CADC Summer Camps Prepare High School Students for College

During the CADC camps, students lived on campus for a week, experiencing life as a college student, and spent their time learning the basics of their chosen field from Auburn faculty members.

Design and Construction Discovery Camp

At Design and Construction Discovery Camp, rising high school juniors and seniors were taught by faculty from six of the CADC’s undergraduate majors, including architecture, landscape architecture, environmental design, industrial design, graphic design and building science. DCDC is a scholarship camp, and all students were selected to attend based on a submitted application. Those selected attended at no cost. The camp is open to all students with a focus on students from underrepresented geographic locations and backgrounds. This year’s camp was sponsored by Seay, Seay and Litchfield, Thalamus and AIA Chattanooga. The camp was led by Katherine Buck Chastain, the CADC’s Recruitment and Scholarship Manager, with help from Assistant Camp Director Amy Brinkerhoff.

Each day of the camp focused on one of the three schools in the CADC, and faculty members taught lessons and assigned projects that helped to reinforce learning about their particular disciplines.

Architecture Assistant Professor Jen Pindyck, Landscape Architecture Assistant Professor Frank Hu and Environmental Design Assistant Professors Kelly Homan and Eilís Finnegan completed projects with the students that focused on understanding how to create space, computer aided design principles and the built environment.

Industrial Design Associate Professor Ben Bush, Graphic Design Associate Professor Courtney Windham and Industrial Design Associate Professor Jerrod Windham completed projects focused on branding and product design.

Building Science Associate Professor Lauren Redden completed a construction estimating project with the students, and Robins and Morton Field Lab Coordinator Andrew Hughes worked with the students to build a picnic table.  During their week on campus, DCDC students also completed a personal project which was displayed along with all the major specific projects in the end of camp exhibition.

Construction Management Summer Academy for Young Women

Building Science Associate Professor Lauren Redden led the Construction Management Summer Academy for Young Women, hosted by Auburn’s McWhorter School of Building Science (BSCI). The program is geared toward rising 11^th–12^th grade female students interested in learning about the exciting and diverse career opportunities available in construction management. The camp is a scholarship program, and all students were selected to attend based on an application process. Those selected attended at no cost. This year’s program was sponsored by Brasfield and Gorrie, Fulcrum Construction, Hoar Construction, Robins & Morton and The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company. We also received support from Thompson CAT of Opelika, Thalamus and Rabren Construction.

The camp is designed to provide hands-on experience incorporating construction methods and technologies as well as safety, project management and other key industry topics. The camp also gives participants a chance to interact with faculty, industry professionals and current students.

During the week, campers learned about the different facets of the careers of construction managers, built dog houses for the CARE Humane Society at the Robins and Morton Field Lab, visited an active construction site and worked in collaborative team exercises specific to the construction industry to encourage critical thinking and develop deeper problem-solving skills.

Architecture Camp

Associate Professor Christian Dagg of Auburn’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture taught three separate week-long Architecture camps for high school juniors and seniors. Each camp began with lessons in hand drawing, reading floor plans and sketching perspectives.

Once they had mastered these basics, the students drew their favorite room at home by memory, since sketching from memory is a skill that mimics communicating built solutions to paper. Toward the end of the week, campers focused on model making, and used a laser cutter to produce a kit of pre-drawn elements. They then used those elements to build a six-inch scale model of a set of stairs, the challenge being in working with the limited number of pieces they had.

In addition to the studio activities, the students visited the Mell Classroom Building and toured campus to view new and traditional buildings as they observed architecture in the field.

Building Construction Camp

The Building Construction Camp was led by Jonathan Tucker, BSCI Senior Lecturer and Field Lab Manager. The primary focus of the camp was the hands-on construction of an 8’ x 10’ storage shed that was donated to the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity. During the course of the camp, students had to explain their estimate, sketch up a model and present the completed product.

Students also attended presentations on various aspects of construction led by BSCI faculty members. These included contracting business, with Senior lecturer Drew Yantis; estimating, with Associate Professor Lauren Redden; scheduling, led by Paul Holley, Professor and Director of the Center for Construction Innovation and Collaboration; the CIT Model, taught by Darren Olsen, Atlanta Auburn Building Science Alumni Committee Associate Professor; and Safety and Quality Control, with Andy Hughes, Field Lab Coordinator.

Industrial Design Workshop

Three sessions of the Industrial Design Workshop, hosted by the School of Industrial and Graphic Design, were led by Industrial Design Associate Professor Ben Bush. This year’s theme was “You can’t rebel against systems that you’re dependent on,” or YCRASYDO for short. Each day of the camp revolved around exposure to a different skill or experience.

Participants worked on branding concepts and attended a session on the anatomy of type and how industrial and graphic design complement one another, led by Graphic Design Assistant Professor Mario Bocanegra. As part of the exercise, the students also made their own sketchbooks for use throughout the week.

Later, the campers learned to use sewing machines to make their own growbags, then visited with Industrial Design Associate Professor Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness and her class for a sketchnoting activity. Then it was on to martial arts training and designing using that experience.

Next for the students was a trip to the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering‘s Center for Polymer and Advanced Composites for some perspective on the interaction between the two disciplines.  Campers got to use an injection molder and see how plastic is processed and reclaimed. Finally, the students finished the week with an introduction to soldering and by building and customizing their own Bluetooth speakers.

A Great Summer

At the end of the summer the CADC had seen more than 200 high school students participate in a camp. These students pushed the boundaries of what the faculty thought possible for just one week of instruction.

“June and July are always exciting months in the CADC because we get to see the future of our college in the work that these high school summer camp attendees do,” stated Chastain. “I can say with confidence that the future for the CADC is bright, and I can’t wait for next summer!”