ESQ Senior Camps 2026 - Text Version

Please note these include activities for standard camp weeks. Content in the week of August 5th-7th may not include all activities below.

Voyager A

Micro: Pet

What’s better than a furry friend? A Micro:bit computer friend with light up faces! Use Micro:bit’s block code to create an adorable tamagotchi-like pet.

Faculty Frenzy

From engineering to the arts, the University of Waterloo has a lot to offer. Faculty Frenzy is an exciting scavenger hunt across campus to explore its coolest highlights!

Cultured Surfaces

Become a microbiologist for the day! Swab different surfaces, culture samples on agar plates, and discover just how much microscopic life surrounds us!

Nite Lite

Get your goggles on, it’s time for a soldering lab! Create a fully functioning night light through soldering various circuit components to your very own PCB!

Code and Crunch

Can you code the ultimate math challenge? Campers will learn the basics of Python programming as they code custom math games packed with puzzles, points, and plenty of brainpower.

MoonCraft

The race to the Moon is on! Work in groups to build an addition to NASA’s new lunar base. Then present your vision for humanity’s future beyond Earth in an exciting pitch!

Project: Heat Shield

It’s time to grab your tools and get started! Your task is to create a heat shield to protect an astronaut on their journey back into Earth! Are you up for the challenge?

CAD Creations

Uncover the world of design through TinkerCAD. Explore different elements and use the software to create a personalized 3D-printed keychain!

Mystical Circuits

Making decisions is hard; but Mystical Circuits has you covered! Using Arduino kits, you will put together and code a crystal ball ready to answer all your questions!

Groovy Guesser

It’s time to boogie! Learn about AI and machine learning by using Teachable Machine to create your own dance guessing game!

Cranes and Gains

From pulleys to power, campers will learn about mechanical advantage and consider how to make work easier as they build and test their own cranes.

Brain Battle

Construct hats incorporating the different parts and functions of the most incredible computer out there: The human brain! Then, participate in an exciting brain games trivia!

Digital Detectives

Oh no! A series of cyber attacks have hit ESQ Headquarters and we need your help to crack the case! You must decrypt messages, catch scams and practice your cyber safety to find the culprit!

Ultimate Aerodynamics

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a...frisbee? In this outdoor investigation, you will explore the forces of flight and optimal launch angles to make your frisbee soar through the sky!

Berry Bonds

Use simple lab tools and everyday materials to squish, swirl and separate a strawberry’s DNA. This is your chance to unravel the hidden code of life!

Haul or Nothing

Can your tractor out-pull the rest? In Haul or Nothing you will use LEGO Spike Primes to build and optimize robotic tractors, then battle it out in a series of tug-of-war challenges.

Warped Wonders

Let your imagination run wild as you explore the world of anamorphic art. Use concepts of optics and the science of light reflection to design your own artistic creation.

Voyager vs.Voyager

Team work makes the dreamwork! Work together with your fellow campers to defeat the opposing Voyager camp in a series of STEM challenges!

Voyager B

Press Start

Step up to the ultimate soldering challenge and wire your very own arcade-style reflex game from a raw printed circuit board! Battle your friends in a test of hand-eye coordination - who will be the fastest?

Hour of Chemistry

How can a frozen liquid...be hot? You’ll explore this, and how to make invisible ink, in our chemistry lab. One ink to write, one to reveal... What’s the secret to the recipe?

Barbie Bungee

Become a physics engineer and design a high-stakes, death-defying bungee jump for a daredevil doll! Will your equations hold up during the ultimate high-altitude drop, or will your jumper face a catastrophic crash landing?

Catch Me If You (S)can!

Our suspect claims they were never at the scene of the crime...but are they telling the truth? You’ll become digital detectives to solve this mystery!

Machine Learning Motions

We need a new, cutting edge security lock. Teach your computer to detect your special secret handshake and open the lock! How complex can you make it?

Matrix Masterpiece

Ever wondered how a computer shows you images? Video games? Movies? You’ll explore the language of binary code and logical rules to decode a spreadsheet matrix and watch the transformation take place!

Plotting the Perfect Puddle

Agriculture meets Robotics in this engineering challenge! Design and program your rover to read a colour map and deliver water to the thirstiest plants in the field!

Of Quartz We Can Find It!

What makes crystals look different from each other? Explore this through a scavenger hunt in UWaterloo’s Earth Sciences Museum.

Making Music From Thin Air

Have you heard of a theremin? It’s an instrument that is played without touching it! Build your own and explore its musical range!

Print a Shape Shifter

Optical illusions sure are fun, and we’ll be taking them to the next dimension! You’ll design your very own 3D optical illusion and print it into reality!

Double Vision, Triple Dimension

Step behind the scenes of virtual reality engineering and hack the human visual cortex to create stunning 3D illusions from flat, 2D images!

Dusty Digits and Decoding DNA

Become a Forensic Scientist and find the culprit! DNA and fingerprints are both unique ways to identify someone - which will work best for this investigation?

Shell-ter From the Storm

Step into the front lines of climate engineering and deploy structural defenses against chemical erosion! Will your shield protect the ocean creatures, or will the acid break through?

Capillary Control

Master the physics of capillary action and combine technology, biology and art to guide liquids through a complex 3D design. Will the separate streams be combined, or avoid each other?

Iodine Infiltration

Plastic bags have nothing in common with living cells...or do they? Explore the molecular gatekeeping of your cells with this colourful biochemistry experiment!

Unbe-leafable Colours

What makes leaves green? How do they change colour in the fall? Explore the basics of chromatography - you might be surprised by what you see...

You’re On Shaky Ground!

Do you feel that? It’s an EARTHQUAKE! You need to build a foundation to keep our buildings safe! Will your design be up to the test?

Darwinian Dinner

Step onto the battlegrounds of natural selection and compete in a high-speed simulation of evolutionary survival! How will your adaptations help you survive?

Odyssey

Grow Arduino Grow!

Get ready to learn about digitalizing agriculture by creating a fully automatic watering system to grow a plant! See how you can make a change as it grows throughout the week to see the creativity of mixing farming with electronics.

Encrypting Codes

Let’s get encrypting! Learn how to encrypt messages because a message left in plain text is just an open invitation for your mom to read your diary.

Keeping it Cool

Welcome to the ultimate insulation challenge! Your mission is to take a pile of random junk and engineer a container that can face off the heat of a boiler system.

Natural Hike

Welcome to the big leagues! Today we're exploring the university campus, where the walks are long, the buildings are big, and the ideas are even bigger.

Not In My House

Think you can beat the system? Let's play a game of probability and see how a tiny statistical edge turns you into a guaranteed winner.

Board No More

Let’s get soldering! Today we're turning a blank PCB into a high-stakes game of Hot Potato. Winner takes all!

TinkerCAD Bionics

Delve into the world of bionics and design a bionic arm with a claw hand to help pick up objects. After sketching a model and creating it virtually, there will be a chance to 3D print your model!

Need a Hand?

Feeling handy? Lend a hand by building a hydraulic arm and put it to test to see who can create the strongest arm!

Making Memories

Welcome to Intro to HTML and CSS. Here we skip the boring text and go straight to coding a custom, localized meme sanctuary using skills learned for building websites.

Biology Theatre

Lights, camera, cellular action! Today we're turning biochemistry into a drama, because nothing has more theatre than a molecule under pressure.

Colour Coordination

Why sort by hand when you can code a machine to do it for you? Today, we are programming LEGO® SPIKE™ Prime to spot the difference between red, blue, and green at a glance.

Up, Down, And All around

Time to get into the swing of things! Let's find out what changes a pendulum period, because honestly, time is just hanging in the balance.

Coolin’ With Chemistry

I hope you’re ready for some serious chemistry drama. We’re going to shake things up until we’re feeling blue, and then completely freeze out the competition with an endothermic reaction!

UW Goose Hunt

Divided we stand, united we... figure out what on earth this final message says! Get into your groups, crack your three codes, and let's see if we can find the missing link!

AI Said What?

Welcome to Jeopardy! Today, the answers are entirely generated by AI. Let’s see if your human brains can outsmart the machine.

Lunar Landing

Welcome to Mission Control. Your first task is to code a completely unpredictable lunar surface; your second is to make sure your rocket doesn't leave a new crater on it.

Stop Caution Code

Time to optimize your code for the fast lane. Let's wire up these LEDs and program a starting sequence so precise, even an F1 driver would trust it.