“…an urban Woodstock for budding young scientists, engineers, artists and dreamers ” -The New York Times.

The facts:
On February 20 & 21 2010,  Beam Camp, called a “haven for makers” by Makezine.com, and a crew of hearty volunteers (thanks guys!) welcomed 450+ kids and their parents to the marvelous The Invisible Dog for a weekend of collaboration and craft.

What Kids Made Happen:

Pupusas from 20+ pounds of masa
World’s Longest Dollar Chain (donated to Haiti Relief)
125 Brush Bots
75 Paper Automaton Engines
4 gigantic letters spelling the word BEAM
50 kites out of broken umbrellas
75 Altered Books
30+ New World Records
10 Flap-pets
50 Flashbulb Arrays made from recycled disposable cameras
10 lbs of garlic, soy sauce popcorn

Beam Project Leader- Big Beam Letters:
Zaq Landsberg

The Domain Guides:
Christian Cerrito
Eun Jung (EJ) Park
Will MacFarlane for PartsandCrafts
Ayun Halliday
Melissa Bourgeois
David Mahfouda for Fixer’s Collective
Steve Gerberich
Daniela Kostova & Mike DeSeve

Did you go to the Inventgenuity Festival? Tell us what you made?

To say that it’s been a good week for Beam in the media would be a major overstatement. It’s been the ONLY week for Beam in the media. But we’ll take it and hope it’s just the beginning.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/arts/19bkids.html

We are thrilled and honored to have Beam Camp on Makezine.com today. They are our idols.

Check it out: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/beam_camp_a_haven_for_makers.html

BEAM HITS THE ROAD
We’re excited today to announce the first ever Beam Roadtrip.  The Tour begins with a Brooklyn house presentation, winds through Camp Fairs in New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut and culminates with our Beam Brooklyn Winter Weekend.

Each event is a chance for us to meet potential new Beamers and we invite you to join us at any stop along the way. Let us know if you’re thinking about coming by.

BROOKLYN INFO SESSION
On Sunday, December 13th at 11am one of our wonderful Beam families will host an Information Session in Brooklyn. If you’d like to join us, please contact us to reserve a spot.

THE FLOWERS ARE COMING, THE FLOWERS ARE COMING…TO BROOKLYN
Save the dates of Saturday, February 20 and Sunday, February 21 to join us for our Beam Brooklyn Winter Weekend. It’s happening at an incredible new art and cultural center called Invisible Dog at 51 Bergen Street in Cobble Hill. We’ll be exhibiting the Camper-constructed, spectacular 2009 Project, Float With The Flowers, building a mini-Project, running mini-Domains, and setting more World Records and Domains all weekend long. It’ll be like four weeks of camp condensed into two days. All the details will follow shortly.

BEAM 2010 PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENT
Finally, we are thrilled to announce this summer’s Beam Project.  Read all about it in the our news section. It’s hot. We hope you agree.

We’re just about to send our 2010 Brochure to the printer, but you can get it here right now.

See you on the road.

BEAM ON TOUR
Sunday, December 13
Brooklyn House Presentation
Saturday, January 9
Camp Fair @ Dexter-Southfield School in Brookline, MA
Wednesday, January 20
Camp Fair @ Greenwich High School in Greenwich, CT
Saturday, January 30
Camp Fair @ Friends Seminary 222 E16th Manhattan, NY
Sunday, January 31
Camp Fair @ Berkeley Carroll School  Brooklyn, NY
Saturday, February 6
Camp Fair @ Glen Urquhart School in BeverlyFarms, MA
Saturday, February 20 & Sunday, February 21
Beam Brooklyn Winter Weekend

If you’re unfamiliar with the Makezine Empire, the gift-giving season is a good time get to know it. The short version is that Makezine is the Popular Mechanics and Mother Earth News for the Digital-Open Source age. In other words, they document the people who are making unbelievable things in their basements, garages, backyards and labs.

In addition to their great quarterly magazine and website, they have an incredible online gift store chock full of project kits and all sorts of cool stuff likely to be enjoyed by Beamers.

Here’s the link: http://www.makershed.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=69

The Governor’s Wife aka Deadly Suspicion full

A beautiful new camp facility deserves an equally new and beautiful place on the web. So we’re currently preparing a new version of beamcamp.com. Should be ready in a a few weeks. Part of that upgrade will be the Director’s Blog, the first post of which you are reading right now.

On the D-Blog Danny and I will post updates on Beam.  More importantly, to us at least, we’ll share with you articles,  books, events and opinions on education, art, fun, parenting, being a kid, building, and any other topic that relates to Beam and/or that we get excited about.

To get things started I want to share with you a Blog post

under fire divx online

that was pointed out to us by long, tall Dan Rollman (Domain Guest ’07). It’s written by a gentleman named Fred Wilson, who has many interesting things to say about collaboration and open source curriculum in education. We’ll be digging into Fred’s past posts and eagerly awaiting what’s to come. Please give it a read and explore

along with us.

Let us know what you think and, please,  direct us to other articles from wherever that make your brain go boom.