Tech-savvy students in Madera show off skills and creativity at ‘Techventures’ camp

MADERA, Calif. (KFSN) — It may be summer, but creativity never sleeps.

Tech-savvy students in Madera are using their skills to create games, animation and movies.

Students are taking part in Techventures, one of the camps Madera Unified offers for Summer Squad.

Students rotate through four courses including stop motion, digital art anime edition, 3D makers den, and game design studio.

Director of Expanded Learning Programs, Suzanne Dudney, says this was specifically designed for seventh, eighth and ninth grade students.

“The reason that we wanted to provide them with this tech experience is because, for one, that age group is really into tech anyway, and also we wanted to shift our focus of these camps to be a little more career exploration,” Dudney said.

In each course, students listen to instructions but get plenty of opportunities to be hands-on.

“It engages them, it makes them curious and gives them those extra skills so that they’re not afraid to use the technology in the future,” Dudney said.

The classes are led by GrowthPoint Technology, whose course instructors are able to give hands-on guidance throughout.

“The teachers are really great. It’s the people are also very funny here. So it’s just, I really like this camp,” student Michael Magos said.

Michael says the camp will benefit him as he gets older. That’s because he wants to go into game design or animation.

“We’re learning so much about art, animation and just so much stuff. It will give me a lot of opportunities in life,” Michael said.

At the end of the week, in the game design studio course, students will be able to publish the game they created in Roblox. That way, they’ll be able to play from their own account at home.

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