iD Tech Camps

My then 14 year old son attended this camp for a week for C++ programming in the summer of 2015. In his words, it was: «baby-​sitting». He said it was awful, a disappointment. He thought he might be better able to teach the course than the instructor (though my son is a smart kid, he self-​taught what he knows about computer programming, so it is not like he is a pro with the stuff — and to think an instructor was almost less qualified than himself to teach speaks for the level of the instruction).
It was a hefty price and a long drive for us every day, we did the sacrifice since my son is so interested in this stuff, but he won’t go near it again — he went back to self-​teaching…

When you look over the reviews, pay special attention to the most recent ones. I don’t think iD Tech is what it was a couple of years ago, it seems.
I would have given just 1 star, but camp director «Hawk Girl» was very kind and did her best within her control to help out with all the problems we had with this camp. I wish there was a separate section to rate her 5 star customer service, but unfortunately the camp overall was bad. I still want to thank Hawk Girl for all she has done for us to make my kids’ 2 weeks of camp less painful, so iD Tech gets an additional star for hiring her in the first place.
My kids actually attended the week of June 22, but I needed a long time to calm down from my anger to write this review fairly.
I will just highlight the complaints and leave out the emotional turmoil.
— My kids starved until lunch. There was no morning snack time.
— I packed lunches for my kids. The kids were left to wander the Stanford cafeteria to find seats for themselves. There’s no designated seating for the campers and a camp counselor wasn’t present while they ate. What if they choked?! My kids are only 7 and 9 years old.
— Instructions weren’t clear as to when and where to meet after eating lunch. My kids also didn’t know what the rules were about going to the bathroom, or where it was for that matter.
— They were enrolled in the Minecraft Modding class. The program wasn’t uploading correctly and there was only one counselor there to try to fix the problems. He spent so much time working on the issues, my kids only got a few minutes on the program. By the way, this camp runs from 9am — 5pm.
— Someone with no iD Tech badge or t-​shirt approached my son and offered to take his backpack to the classroom. Luckily I taught my son well and he refused because he felt «stranger danger». Where were my kids that there was an opportunity for a stranger to approach my son?
— Day camp check out system is very inefficient. On the first day it took an hour to pick up my kids from the time I got to the parking lot.
— At the end of the week, there was a showcase of what was supposedly learned. My kids didn’t learn anything more than they already knew. And the instructor admitted that he was majoring in programming, but not an expert in Minecraft. Really?! The website brags about highly qualified and inspirational instructors and they don’t use «Counselors-​In-​Training». I beg to differ.
One week of camp costs almost $ 1000. That’s what I got for my money?! My kids have learned more and have actually enjoyed themselves at other camps for half the cost.
The website says they are the world’s #1 summer tech camp. I should have researched the evaluation criteria and who made that assessment. Clearly it’s not.
My highlights above don’t include the two weeks of back and forth complaints I did with the main office. That’s another 1-​star topic in itself.

iD Tech Camp (3D Minecraft) was not at all as advertised…
Let’s start with the overnight accommodations, which were filthy. We arrived from a 700-​mile trip to find a totally trashed room, with our son’s bed linens balled up on the floor, mattress askew, and the roommates/​other camper’s possessions and foodstuffs scattered across the entire room and our son’s bed and chair. We asked that «Pixel» (no joke) help get things set straight with the roommate, which he assured us he would.
Despite that assurance, nothing was done. In fact, the roommate stayed up playing tablet games with a bluetooth speaker until after 2am, much to our son’s frustration.
The next morning, he was awakened by an «instructor» kicking the bottom of their door repeatedly. The kids are herded to a dining facility in another building, where they get 30 minutes to eat. Then some stretching and mild calisthenics, and to a Computer Lab, shared with another course (in this case, Robotics).
One instructor, a late teens/​early 20’s guy with blue-​painted hair using the alias of «Sprocket», was apparently well-​versed in MC and actually helped our son learn a few things. Our son DID find the fact that Spocket spent a lot of time drawing «My Little Pony» sketches a little creepy. He also made sure our son was kept busy earning tickets by helping to teach others in the course instead of working on his own project, an «adventure map». To be honest, there was no «mod development» taught, just basic reskinning, and a few create your own element, customizing villages, etc using MC Edit, a freeware program available online. Most of the time, however, the kids were «free-​ranged» playing whatever games they wished.
Unfortunately, «Sprocket» seemed to be the one «instructor» to the course who knew anything about Minecraft. The other one proudly said he never played. Seriously.
The second night, the situation with the roommate didn’t change at all, despite a call from us to an «assistant director» about the problems, so our son spent yet another night without sleep. (The roommate was apparently powered by 8 – 9 Dr. Pepper sodas per night).
On the second full day, we received an email from our son saying he had been punched in the face by another attendee, The incident occurred when our son, somewhat tired and dazed after 2 – 3 nights with little or no sleep, bumped into a much larger (8″ taller, 50 lbs heavier) kid as he was viewing some of the Robotics projects in the other half of the Computer Lab. The kid, a «regular» iD Tech attendee who apparently came along from California also, stood back, sized up our son, and punched him in the face. Our son ran to «Sprocket». who said the «regular’ would probably have a different story, so he really couldn’t do anything, so he wouldn’t bother.
I came to the campus with a new cellphone for my son and a few snacks at about 8:00pm, and asked to speak with a supervisor. The second „assistant supervisor“, named Virginia, listened intently, agreed that „Sprocket“ had completely violated all policy regarding reporting the assault and would be disciplined. She also assured she would also address the roommate issue and speak with „Pixel“ about his inaction despite our requests. I also advised her that given the atmosphere and accomodations, our son wouldn’t stay for the „Ultimate Gaming Weekend“ part, and she said only 6 kids were going to anyway, so that shouldn’t be a problem getting removed from our package.
Too good to be true, right?
Yep.
Sure enough, I get a call within 30 minutes stating that, after investigating, she had in fact determined that our son WAS punched in the face by the larger kid from California (whom they all seemed to know well). He had been warned and his parents in California were contacted, I was told.
BUUUUUTT, after talking to the „counsellors“ in question, they said they „seemed to remember“ our son (just turned 11, 5’0», 75 lbs) at some time hitting another unidentified attendee the day before, which they ALSO didn’t report, so she was warning me that is our son showed any violence, she would eject HIM instead.
She also said he would be moved into another room.
45 minutes later? Guess what?
After ransacking the snacks I’d brought my son, the counsellors urged a kid to smack our son in the back of the head with a ping pong ball while he watched television. He turned around and slapped the other kid, while they watched, laughed, and advised him that now HE was thrown out for violence.
So, At 1030pm they called with him present and said they were «no longer responsible» for him (he’s just turned 11 and 700 miles from home) and that he’d be packing him and bringing outside to be picked up. Thankfully, i was still in town
To top it all off, they frog-​marched him downstairs with a 6′ 230 lb body-​armoured security guard.
Pathetic.
Crappy instructors, crappy facilities, and topped off by this hellish experience for an 11 y/​o kid.
Congratulations, iD Tech. You fooled another.

My 14 year old did his 4^th year of id tech camp this year at Stanford. It was a disappointment. Why?
1) The staff did not appear knowledgeable about the software he was there to learn. One day they promised to bring something in he needed for a shoot. Then they forgot. This was typical.
2) He was allowed no freedom, and was not allowed to bring his camera back to the room after shooting (which he was allowed to do at Digital Media at Stanford last year). Because of this, a $ 500 lens was stolen. To add insult to injury, the staff was lackadaisical about following up during the week, he was not allowed to go to lost and found or dining hall where he thought it might be. Finally, they took him — but several days later — obviously giving someone plenty of time to pick and choose what they wanted to steal.
3) When my son texted that this had happened, I tried 3 times to call, emailed the camp, etc. NO one returned my call or email.
4) Finally, when I checked in the last day for the parent event, I asked the counselor who was apparently the manager, how I could follow up. She knew NOTHING about it –which led me to conclude (1) this was a common occurrence and did not cause interest or (2) there was poor communication/​follow up, which mirrored my experience to date.
Finally, someone followed up again today to ask me why my son’s review was not glowing. I said really? I’ve talked to 3 people there already — it made me wonder if this was just ‘window dressing’ and there was nothing behind the curtain. Needless to say, ID Tech quality has gone way down since we started 5 or 6 years ago. They are very good at saying, however, ‘it’s not our responsibility’. Buyer beware.

ID Tech does not teach what they advertise. Our son completed a week with ID Tech Camps in Houston, TX, Summer 2014, 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. 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 that is a free public site.

Both of our children love video games. After taking one summer course, they are also interested in creating apps for iPhones and iPads. More importantly, they had FUN. They met other children with similar interests in computers and gaming. We traveled from our home in Northern California to Stanford for the boys to participate in an idtech camp there. They spent a week touring campus, in addition to learning more about computers. My husband and I had fun on our own in the meantime. Next summer, maybe a new college campus.
Without knowing the expenses the camp has, I can’t speak with any authority about the cost of the camp. They certainly had plenty of competent employees. We did feel, however, that the price of the camp was very high.

At 10, my daughter learned how to make her own website. She attended Stanford Camp and stayed overnight.
The staff was very friendly and helpful.
I highly recommend iD Tech

My 14-​y/​o just completed the one week Java camp at Cal Poly Pomona. She had a great experience and this was a great intro to CS. The staff was terrific, friendly and helpful. I definitely recommend!

My 8 year old son attended the Adventures in Gaming week in Seatlle, 2013. He has repeatedly told us it was the best week of his life and continues to thank us for sending him. The price tag is steep, but worth every penny. Our son has continued to use his skills at home and can’t wait to go back next year!

Good camp last year for my 12 year old who took the RPG design course and loved it. If he could go the entire summer he would. He learnt some rudimentary basics and nothing more, but had a blast and sat with 8 other kids who spoke Geek video game jargon the whole day just like him. Worth every penny. This year he’s signed for FPS I think and is very excited. He’s a lifer for sure. I personally found the end result last year pretty basic and it was a bit chaotic on parent’s day, but that’s what happens when college kids lead! Nothing new there and not very hampering to my son’s experience and that’s all that matters really.

My son had a great time at iD Tech camp at UC Irvine. He actually had so much fun we signed him up for a second week and he wants to return again (this is an even-​keeled kid who doesn’t get super-​excited about stuff, so we were very surprised). He still talks about what a great time he had last summer and remembers everything he learned. He can’t wait to go back this summer!

My son had an excellent time last summer, hence my 4-​star ranking. He participated in the Game design course offered at Berkeley. I did not sit in on the classes, just dropped him off and picked him up a week later. From my observation, he appeared to learn a great deal about game design, established great relationships and enjoyed being on a university campus (he was 14 at the time). We are considering the Robotics course at Stanford this summer. Although some of these comments are a bit concerning given the high price tag for the course.

This was my son’s favorite camp this summer. He enrolled in the Java Programming course at the UC Berkeley campus location. While the price is high, I felt it was worth it. My experience was that the staff and instructors were all professional, friendly, and knowledgeable, and the facilities and equipment were all up to date. Most importantly, my son was given the motivation by the class to continue programming without any additional parental encouragement.

I’m confused, isn’t summer camp supposed to be about having fun?
My 11 year old son attended the Adventures in Robotics camp at American University this summer. The program was exactly what I expected it to be (** and something I believe a lot of other reviewers have misguided expectations for **). Let’s be clear here: this is a summer camp to have fun with and explore technology: this is not where you go to become the next expert in robotics, photoshop, Java programming, or anything else. In my opinion this is an excellent, fun, safe environment where like-​minded kids can go and have fun with technology.
If you want to project your over-​achieving expectations on your kids with technology, I’d say good luck with that and don’t send them here. That’s the job of full-​semester courses at colleges, community colleges, or other major educational programs. On the other hand, if you would like your kids to be introduced to new technology and let them explore said technology without the stresses of achievement, this place is great. It is designed to spark interest and creativity, not make experts.
My son came home with a renewed excitement about Lego Mindstorms and has upped his skill level completely by having fun and exploring all that he can. He is happy. He has a video documenting his accomplishments. Is he building the next Mars Rover for NASA? NO. Is he ready to pursue that dream by continuing to make technology a fun and interesting part of his life? A definite and resounding yes.
Yeah, sure; you could probably say that experiences could vary based on summer camp staff — everybody is different. Remember people, this is SUMMER CAMP for KIDS. If you want your kids to do serious educational commitments, save it for summer SCHOOL or COLLEGE. But hey, what would I know about teaching technology? I’m just some engineer who builds large-​scale MPP computer systems for data and analytics, and I employ interns consistently as a way to grow my own technology teams.

I’m surprised at the one-​star experiences others have described here. Our experiences with iDTech Camp at Stanford have been terrific for two years running. The only reason I’m not giving it five stars is because it is breathtakingly expensive. But our 14-​year-​old son has enjoyed every moment of his iDTech adventures. If he chooses to attend again next summer — which he seems to be determined to do – we certainly will find a way to make it possible.
His first summer (last year) he spent a week on the Stanford campus learning about robotics. The program was well supervised, with a low student/​teacher ratio and well-​organized programs both during the regular camp day and in the evenings. While he enjoyed robotics, he was much more interested this year in learning more about programming. He already was familiar with a couple of languages, but his two-​week stay at iDTech’s Programming Academy brought him up to speed enough with C++ that he can continue to learn on his own at home.
He did report that one of the kids in his class chose to waste much of his time simply playing computer games rather than programming, but it seemed to me that the rest of the kids were motivated to learn and fully supported in that effort. The class was a mix of day campers and overnight students, and we could have saved some significant money by shuttling him to campus each day. But the overnight experience in a residence hall rooming with two other boys his age has helped him to mature and learn about coping with new social situations. That’s just as valuable — if not even more valuable — than the coursework itself, in my view.

This will be my son’s third year (he’s currenlty 14) at iD Tech camp at UC Berkeley. He absolutely loves it! And I love that he has such a great experience on a university campus. He usually takes Digital Film Editing but this year he is adding a week of web animation to his stay.
I am impressed with their effective logistics in housing, feeding, teaching, and entertaining a bunch of adolescents. It is clear that management knows what they’re doing.
The low counselor/​student ratio is key to their success. My son is a quirky kid with social challenges that usually result in at least one parent/​teacher conference in school or summer camp. But he’s right at home among the campers and counselors at iD Tech. :-) I have never been consulted about his behavior and he always returns home happy, full of great stories about his experience, and plans for next year.

Our 13 year old daughter attended ID Tech Camp at the SMU campus in Dallas last year (also signed up to attend this year). We arrived at the dorms where the ID folks were waiting outside. We were concerned as she knew no one at this camp, but our friends had had such a great experience with their daughter the year prior that we gave it a shot. Check-​in was a breeze and they were so welcoming and warm that our daughter felt at ease instantly. There was a mix of older and younger students, co-​ed, with the counselors appearing to be in their mid to late 20’s (I’m guessing here). We walked her to her dorm room, which was quite nice. There were two bedrooms, with each room having two beds and an adjoining office-​like space in the middle, as well as a bathroom and shower in each room. Very clean and well kept, so far so good. The other campers who had arrived before us were in a lounge area on the same floor. Again, we were concerned as she knew no one. We helped her make her bed, put away her toiletries and then went to walk her to the lounge area. One of the other campers greeted us in the hallway to introduce himself and asked our daughter if she’d like to walk with him to the lounge. Again, so welcoming and warm that she felt right at home. We stuck around for a bit just to see how things were going and she seemed fine without us. Giving us the «please go signal» more than once: o) Throughout the week we monitored her on their website via pictures and emails we would send to her. She was always smiling, always involved and appeared to be having a great time. By Thursday we got the call from the counselor letting us know that our daughter wanted to talk with us. Instead of her telling us to come and get her as we had feared, she wanted to ask if she could spend another week! So told us she was learning so much and was having the best time. That call alone was worth every penny we had paid for the week! Unfortunately, and much to our dismay, there were no more spots left the following week, or for the remainder of the summer. We were bummed, as was she. We did not make the same mistake this year. She is going for quite a bit longer this year, and trying new courses that we feel she wouldn’t have tried had she not experienced ID Tech Camp last year!
It saddens me to see so many reviews that are less than favorable. We have nothing but wonderful things to say about ID Tech Camp. It has changed my daughter’s outlook not only about camp, but about her future career plans. I highly suggest you give them a try!

I don’t know about these people. Feels shady. Two of the three people I talked to were admittedly new and gave me wrong information. Third finally was a supervisor. Was unclear if he knew what was going on either. Just couldn’t get to answer very quickly and then what he proposed felt it it was going to waste more time without success. So after wasting 25 minutes with them and trying to figure out how to get into their Info 365 online site after I’d already paid for it, and finding out that they were going to make it really hard to cancel (if at all), I just decided to walk away from the $ 200. Sometimes best to just sell short and move on and they felt like that.
Also, be careful, when you sign up for their service, without any notice, they put you down for auto-​renewal. I only accidently found that they had auto opted me in to auto renewal a year later. That alone makes them look like a scum bag in my opinion. Why not make me opt in to that rather than do for me.

Long time Unilocal user … but this experience made me sign up to write my first review. Last month, I signed up my 12 year old son (a typical boy — loves sports, video games, quick thinking but short attention span). When we saw the promotion for a half day golf + half day web design camp at Stanford University, it sounded perfect.
$ 899 for a day camp is steep, but golfing w/​the professional coaches who worked with the likes of Tiger Woods and Michelle Wie plus learning how to design web sites in today’s digital age on the campus of one of the preeminent universities of the world… ok, sign us up! Sounds perfect!
What a huge mistake. The half days of golf was hitting range balls all morning. For the first 2 days, the golf instructor (who apparently was a local high school golf coach, and not a Stanford coach) said a total of TWO (2) words to my son over 2 days — «Nice Swing.» My son has attended golf camps before, and I would say is an intermediate golfer (he can get around a 9 hole course and shoot about 60) He is certainly not an advanced player. Apparently, the coach spent all his time with beginners. Hello? We paid for this camp too.
After I called customer service Tue night, I got put in touch with the camp director, who is a nice young lady, but had no clue about the specifics of the golf program. Rest of the week, the coach did spend a few more minutes giving some tips to my son after my intervention, but the entire golf portion of the camp was hitting range balls, putting on the practice green and hitting a few balls out of the practice bunker. No camper got to play a single hole on the Stanford Golf Course. Not what one would expect from the advertised sports camp that had Stanford logos left and right. Oh by the way, the coach brought 2 high school kids to help out. Much better golf camps at the local pitch and putt course here in SF (Golden Gate Golf Course) where you also get to play some golf (wow, what a concept!) for a fraction of the cost.
The web design course seems fairly rudimentary. The kids used Dreamweaver to put together some web pages. My son built a fairly simple sports information web site. Other kids at the parents «showcase» did not seem to show off any better websites. To be honest, the websites looked like something a kid can put together in one afternoon, let alone 4+ half days.
As other reviewers noted, I wouldn’t be surprised if the boys were playing computer games for a bunch of the camp time. And the camp was held in the basement of a dorm or a fraternity house with computers on top of banquet tables. Hardly the Stanford University experience we thought we were getting.
The company is very good about replying to customer emails and phone calls — but the reality is that they didn’t do anything meaningful to improve the experience. Why do they bother to ask you to contact them «early in the camp» so they can improve the experience during the week? It sure seemed like just marketing to me. They didn’t take any responsibility for the totally misleading camp description. My mistake for not insisting on more details of both the Golf program as well as the Web design curriculum. I falsely assumed that the slick website promotions and multiple «testimonials» of happy clients featured on the website = high quality camp.
I’ve given them feedback that they should provide more detail to the program (ie the kids will hit range balls all day and NOT play on the golf course) so that parents know what they are getting. We’ll see if they follow that advice.
If Stanford University cares about maintaining their brand and reputation, they should monitor these companies using the good name of Stanford to make a fast buck.

My 15-​year old son spent a week at the University of Denver for an iD Tech Camp in June. We dropped him off at the freshman dorm where he would be living for the week and checked out his room. Very nice! The staff was so welcoming and easy for my son to relate to. We called him the first night to see how it was going and he was having a blast. He really liked the class, loved the unlimited food options and the kids and counselors were terrific.
When we picked him up on Friday we got to see what he created. We were totally impressed!