Summer Camps

Item Description

Beam Camp http://www.beamcamp.com is an overnight summer program offering two 4 week summer sessions for boys and girls aged 7-17 in Strafford, New Hampshire. At Beam kids learn to make their ideas happen through fine and manual arts, technology and collaboration. Beam Campers cultivate hands-on skills while exploring innovative thinking, design and the creative process. They build, swim, hike, play games and enjoy 750 acres of mountain, forests and lakes.

Every summer Beam commissions unique large-scale collaborative Projects that serve as the centerpieces of each Beam session. Campers work alongside our full-time and visiting staff of architects, videographers, builders, engineers, designers, and makers of all kinds to bring the Project to life. Our Projects have included a solar-powered movie about a trip to the sun, geodesic domes replicating virus protein shells, human-scaled animal habitats, re-creations of early flying machines and many others that you can check out at http://goo.gl/A51oj.

This summer's Projects were selected from among forty submissions from sixteen countries and are both multi-layered building undertakings that reflect Beam’s core emphasis on cultivating creative thinking and applied collaborative effort. In “Creature Quake” (Session 1 June 28-July 22),  Rachel Kunreuther and Douglas Stookey’s proposal will reshape the camp’s landscape to reveal enormous creatures in earth, sky and lake. Beam campers and staff will construct an array of large-scale forms and structures imbued with their own kind of life and movement. In “Navigating Dreams” (Session 2 July 22-August 19), proposed by Matthew Springett Associates, Beam campers and staff will construct a new night sky of LED constellations controlled and navigated by a boat-machine.

Every week in the afternoons, each camper chooses a new Domain, in-depth, hands-on, discovery activities in the arts, sciences, athletic or cultural fields. They work closely with a Beam Guide or visiting expert to explore disciplines, techniques or projects in smaller groups. They've made short movies, catapults, hot air balloons, wilderness shelters, developed circuitry, studied kung fu, built traditional Balinese gamelan instruments, weaved fabrics, rowboats from branches and tarps, solar cookers, performed in DIY rock bands, knitted bags, produced plays. The territory is wide and changes every week and every summer.

Can be used for Summer 2012 or Summer 2013!