Students in Collingwood got a crash course in coding at St. Mary’s Catholic School last week.

The Simcoe Muskoka District Catholic School board held a week-long camp called the Power of Coding.

The camp was open to students Grades 7-9 from both the Catholic and Public School boards and offered them a chance to learn about computer programming.

Greg Moneypenny was one of the organizers and said this was an extension of a coding club they have at St. Mary’s.

He explained how students learned about coding using the scratch programming method, which was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Students participating in the camp had theme days and activities throughout the week and they used their coding skills to create animation and program apps.

One of the activities was creating an app to control a robot that was used in the Robot Olympics on the final day of the camp.

Moneypenny said they are learning more than just programming, he said the camp taught them about perseverance and patience.

“There is a lot more that they learn, that has nothing to do with technology,” he said.

He said this is the future of technology and the camp gave kids a chance to learn it early.

Student Lydia Mirrlees said she’s always interested in computers and technology and enjoyed the camp.

“It’s the future of technology and in the future, they’ll need a bunch of jobs to fill and we can be the people that fill those jobs,” she said.

The camp was offered as part of the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School board's Summer school program.