Tech-Camp

    No.6 Devon Road, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong a technology day camp for students 12-17  

About Tech-Camp       

Tech-Camp is a day camp with a focus on computers and electronics technology. We offer 2-week summer programmes for students of 12 to 17 years of age. We have a computer lab with the latest and fastest equipment, an electronics lab, and a video production studio. Our staff are special, too. They are experts in computers and electronics, of course, but they are also people who care about children and enjoy working with them.

The benefits of Tech-Camp        

    In all of our programmes, we show students how to work in teams and how to solve problems by themselves. We encourage them to think creatively.       

What students will do at Tech-Camp       

    Each day Tech-camp is filled with useful, interesting and challenging activities. For example, in the Computer Programme, students learn the basic computer programming, and how to use the Internet. In the Tech-Camp Programme, they make radio-controlled model cars and produce their own short videos.       

Programme Session 1 Session 2 Session 3

Computer Programme 15 June-26 June 15 June-26 June 15 June-26 June

High-tech Programme 29 June-10 July 27 July-7 August 15 June-26 June

Fee: HK $2,000 per student       

(10% discount available for groups of 10 or more students.)       

For more information about Tech-Camp, please contact Director of Summer Programmes, Ms     Julia Brown, by phone, fax or e-mail.       

Telephone: 26548898           

Fax: 26948850       

E-mail: juliab@techcamp.com.hk       

    It was New Year's Eve. Everyone in the city was getting ready for the three-day celebration, including the gardener of the king's garden.

    There was a large group of monkeys living in the garden. They always followed the advice of their leader, the monkey king.

    The gardener wanted to celebrate the New Year's holiday, just like everybody else, so he decided to hand over his duties to the monkeys.

    He went to the monkey king and said, "My honorable friend, would you do a little favor for me? New Year is coming. I wish to celebrate it. So I must be away for three days. Here in this lovely garden. There are plenty of fruits and berries and nuts to eat. You and your subjects may come and eat as much as you wish. In return, please water the young trees and plants while I'm gone."

The monkey king replied, "Don't worry, my friend! We will do a terrific job! Have a good time!"

    The gardener showed the monkeys where the buckets were kept. Feeling confident, he left to celebrate the holiday. The monkeys called after him, "Happy New Year!"

    The next day, the monkeys filled up the buckets, and began watering the young trees and plants. Then the king of the monkeys addressed them,"It is not good to waste water. Therefore, pull up each young tree or plant before watering. Inspect（检查）it to see how long the roots（根）are. Then give more water to the ones with long roots, and less water to the ones with short roots. That way we will not waste water, and the gardener will be pleased!"

    Without a second thought, the other monkeys followed their king's orders.

    Meanwhile, a wise man was walking by the garden. He saw the monkeys pulling up all the lovely young trees and plants, measuring their roots, and carefully pouring water into the holes in the ground. He said, "Oh foolish monkeys, what do you think you're doing to the king's beautiful garden?"

    They answered, "We are watering the trees and plants, without wasting water! We were commanded to do so by our king."

    The man said, "If this is the wisdom of the wisest among you — the king — what are the rest of you like? Intending to do a worthwhile deed, your foolishness turns it into disaster!"

    Drive through any suburb in the U.S. today,and it's hard to miss the bins that have become companions to America's trash cans.Recycling has become commonplace,as people recognize the need to care for the environment. Yet most people's recycling consciousness extends only as far as paper,bottles,and cans.People seldom find themselves facing the growing problem of e-waste.

    E-waste rapidly increases as the techno-fashionable frequently upgrade to the most advanced devices,and the majority of them end up in landfills（垃圾填埋地）.Some people who track such waste say that users throw away nearly 2 million tons of TVs,VCRs,computers,cell phones,and other electronics every year.Unless we can find a safe replacement,this e-waste may get into the ground and poison the water with dangerous toxins（毒素）,such as lead, mercury,and arsenic.Burning the waste also dangerously contaminates the air.

    However,e-waste often contains reusable silver.gold.and other electrical materials.Recycling these materials reduces environmental problems by reducing both landfill waste and the need to look for such metals,which can destroy ecosystems.

    A growing number of states have adopted laws to ban dumping e-waste.Still,less than a quarter of this refuse will reach lawful recycling programs.Some companies advertising safe disposal（处置）in fact merely ship the waste to some developing countries,where it still ends up in landfills.These organizations prevent progress by unsafely disposing of waste in an out-of-sight,out-of-mind location.

    However,the small but growing number of cities and corporations that do handle e-waste responsibly represents progress toward making the world a cleaner,better place for us all.

    There are many reasons why I encourage people to travel, and I know that the experience will make one a better person.

    I remember when I was travelling I began to know the world better. The world is not just about me, my small town and home. Although you will meet different people from all over the world, you will realize that people are similar in their dreams, hopes and feelings. Enjoy exploring the different cultures, and you will also find that people are different in some of the things they do and how they live. Once you understand their ways, it need not be strange or scary. Often we read stories about other cultures in books. Only when we visit their areas do we find that those stories are something wrong.

    One thing you may find out is that there are problems all over the world. We can't just get money to send to these areas and hope that will work them out. The world should get involved（干预）and help wherever there are problems. People everywhere should be given a chance. It is so easy to ignore this if one does not travel and explore. One can look around and see that so many people have many challenges worse than ours. One can realize that sometimes our biggest problems are not that big after all.

    On your journey you will meet lots of new friends. Talking to strangers and finding about their lives is a great way to spend your time. you will certainly be more confident after having to cope with problems and make many decisions along the way.

    When you travel, you have to be on your own in some situations. You will surprise yourself by how well you can do that. All your special experiences could make an interesting book to read. It would be filled with all your adventures and special memories.

    Traveling around and seeing so much happening in the world around us is a wonderful experience. If we could all just travel a little more and share our experiences, we would all be better people and the world would be a better place.

    Reading is the ability to process text, understand its meaning and to integrate it with what the reader already knows. Of all the reading skills speed-reading is a necessary skill in the Internet age. We skim over articles, e-mails and WeChat to try to grasp key words and the essential meaning of a certain text. Surrounded with information from our electronic devices, it would be impossible to cope if we read word by word, line by line. But a new trend calls on people to unplug and enjoy reading slowly, listing benefits beyond the intelligent stimulation.

    A recent story from The Wall Street Journal reported on a book club in Wellington, New Zealand, where members meet in a cafe and turn off their smartphones. They sink into cozy chairs and read in silence for an hour. Unlike tradition book club, the point of the slow reading club isn't exchanging ideas about a certain book, but to get away from electronic devices and read in a quiet, relaxed environment. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Wellington book club is just one example of a movement started by book lovers who miss the old-fashioned way of reading before the Internet and smartphones.

    Slow readers, such as The Atlantic's Maura Kelly, say a regular reading habit sharpens the mind, improves concentration, reduces stress levels and deepens the ability to sympathize. Another study published last year in Science showed that reading novels helps people understand others' mental states and beliefs, a fundamental skill in building relationships.

    Yet technology has made us less attentive readers. Screens have changed our reading patterns from the top-to-right, left-to-right sequence to a wild skimming and skipping pattern as we hunt for important words and information. Reading text punctuated with links leads to weaker comprehension than reading plain text. The Internet may have made us stupider, says Patrick Kingsley from The Guardian. Because of the Internet, he says, we have become very good at collecting a wide range of interesting news, but we are also gradually forgetting how to sit back, reflect, and relate all these facts to each other.

    Slow reading means a return to an uninterrupted, straight pattern, in a quiet environment free of distractions. "Aim for 30 minutes a day," advises Kelly from The Atlantic. "You can squeeze in that half hour pretty easily if only during your free moments, you pick up a meaningful work of literature," Kelly said. "Reach for your e-reader, if you like. Kindles make books like War and Peace less heavy, not less substantive, and also ensure you'll never lose your place."

    The Largest World Fairs of All Time

    New York World Fair — New York, 1939

    The 1939 New York World Fair was the largest exposition (博览会) in US history with visitors over 14 million. The Fair was planned during the Great Depression and was aimed at relieving the city from economic depression by attracting foreign investment. Major inventions to emerge (出现) at the New York World Fair included nylon fabric, a streamlined pencil sharpener, and a futuristic car city imagined by General Moiors.

    Exposition liniverselle — Paris, 1900

    The Exposition Universelle was one of the earliest expositions to feature multiple countries with France inviting various countries to display their technological advancements and cultural heritage. Exposition Universelle was the birthplace of many inventions that we enjoy today including escalators (自动扶梯) and talking films.

    Expo' 70 — Osaka, Japan

    Expo' 70 was the biggest exposition of the 20th century and the second largest in history. Expo 70 had a record attendance of over 64 million visitors, a 40-year record that would not be broken until Expo 2010 in Shanghai. Notable exhibitions included a large piece of moon rock that was brought back from the Apollo 12 mission.

    Expo 2010 — Shanghai. China

    Expo 2010 goes down as the largest fair in history, having attracted 73 million people. It also had the highest international participation of any exposition in the world with 246 countries participating. The opening ceremony featured the biggest LED screen in the world as well as one of the biggest fireworks displays in history.