What's camp really like?

Sneak a peek into this journal entry from one of our campers.

This girl drove three hours to a place she didn't want to go. Melissa shares her story with us.

From Melissa's mother: "I am sending you Melissa's journal entry that she has been working on ....she has not stopped discussing,researching, and experimenting with all her "stuff", she plans on trying some things when we go to the desert camping this weekend....my husband and I are so pleased with her experience even with $75.00 in parking violations that I racked up.....it was awesome and our friends from Las Vegas will be signing up for August. We are hoping to get our other friend who lives in south county to sign up, then we would probably be there for a couple of days and would like to stop in. Thanks for everything!" ~ Jana, Skipper, and Melissa.

Melissa's Unedited Journal Entry:

Schooling through half of spring break seemed like anything but great until last week when the hours at the desk paid off at science camp. I was not really looking forward to driving all the way to San Luis Obispo the day after Easter for a science camp. I wanted to stay home and work Chip, my horse, but that was not going to happen.

Aurora Lipper, owner of the Supercharged Science Company, put on the Supercharged Spring-Break Science Camp, which was held a Cal Poly. Aurora had done a demonstration at Valley Oaks Charter School that I attended with the Wilburs. To my surprise, she was not an ordinary teacher or scientist. She was more like a genius scientist with a pilot's license, a year of experience with NASA, a mechanical engineer, and the mind of a pyrotechnic. She had also attended Cal Ploy College . Aurora exploded things right in front of our eyes, taught us how to make rockets from soda bottles and why Mentos create a chemical reaction when concocted with diet soda. Later added to my knowledge was that she used PVC pipe, airplane propellers, a lawn chair and a few other gadgets to attempt to make a hovercraft! However, that was last year, it did not seem that great any more, and I thought I had better things to do like zipline, finish uncompleted projects, and of course ride Chip.

At 7:00 A.M. Mom and I were on the way to Cal Poly for our first day of explosions and science. The camp ran from 10:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. ; four hours that flew by like one (it was also for ages 8-12.). Again, another teaching surprise; the day started off with indoor explosions of "Magic Powders" instead of boring "name games" and classroom rules about obeying the teacher or class helpers! We talked about the three things needed to make a flame: a spark, fuel, and oxygen.

Aurora asked us to name some different fuels and when I was called on I answered, "Magnesium and dynamite." Hard to believe I was the only one who had an answer like that. Aurora used the "Magic Powder" to teach us about density. If the fuel of the fire is too dense, the spark will not become a burning flame because there is not enough oxygen moving through the fuel.

Towards the end of the day, the class did the Mentos and soda experiment. There is a chemical reaction between the ingredients of Mentos and diet soda; when put together in a two-liter soda bottle, the reaction creates a soda geyser! Some soda geysers were about ten feet tall! I observed that Diet Coke O' Cola and Diet Pepsi creates the best geysers. The day ended with launching our own soda bottle water rockets!

Tuesday was a very and literally "shocking" day as we "did" electricity! The morning was spent shocking ourselves with a low voltage shock machine and the afternoon was spent playing with all sorts of electronics. Connecting battery packs to motors, switches, lights, and buzzers was a blast! I was very excited when it came time to make boobie traps.

Aurora taught us how to make bugler alarms to keep people out of our rooms and pressure sensors to detect our moms coming down the hallway! I can not wait to do some more electricity experiments and play with the battery packs, motors, buzzers, and LED lights that Aurora gave me! I also learned a secret on how to shock mom and dad physically and literally!

Lasers are one of the best-fabricated lights ever! Wednesday was laser day. I was delighted to learn that LASER is a word like NASA. LASER stands for: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation! I had no clue that the letters in laser were initials! Aurora set up about ten or so lasers on the classroom tables turned off the lights, turned on two fog machines, and let us play with the lasers for about an hour!

There were many different things on the tables to put in front of the lasers like mirrors, flexible mirrors, clear prisms of different shapes, and gits and gadgets. The lasers we were using were not ordinary pet lasers; they were strong enough to hurt the eye, so everybody had to wear sunglasses and if you pointed a laser in a person's eye, you were sent out! I also learned that the human eye is toned to green; therefore, it is much easier to see a green laser beam than it is to see a red one. With the lights out and the fog machines on, it enabled us to see clearly the beams of the red lasers! We were given ink pens with lasers on the eraser end to take home; these lasers were even stronger than the ones used in class!

Thursday was hot and cold and it fizzed, bubbled, and popped! Otherwise, Thursday was a colorful chemistry day! I was not surprised to learn that while doing a chemistry test in college, Aurora blew up a lab! There were no windows left in the room after the explosion (sounds like something that I would do)! Making three different varieties of slime was very slippery! We made farting slime, stretching slime, and snot slime! ( Aurora has over 240 recipes for slime!)

After lunch, everybody watched Aurora make "Elephant Toothpaste" It did not explode, but Aurora did it over a storm drain and we had to stand far back because of the dangerous chemicals! The chemicals are so dangerous, that people are not usually allowed to see this experiment until they take a chemistry class in college! The rest of the afternoon was spent mixing different chemicals on our own. No matter how we mixed them, they would not harm us. However, some would turn hot, some cold, and almost all of them would bubble, fizz, and change colors!! I mixed this one chemical in a powder form with a two to one ratio of hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol and the result was some sort of rubber ball that bounced!

I was a bit more than perplexed! I thought it was the greatest thing in the world until I learned how to walk on water! Aurora add a "chemical" to a tub of water, but there was more water than the chemical, and everybody in the class was able to "walk on water"!

Robots were roaming all over the classroom floor on Friday! Building robots was a blast! I came home with four different robots! I made a jiggle-bot, a water bot, and a race-a-bot! All of them were made from battery packs, small water proof motors, and all of the junk that we had saved (junk: cardboard, Styrofoam, plastic.). The best part was cleaning up! The five tables in the classroom were covered in all sorts of cool "stuff" and Aurora gave us each a empty trash bag to fill up with all the stuff we could gather! I came home with battery packs, lights, popsicle sticks, paper clips, brads, film canisters, and every thing in-between!

Science Camp was a totally awesome experience and can't wait to go back with Madison and Gavin this summer! I made and came home with so many cool things and plan to make more! We are going to Red Rock this weekend and I am going to take some experiments to blow up!

Thanks to Melissa and her family for sharing her story with us!