A maker camp designed to empower kids to tackle large-scale art and engineering challenges with their pulleys? ropes?) and why (superhero?
At Project Ember, our goal is to empower kids to design and build concrete solutions to abstract problems. Our prompts merge objective engineering challenges with artistic freedom in a process we call World Building. We’re in awe of the worlds kids dream up, so we don’t use blueprints or prefabricated kits to solve our design challenges - we use kids’ authentic creativity. Camp always starts with
07/14/2022
T-2 days till Project Demonstration for Session B. Our campers are hard at work bring out theme BART: Bay Area ✨REALM🪄 Transit to life. Their creations are truly one of a kind, and we can’t wait to show you all the clever delights and mechanisms that await. Stay tuned!
06/29/2022
Ohhhh hi there friends! It’s been a while since y’all heard from us here at Ember, but at long last, camp is here again! Follow along as we tackle our first project of summer; Mundane Tasks in Alternate Dimensions! A lot of ingenuity awaits!
08/04/2021
Most of our projects from Session 2 were too big to fit in a standard Instagram box! Behold the Mushroom Tower 🍄 from Team Mushy Peas (h/t for loaning us this parachute to make our mushy dreams a reality.) This platform afforded us quite the view of the rest of our worksite. Incredible job everyone- we are so proud of your effort. 👊
07/29/2021
2021 has been full of team names, including Sherman, named for - the largest tree in the world. The Sherman’s are also building Project Ember’s largest structure ever, appropriately, a giant Sequoia. Stay tuned for some projects of epic proportions. Demonstration day will be here before you know it!
07/23/2021
A couple of years ago, we started playing Exquisite Co**se during staff training lead by the inimitable .ro.lo as we dreamed up the parts of a SUPER Collaborator. This summer, we’ve brought exquisite co**se creatures to life every session… we don’t want to ruin the surprise for our final summer sessions, so stay tuned for more details about this project soon, but for now, please enjoy our monsters 👾👹🐲
07/23/2021
Authentic teamwork. We can’t do this without everybody teamwork. Stand back and admire what we just pulled off together teamwork. This is the feeling we missed most while isolated from one another last summer. Our favorite part about going big is how we truly have to work together to pull it off.
Monster Mash aka The Creature Feature aka Exquisite Co**se Projects are a wrap at Overnight! Tomorrow is main project announcement! 🥁 💫 👏
07/20/2021
Farewell Overnight Session 1! What an epic return to camp. Thank you for joining us for our first ever two-week sleepaway, for working through the challenges of returning to communal living, for making it through the groan zone to pull off awesome projects for demonstration, and for supporting each other throughout camp. We’re so proud of what you pulled off, and we’ll be replaying your award worthy karaoke nights in our heads for years to come. See you next time!
Testing, testing… 3, 2, 1!
Tomorrow is our first overnight demonstration day in two years!! We’re so proud of the effort our campers have put in after and the resilience they’ve shown after enduring all the last year threw at us. It’s been so wonderful to be back in community. Stay tuned for lots of celebration!
07/16/2021
Big things are happening at Day Camp! Tomorrow is somehow already a wrap on Session B- four weeks of camp already! Our campers are nearly ready to share their “Bridge to Wow” projects with the other cohorts. We aren’t able to have guests this year, but we are celebrating big and bright with our campers and collaborators. Thanks for another beautiful session.
07/13/2021
Pond day was a hit! Our host CYO has a long standing tradition of having a food-fight style war in the pond throwing azolla from boat to boat. The campers affectionately named the plant “broccoli” and have been offering it for sale while cruising around the pond. 🥦Tonight we’ll be back in the shop for an evening build in the cooler temperatures!
07/13/2021
We took refuge from the heat of the last few days in the cool shade of the towering redwoods. After a quick lesson on lashing, our campers had the morning for a session of non-power tool fort building with found materials. Despite being only a stone’s throw from our build-site, being in the redwoods felt like stepping through a portal into another world all together! Check out all their beautiful structures. 🌲
07/07/2021
Hello to our long lost friends! We’ve been radio silent for too long as we planned a safe reopening of camp. Both day camp and our first week of overnight are back in session, and we could not be more excited to have kids at camp again. At times this year it felt impossible, but the magic is 100% back seeing all these new and familiar faces. Thanks for keeping us alive this last year! More updates from camp coming soon. Stay tuned!