On our 14th meeting, campers, after being taught–on three separate occasions–how a microphone works, after having built their very own microphones, were asked to reflect on what they had learned. And it was a ton of stuff: what “electromagnetic induction” is, that copper wire actually qualifies as a household item, and even how to pronounce the word “diaphragm!

On our thirteenth meeting, campers who hadn’t gotten a chance to test their handcrafted microphones in the past finally got their day in the handcrafted-microphone-testing sun! Kiyleaha tried out her maniacal laugh, Tiara had a shout-out for Chance, and everybody played with magnets.

It’s hard to believe, but we are officially halfway through this year’s wonderful Summer Dreamers Academy! Today we put the final touches on our very own hand-built microphones, connected them to a mixer/speaker combo, and amplified some 6th grade voices–DIY style.

On our eleventh day of Radio Camp, campers were asked how they thought microphones worked; “microchips,” “electricity” and “fleas on tiny treadmills” were all pretty common explanations. After recording their imaginative reverse-engineering’s, they learned about the true inner workings of a microphone, starting with what a transducer is and does. All of this techno babel then led to each camper building their very own dynamic microphone out of household items.

On our tenth day of Radio Camp we asked our campers what they thought “Technology” was. The most frequent answers were “electronics” and “Xbox 360,” but the campers soon learned that it was pretty much everything around us. After learning some scientific definitions, they then made these recordings about not only what they think technology is, but what else they would like to know.