UMaine Summer CAD Camp 2008 Blends Computer-Aided Design with Outdoors Recreation
Contact: Karen Horton, 581-2136
Sheila Pendse, 581-1427
George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO — Creative Design at CAD Camp at the University of Maine, for Grade 9-12 students, is accepting registration and scholarship applications for the seventh annual camp session, July 6-11.
Combining outdoor adventure challenges with an introduction to computer-aided design (CAD) for young people, Creative Design at CAD Camp is fun and educational for students, regardless of their computing abilities, says camp director Karen Horton, a UMaine associate professor of mechanical engineering technology.
Traditionally, CAD modeling has been used in architecture, highway and bridge design, but now includes virtually everything that is manufactured today, from machine parts to the fashion items.
“It also can be used in a broader application for art,” Horton adds. Use of CAD software also has expanded into landscape design, jewelry-making, video game-creation and interior decoration.
During the week-long camp, students learn their way around the artistic application of CAD software, starting with basic three-dimensional shapes such as slabs, spheres, cones, cylinders and wedges and then adding color, texture, light variations and shadows. They can build 3D art from photographs or other digital images.
Sponsored by the College of Engineering and featuring the MaineBound Adventure Center, as many as 40 campers will stay in residence halls on the Orono campus for a week of creative fun, teamwork and recreation. They’ll spend part of the day in classrooms with UMaine engineering faculty members, learning about three-dimensional computer modeling and part of the day canoeing on the Stillwater River, at the University Forest ropes course or at the MaineBound Adventure Center climbing wall on campus.
Experienced faculty members from the mechanical engineering technology program provide CAD instruction; MaineBound staff members take over for a Maine outdoors experience on the 760-acre UMaine campus. Campers arrive with a sense of curiosity and leave at the end of the week with new computer skills, confidence and career training for the future. Horton adds that the students “have so much fun along the way” and make great long-lasting friendships.
“Everybody really enjoys it,” Horton says. “It’s a very social camp. A lot of the campers keep up with each other during the year. I think that’s one of the many aspects that make it really fun.”
Students come from throughout the Northeast and also from southern and Midwestern parts of the country.
Once on campus, girls and guys are housed in separate wings of a dormitory and have their meals at The Marketplace food court and cafeteria in the UMaine Memorial Union. MaineBound Adventure Center staff members serve as counselors in residence halls and for outdoors activities, including a barbecue and social gatherings.
The camp is sponsored by the UMaine College of Engineering, MaineBound Adventure Center, the Maine Department of Transportation and Bentley Systems, Inc., which provides the CAD software. Camp scholarships are available for girls, low-income students and children from cultures typically underrepresented in the engineering field. For information about the camp or scholarships, please contact Sheila Pendse in the College of Engineering at (207) 581-1427.
Additional information, including illustrations of student art from previous camps, is available on the Creative design at CAD Camp website.