When June, 2026, arrives, CAMP will be in session at The Tech Interactive, in San Jose!

And it’s new, exciting and going to be a lot of fun.

Family-friendly technology and science center The Tech is currently in the final stages of designing their first summer camp experience!

Called CAMP from the acronym “Create, Adapt, Make and Play”, the program is a day camp, hosted at The Tech, for students from third to sixth grade.

The program

There will be eight one-week sessions, with four themes: BioTinkering, Ultimate Upcycle, Kinetic Commotion and Planet Protectors. Each theme is offered for two weeks.

Depending on which themed week they choose to attend, campers may find themselves building a Rube Goldberg machine. Or creating bioconcrete and kombucha leather. Or making a device that can become a different device–or a lot of other fun activities where they don’t even realized how much they’re learning

“We have partnered with other organizations to have camps at our site, but we have for a very long time now wanted to do a camp ourselves and…really have ownership of it,” says Summer Camps Program Manager Liz O’Hare.

Fun plus rigor equals learning

Liz, whose background includes eleven years as a classroom teacher, as well as designing curricula and training educators at The Tech, says designing The Tech’s new program is “super fun”.

“I think summer camp is a really amazing time for kids to really figure out what they love and what they are interested in,” she says. And that discovery is one of her passions as an educator–along with, she says, being “silly” and having fun.

Liz explained some of the ways combining rigorous subjects with a “fun” approach leads to that discovery process, offered a preview of some of the CAMP programs and shared her vision for the future.

On this edition of Over Coffee® we cover:

• How Liz first realized that rigor and fun go together;

• A classroom project she introduced, that changed students’ minds about “hating math”!;

• How the CAMP program came about;

• A closer look at some of the activities planned for the CAMPers;

• What “bioconcrete” is;

• How the activities will differ for the two age groups, the “Gizmos” and the “Gadgets”;

• A definition of SCOBYs;

• What the CAMPers’ days will be like;

• A special benefit they’ll enjoy, on Mondays;

• One of the outdoor games they’ll play;

• What Liz has found most fun, and most rigorous, about designing the new CAMP program;

• How to register;

• Information on possible scholarships for the future–and a discount for this summer;

• Another program happening at The Tech in April, before CAMP starts;

• Liz’s vision for CAMP at The Tech in the future.