— Day 1 - Set Up and Smash Basics: Our primary goal for this day is to assist students in setting up Smash Ultimate and to familiarize kids with our camp’s objectives. We start off the camp with an icebreaker to create a comfortable space for kids to get to know each other. In this session, we’ll concentrate on basic skills in Smash.

— Day 2 - Choosing a Main: Students will discover the different characters in the game and each one's strengths and weaknesses. Students will determine which characters best fit their playstyle, and will have the opportunity to practice against bots and other campers.

— Day 3 - Learning Matchups: After choosing a main, students will need to learn how their character shapes up against other character's in the Smash roster. Students will try out characters that "counter" their main in order to more specifically understand their weak spots.

— Day 4 - Understanding Neutral: Students will learn about advantaged, disadvantaged, and neutral states, and will start to identify strategies for how to shift between the three. This day focuses a lot on battles between campers to begin honing their skills!

— Day 5 - Tournament Day: It's time to put what you've learned to the test! Students will participate in a fully fledged tournament to see how far they've come over the course of their time together.

Connected Camps is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2015 with the mission to build a global online community where kids build, code, play, and learn alongside one another. Our programs are designed based on extensive research in the learning sciences. The founders and leaders of Connected Camps, Mimi Ito and Katie Salen, are professors at the University of California, Irvine, who specialize in the design of online learning experiences that are fun, social, and directly tied to academic outcomes. Learn more about the research behind Connected Camps at the Connected Learning Alliance resource site: https://clalliance.org/ 

One thing that makes our programs unique is our near-peer mentorship model. Our programs are led by young adults and college students, often with the help of high school volunteers. We hire counselors and coaches from top universities in computer science, game development, economics, social studies, and the arts, and train them on how to facilitate project-based learning with younger kids. Our young instructors have the same passion for technology, games, and digital making as our learners, and take on the role of instructors, as well as fellow enthusiasts and relatable role models.

The curriculum for this program was designed by a team of counselors pursuing degrees relevant to the material at hand. The learning experiences in this class are driven by these counselors’ academic expertise in the field, along with their desire to share their passion for the subject with a group of excited learners. All of Connected Camps’ curricula are vetted by the organization’s Product Manager, Matthew, who possesses a Masters in Secondary Education and a deep belief in the power of collaborative virtual learning.