A summer camp at the University of New Haven is a bit different from the outdoorsy country varieties where kids focus on kicking the soccer ball, catching the football or casting a line into the lake.
On Thursday, UNH finished up the third season of their engineering camp where teens from all over the area learn from professors and professionals in the field.
“We want to excite kids about engineering,” said Ron Harichandran, the Dean of the University of New Haven Engineering School. “People think (engineering) is tough, it’s dry and it can be but it can be really exciting and what we are trying to do is lift up that level of excitement.”
The campers, mostly high school-age, work on small-scale projects with large learning curves such as perfecting model helicopter blades.
“We have to make it so it has a better lift,” said Lena Howard, and incoming sophomore at Amity High in Woodbridge.
While working on a robot arm for a small rover vehicle, Donovan Duncan, a sophomore from Hall High in West Hartford said, “I want to major in mechanical engineering and aerospace technology and this is some fun stuff.”
This year the camp drew three students from a high school in China. Sikorsky served as a sponsor for the camp and also staffed the classrooms with some of their engineers.