in exploring the art of writing and creating visual art that connects to your writing? This is the camp for you. Together with other young, creative writers, you will try out new ways to write, choosing ideas and topics that are important to you. Work with artist Kathleen Schmalz to create visual art that illustrates your writing. You will share your writing and art with other young authors and artists by publishing your work on the VISST website along with the creative work of other VISST summer camp participants.

• Tuesday July 4 - Friday July 7, 2023; 1:00-4:00pm.

• This camp is designed for students aged 9-12 years.

• Make it a full day camp experience: Combine this camp with our A Sustainable World camp.

Delve into sustainability and learn about the “United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”, while experimenting, making deep observations, and playing active games. We break down complex topics such as biodiversity, clean energy and population health into easily understood concepts to expand and deepen students’ understanding of the world around them.

• Tuesday July 4 - Friday July 7, 2023; 9:00am - 12:00noon.

• This camp is designed for students aged 8-11 years.

• Make it a full day camp experience: Combine this camp with our Adventures in Writing and Arts camp.

Self-driving cars, paintings authored by algorithms, artificial intelligences that seem almost human — machine learning is the thread that ties these amazing technologies together. So, is machine learning only accessible to researchers and engineers at powerful tech companies? Nope! This camp was designed — by an expert with a PhD from Harvard’s machine learning lab — to introduce you to the world of machine learning. No computer science or machine learning experience is expected.

• Every Saturday, 10:00am-12:00noon, April 15 to June 3 2023 (8 sessions).

• Suitable for students aged 12+ years.

• Students should bring their own laptops.

Ever wondered how printers can magically take a 3D model and turn it into a physical object? In this practical, small-group camp students explore their creativity by designing their own 3D models using Blender. They learn how 3D printers work and have the opportunity to print their own designs in VISST’s very own on-site Maker Lab on our state-of-the-art 3D printers.

• Every Friday, 4:30-6:00pm, March 31 to May 5, 2023

• Suitable for students aged 12+ years.

What data is collected when you use TikTok or other social media? Should you care? In this Spring Break camp, you’ll learn by turning the tables - unravel “the algorithm”, create your own targeted ads, look behind the scenes of data collection, and more.

• Mon-Fri, 10:00am-1:30pm, March 20-24, 2023.

• This is a virtual (online) camp for students aged 11-15 years.

Design your own video game! In this introductory camp, you will learn how to create your own adventure game using basic game mechanics. Design your own hero, create your own world and chose your adventure. You will learn how to code and script-program your own 2D games using Inkscape and Godot. Finally, you will be able to upload your game to the internet and play it with friends and family.

• Every Saturday, 10:00am-12:00noon, February 4 to to March 24, 2023 (8 sessions).

• This camp is for students aged 10-14 years.