iD Tech Camps

I wanted to share my experience with ID Tech based on our recent adventure. In the months leading up to camp, we received emails requesting some information, which were straightforward. We also got email confirmations and check-in instructions, all of which were clear. My wife called to clarify a few details and found the staff helpful.

On check-in day, we arrived at the designated location and found clear signage directing us where to go. The instructors arrived ten minutes early and made an announcement to the group of about 25 overnight campers. Check-in was surprisingly quick and organized. We returned on Friday for pickup, where the camp held a graduation event for each class. Our sons had the chance to battle their robots against each other in three-minute rounds.

It was evident that all the kids, both overnight and day campers, were having a great time. They had positive feedback about the instructors, their peers, the food, and the classrooms. They appreciated the diversity among the 75 campers. They even exchanged contact information with a few new friends and expressed interest in returning, likely to explore a different subject, such as animation.

In conclusion, I hope this helps other parents considering this camp amidst negative feedback. Ultimately, my kids had a blast and want to go back, making it money well spent.

We sent our 17 year old son with his friend to stay on campus at the University of Michigan for a python coding class. Instead, my son and his friend became daycare providers. They are confined to the courts of West Quandrangle when not in class. There were only two counselors to watch all the kids and many children in the 7 year old range. Therefore, they spent their time at UofM playing tag with the children. We pulled them out the first full day of class after learning that they played Roblox. I called for a refund or to prorate at the least. I was informed I would hear a response in 24-48 hours. They must be busy playing tag because I haven't heard a response from them and it's been over a week. This is a camp that contracts the facilities and people. $1700 down the toilet.

I REALLY wished I would of done a bit of researched and checked out some online reviews. I was trying to do a special thing for my child and enrolled them in a summer, in person week long summer camp. (By the way, these camps are VERY expensive.) They cancelled the camp, and enrolled them in an online class they has absolutely no interest in. Now they refuse to give us back the $290 registration fee. The emails I am getting from this place are unbelievable ... actually saying they "are not cold hearted" and will not return my deposit. I've been going back and forth with my credit card company for months now. If you actually look at their return policy it states if they can't find a comparable class you will get a full refund. Their replacement of an online camp in a subject/area my child has no interest in is not a replacement. I wish I would of known all the customer service problems they have. Reading some of the other reviews about the online camps, a lot of people are really disappointed with those too. Also look at their social media - Twitter and Facebook posts. They quickly remove any negative comments or feedback that anybody posts on their company, or their policies. I posted a couple comments and they are quickly removed!

My 9 yr old son took a summer Roblox Entrepreneur class in early July 2019. We thought since it was at West Chester University, it would be decent since my husband used to work at WCU. Turns out they were just renting space there and it didn't have anything to do with WCU. After the first day, my son wanted to stop. There were three classes combined into one computer lab, there was no live instruction, they just read a tutorial on the computer and the "instructors" walked around answering questions. Now, how is that any different than an online class? Would have been a lot less expensive! We called the main number to try and leave or get some kind of credit, but the main number discouraged it and said we had to have a really good reason... not sure what "really good" meant. So my son stayed in it and day 3 the "substitute instructor" made him feel bad for wanting to break away from his partner (who was making him do all the work) and start his own project, gave him a lesson on being a quitter. Needless to say, it was a complete waste of money and time and the kicker is my son NEVER wants to code EVER again. So sad!!!!

This is a review of the "Intro to Coding for Machine Learning" camp offered at Falls Church, VA in July, 2019, which turned to be more of a day care than an academically rigorous summer school. I base my conclusion on my 17 year old daughter's report from the first day of the 5 day camp and my own first-hand observation of the afternoon of the second day.
I chose this camp in consultation with an ID tech associate, where I explained that my 17 year old daughter wanted to learn more about coding to see if she wanted to study it in college. The age range for this course was 13 – 17 years old. Our first disappointment came when we realized that all of the iD Tech camps shared the same classroom at the Falls Church campus, so my college prep daughter was seated literally next to 10 year olds enrolled in “Video Production: Start Your Own YouTube Channel.”
The camp counselor (I purposefully do not use the title “instructor”) made no initial attempt to survey the entering knowledge level of students.
When I visited the camp on the afternoon of day 2, I explained that it didn’t feel like a good fit for a college prep student. The site director (Vickie) was super polite but made no offer nor effort to modify their program to better suit my daughter’s goals. They seem to very purposefully be providing a particular service, which is not college prep. That service, best I could tell, is “themed daycare.”
If the “Intro to coding…” camp had a syllabus or learning objectives, the site director didn’t offer to share them.
Unlike a summer term academic term, where the content is compressed to fit into a shorter period of time, here the sparse content seemed to be spread thinly throughout the day to expand enough to fill an entire work day.
Contact hours discussing coding with the camp counselor were no greater than 50% of each day and multiple, extended blocks of unsupervised time were quickly filled by the younger campers with Fortnite gaming. I personally observed 8 of the 10 campers engaged in extended gaming sessions.
I withdrew my daughter from the camp before the end of the 2nd day and forfeited our tuition.

This camp has a very good marketing campaign and was exactly what my son asked to do. After already signing him up for a NH program in Minecraft I got a bit nervous because some of the reviews for IDT are very dicey and had me worried sick. Much to my relief non of these fears were real--and believe me I drilled him and even sent him with a cell phone just in case, Though not affiliated with the particular schools they are located there is nothing really like a college campus to make you feel cool at age 9. Lunch had a lot of selection and my very fussy eater never was hungry. I do wish there was some sort of snack time. This is a summer camp and in my mind the first goal is fun, the second goal is learning. Really both were achieved. There is outdoor activity and playtime, silly shenanigans built into this camp--not just a kid at a screen all day. I don't know Minecraft, I don't have a learning agenda for my child. I can tell you some of the things he is able to create with his learning are incredible and he felt he learned a lot--whether that learning and the strings of code he writes that I don't understand are any way relevant or applicable to anything real world I cannot tell you. I can tell you he had true computer game coders and fans as coaches, my child came home blissfully happy every day and tired and he got to mingle with peers that were like minded that he had not found at traditional camps. He was not bored or lacking challenge despite being ahead academically in math and science. The cost for the day camp is bit much but when your child would rather get a week of camp for Christmas than a present you know it was a wonderful experience for them.

This is my 9 year old daughter’s 3rd summer at Stanford and she LOVES it! The wonderful thing is that every year there seem to be more girls participating too. Thanks iD Tech!

We think iD is an exceptional camp that enables students to pursue their passions and produce projects that empower them to go farther and learn more. The camp atmosphere is incredibly positive and friendly. The counselors are enthusiastic and accomplished.

ID Tech does not teach what they advertise. Teaching does not happen.
We want to tell you that our son just completed a week with ID Tech Camps in Houston, TX, in a class called 3D Game Design with Minecraft. I DO NOT recommend it all. This is the class description: With millions of players worldwide, Minecraft is one of the most popular video games in history! Whether you are a veteran or new to the game, this is your chance to explore, build, and develop new skills. Learn how to host your own server, install and manage Minecraft mods, and accelerate your Minecraft game creation skills. Put your construction skills to the test with individual and team-based 3D design challenges. Finish up by designing and building your own roller coaster, then publish your very own Minecraft map. I had called ID Tech before we enrolled to verify that they would indeed learn to set up a server for Minecraft and was assured that the students would learn to download mods and to set up a server and would also learn 3D game design. At the camp, we were not told what to expect other than what was advertised. Each day I would ask him what was covered in class.

On Monday evening, he told us that the students had the opportunity to get tickets for helping other students that would be used for prizes. He was not told what the prizes were but we assumed it be something suitable for a kid who loves computers and Minecraft. He indicated that they really hadn’t done much other than play Minecraft. The next day, I asked the staff for notes or an outline or instructions for what they were supposed to be covering. They said "sure" but none were given. On Tuesday he said they did some stuff with MC Edit. I googled it and it’s a free app for in-game editing. It’s not game design. It is only for enhancing Minecraft play. Wednesday he said they recolored some items within the game. They didn’t alter anything, just recolored some items.
On Thursday I told them I wanted to go to the classroom to talk to the instructor as we were not seeing the instructor when we dropped our child off, just the parking lot coordinators. This seemed to make them nervous. The students were using laptops and two classes were in one room. All the students sat at laptops and were facing toward walls and windows except for the wall with the whiteboard. Students would have to turn away from their computers to see anything on the whiteboard. I asked the instructor about written instructions and he said they would be on ID Gameplan. No explanation of ID Gameplan was given or had been provided previously. Thursday evening I asked my son to go to that website and saw that their were stars and circles, etc on there. We didn’t realize at that time that the stars and circles represented learning modules that would change colors when the student actually clicked on them. Almost all were hollow or not filled in. We did not know the full extent of the items that had not been covered. We did know that they had not addressed building or installing servers. We were asked to come 2 hours early on Friday to see a presentation of what they had done. We realized then that it would not be a complete day but did not realize how short the day would be. Apparently it was not even half a day of instruction. We asked about learning to install a Minecraft server. Apparently the instructor had installed a server file on my son’s laptop. There was little to no instruction on where this came from or how it worked. They had spent quite a bit of time trying to use the trial version of PowerPoint on the laptop to put together a presentation.

That Friday, our son showed us Minecraft play as we watched the laptop. We thought there would be a presentation of all students. There was not. Each group of students and their families were asked to go outside and stand in the grass and his instructor gave the students a certificate. And everyone was asked to wait there while someone else did something in the classroom. Then we were allowed back in classroom. Our son still thought there would be a group presentation time and he added some additional text to a slideshow via a trial version of PowerPoint. My son asked him when the presentation would begin. The instructor said “you can show your parents your presentation”. That was it. There was no group presentation. And earlier in the week they were told there would be prizes that they could win with tickets that they were earning for helping other students etc. The prize was getting to throw a pie in someone's face!

When we got home, I had him log into the ID Gameplan and realized the stars and circles were modules that when you clicked through them the stars or circles filled in as attempted or done. His stars and circles were 90% not attempted.

I then clicked on the module dealing with servers. There was an area that looked like it would be instructions for installing a server on a Mac. But it was only a link that led to the Minecraft Wiki page of instructions and a link to some Youtube videos that are not associated with ID Tech.

My son has completed several self-taught classes through another company called Youth Digital and understands that concept but in this instructor led class, he had depended on the instructor to help work through the modules and that did not happen. I took a screen shot of the “not filled in” stars and circles.

And if your child has food allergy issues, you should be concerned. Our son can't have gluten. When I found out that his lunch was tomatoes on the 2nd day of class, I called ID Tech and then I spoke with a lady who seemed to be coordinating things on location. She said items had posted ingredients and that our son could read the ingredients. She told me about the pizza, the salad station with pita, the sandwich station with all kinds of breads and that the hamburgers come with buns. She was smiling and quite proud of herself. I asked her if she was aware that gluten problems meant he could not have wheat, etc and she said stated “I’m in the teaching profession so I am used to dealing with all kinds of food allergies". She clearly had no idea!! We talked with our son at length on what to eat as he was going to have to fend for himself. It seemed he ate cold cuts and French fries after the day of tomatoes. It seemed that there was nothing specifically or uniquely GF. Our 11 year old was supposed to read ingredients and determine if an item had gluten in it. Adults have problems doing that! The $55 for lunches that accommodated gluten free was a waste.

Our son had just finished a two week game design class at SMU taught by SMU instructors. The differences were like night and day. The SMU taught class was professional and educational. The ID Tech class was not. Don’t let the association with a reputable university fool you. What was advertised was not delivered.
Learn how to host your own server,--Not covered at all until Friday morning then only a short amount of time allotted.
install and manage Minecraft mods—touched lightly
and accelerate your Minecraft game creation skills—lots of game play and use of an in-game app called MC Edit.
Put your construction skills to the test with individual and team-based 3D design challenges-- not done at all.
Finish up by designing and building your own roller coaster not done at all.
then publish your very own Minecraft map—not done.

ID tech camp is a fun, educational experience. Your child will learn about computers inside and out. Whether they choose programming, movie making, or mulitmedia/game creation, they are guaranteed a week (or two!) of fun.
While they learn about computers and software, they are in the environment of the high-tech industry, the Silicon Valley. If your child is an overnight camper, they will get to live in dorms on the Stanford University campus, visit the student bookstore and cafes, and eat meals in the campus cafeteria!

A unique opportunity for young students to socialize, gain expertise with computers. It inspires learning, curiosity, and the desire to explore.

This was our first ID Tech camp experience, and we were very pleased with the entire experience: thorough materials, easily accessible info, friendly staff, nice camp environment, accommodating staff.