IN Pine-Richland Summer 2019 | Page 40

SPONSORED CONTENT BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT SPONSORED CONTENT GET YOUR CHILD A BLACK BELT IN COMPUTER PROGRAMMING I f you’re looking for a summer camp that’s tons of fun, allergen-free and has a 0 percent chance of poison ivy, the Code Ninjas summer camps are for you. Code Ninjas, a computer programming academy that uses the martial arts theme as an analogy for coding, has 11 unique summer camps ranging from Robotics to Javascript to Roblox Create to choose from. Camps have both full- and half-day options, with a full- day camp lasting from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., each day. Owned by Veronica Yusz-Meyner and Dave Meyner, a husband and wife team of engineers, Code Ninjas is a place where absolute novices can master the computer languages of C# and Javascript by the time they earn their black belts in coding. “Everyone goes through a belt system and starts with Scratch—a programming language geared toward small children developed by MIT,” said Yusz-Meyner. “They work up to C# and Javascript and, at the end of their training, they are able to submit an app that they created to the App Store.” The way Code Ninjas works is through a self-paced, drop-in curriculum. The dojo has space for up to 30 students at a time, but the drop-in scheduling means that there will always be seats 38 724.942.0940 TO ADVERTISE ❘ icmags.com available. It also means parents don’t have to worry about having another commitment on the calendar that they need to plan around. Instructors, or senseis, help kids through the curriculum and ensure that kids can advance at their own pace. The results of their learning can be seen almost immediately as they create games out of predefined building blocks of code. “The first step is getting students to think like programmers, think about the logic and progression of things, how to order them so that they flow, and then how to make that happen,” Meyner said. “In the beginning, they’re learning problem solving and group teamwork. They’re working just as they would be on a programming development team, but they’re all working on their own individual projects. They won’t just be sitting there typing away. This has been created to be fun and it really is.” For more information on Code Ninjas, go to codeninjas.com/ locations/pa-wexford online, where you can see a full overview of the program and request more information to be sent to you via email. For more information on the summer camps in particular, go to codeninjas.com/camps/pa-wexford.