I made these at a camp called Cybercamps, a summer camp for kids (either day-only or overnight—I never stayed overnight) at various college campuses where we could use computers and learn about different computer subjects. I liked it... I was happy there, I got to do a thing I liked (using computers), it was at a pretty campus, and it's where I learned C++, which was the second programming language I ever learned, and the first "real" programming language (i.e., not designed specifically for teaching programming). I went there from 1999 through 2006, 7 years—so long that I remember one year they gave out some sort of thing saying how many years each person had been at camp, and they didn't even have a record of it because it had been that long.

While preparing these pictures for this website, I accidentally opened a file that redirected to the original website they appeared on—everyone who attended the camp could put what they made there on giantcampus.com (the company that runs, or ran, Cybercamps). I already knew that my stuff had been taken down, but I saw something upsetting...

The domain giantcampus.com may be for sale by its owner!

I searched the internet for any information... there's no news of them closing, but their last post their Facebook page is from 2011 (and now is 2016)... and there's this comment:

What happened to you guys?  The only recent news anywhere is that you were acquired by some equity company.  None of your sites work, your Wikipedia page says nothing about you closing nor does Google, and none of your social media has been updated in years.  I don't even know if anyone will see this and be able to answer it but you guys were a big part of my life even though I only went for two summers in 07 and 08.  The memories I have of the U of M Cybercamps are near and dear...

Their other domain, cybercamps.com, redirected me to who-knows-where (it seemed suspicious, so I stopped it), and when I tried browsing with scripts and styles disabled, I got something that looked kind of like how it maybe should look, but then had some stuff about SEO and marketing, so it probably isn't under their control anymore. And many of the other results were of some security thing that seemed to be using the Cyber Camps name, presumably unrelated.

...unless Cybercamps was taken over by someone sinister, and now a bunch of kids are going to camp excited to learn how to make computer games and do photo and video editing and whatnot, and instead being trained about how to become marketers spammers and/or security professionals...

...but seriously, this is sad... I liked Cybercamps, and even though I was too old to go anymore anyways, ...it's still sad to see things I enjoyed disappear from this world...


(an octahedron got in the way...)


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