Franklin Virginia Camp Day 1 & 2

Day 1 started with an introduction camp, the Officially Amazing Minecrafter Camp Booklet and the Survival Challenge. Once we got all the basics out of the way we opened up 3 servers. A basic biome creative world, an incredibly cool survival world with all the biomes in less than 2000 blocks (thx Shane Asselstine) and the tutorial world. 
It was a great start as we were able to find out what the campers enjoyed and their level of game play.
After the basics we learned about redstone. Everyone worked on building a part of a theme park using redstone. Campers built incredible rollercoasters that would make the most iron stomached rider sick. 
After lunch we worked on a different creative world. We had a partially built city from the previous camp in San Jose and we took it to a new level. We added, changed and customized the homes. The campers designed, engineered and constructed buildings that would impress anyone. Rooftop pools, modern style beds, powered subway systems, adventure theme park to name a few of the features.
All the campers received the 2015 Camp shirt at the end the day.

Day 2:
Today was a little different as we spent more time outside the game. One of the really important ideas I work to remind players is that we are all humans. It's easy to forget that there's a human behind the in-game avatar. To continue that human theme we collaborated to build the Marshmallow challenge. The kids were split into 5 groups and were tasked to build the tallest structure out of 20 uncooked spaghetti noodles, some tape and string. Take a look at the pictures for more on the Marshmallow challenge.
We also jumped into command blocks. Command blocks are a great way to start kids with simple coding inside Minecraft. Campers were giving blocks, changing the weather, making game sounds and summoning creatures. Everyone was riveted by the power of simple commands.