Venture Academy

Welcome to Virtual Venture Academy

Venture Academy is excited to be offering our first ever virtual camp! This FREE camp will offer interactive projects, activities and learning opportunities to students in a virtual setting. Our instructors will work with students throughout the program via online discussions and live Q&A sessions to ensure each student is receiving an engaging and positive experience in our virtual program. Our goal is to include as many streams of engineering as possible through our virtual camp so we will also be exploring digital skill building activities, at home design challenges, and virtual labs. Our program strives to deliver exciting STEM content that typically cannot be found in a classroom setting.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What is a virtual camp?

Our program pivoting to a virtual camp model means that our youth engagement will take place via an online platform. We are staying true to the core values of Venture Academy during our pivot to online engagement. Students can expect to receive the same engaging STEM based content from our enthusiastic and dedicated instructors. Students will receive project content through a secure online platform and will also have the opportunity to participate in a live Q&A session to ask instructors valuable STEM based questions.

Our virtual platform

The Venture Academy virtual camps will be hosted using the platform Google Classroom. This platform is an accessible and easy to use platform for participants of any age! Participants will be added to the classroom using simply their email address. Once added to the Google Classroom, participants will be able to view content which is only available to those registered for the program. Google Classroom is also accessible on many different devices which is an asset for making our programs easily accessible to participants. All content sharing between Instructors and participants will take place through this platform. This includes the sharing of activities, video tutorials, project explanations, and a link with instructions to join the daily live Q&A session.

All live interaction with Venture Academy Instructors will be hosted via Zoom. Live interactions include 3 project workshops and our daily Q&A sessions. Using Zoom allows us to create a welcoming space that encourages engaging discussion which is a fundamental aspect of STEM based learning and growth. Our team has worked diligently with McMaster IT services to ensure that all of the necessary security settings are optimized in order to create a safe and positive learning environment for all.

What is the time commitment expected for participants?

Students can expect to participate in a STEM based project that will take approximately 1 hour per day with an additional daily 30 minute Q&A session. We understand that student engagement is not always maximized as a result of screen time increasing so we have made the decision to minimize screen time for students and give them the flexibility to complete projects at their own pace.

Can I sign up for more than 1 week of camp?

This summer we are offering four traditional style virtual camps that run in July and August. Each camp is one week long, 4 days a week and every two weeks there are new projects which are all completely free! This means each student can do up to four weeks of virtual camp with us and get to complete new projects and design challenges each time.

What is the cost of virtual camp?

Our virtual camp programs will be delivered completely free of charge! Our goal is to deliver an accessible and flexible program to engage and inspire youth to further explore STEM fields.