SERC welcomes teenagers for innovative Summer Camp

Budding engineers and computing experts were recently given the opportunity to experience life at SERC at an innovative Computing and Engineering Summer Camp for young people aged 14-18.

The event at the Colleges SPACE Campus in Bangor was hosted by SERC tutors, in collaboration with Crossroad Care NI. The three-day boot camp aimed to teach the young people basic programming and fabrication skills while also firing their imagination and giving them an insight into college life.

Crossroads Care NI is a local charity supporting, serving and strengthening people with care needs and their carers.  Crossroads Young Carers supports children and young people who are caring for an ill/disabled family member daily. 

Five Young Carers took part in the engineering portion of the Summer School which involved designing and fabricating their very own project using different techniques including bending, cutting, rolling, welding and finishing. While three took part in the computing section which gave them a glimpse of what it takes to be a games developer. During the event they covered different aspects of the development process ranging from 2D Platformer games like Fez and Sonic to creating 3D Games such as Zelda Breath of the Wild. The students used the development suite Unity with aspects of programming using Visual Studio and C# to put all the pieces together to have a functional playable game.

Speaking about his experience, Young Carer Josh McCready who has experienced SERC through occupational studies said “This is my third year taking part in the Summer School. I have thoroughly enjoyed it and have learned new skills and I hope to attend SERC in the coming year.”

Andrea Breadon from Crossroad Care NI explains: “Caring at a young age can have an adverse impact in the longer term on education, social and emotional development.  Opportunities such as the Summer Camp not only enable our young carers to gain practical skills but it also provides inspiration for their future education and employment.

“The young carers involved thoroughly enjoyed the experience and spoke very highly of the teaching and facilities available at SERC.  Crossroads Care NI greatly appreciates the help and support South Eastern Regional College has provided and looks forward to future collaborations.”

SERC tutor Stephen Devlin, who delivered the programme said “The Summer Camp was designed to open participants minds to the huge variety of exciting career options available to them in the IT sector. This is the age they will start thinking about their school options and future careers, so coming here and learning what skills and qualifications they will need is a good start. It is a real opportunity for participants to try something completely new while, at the same time, enabling them to experience college life. Amidst the fun of the hands-on approach to learning, participants will get the unique opportunity to learn new life skills.”