A Home Away from Home: JOBY at Galileo Summer Quest

By November 23, 2013Friends of Joby, Gorillapod

(JOBY Note: This post was written by Jessica Ellis at Galileo Learning which hosts awesome innovation camps for kids. Check ’em out!)

On a warm summer morning in Palo Alto, twenty middle school students are busy at work planning their set for the world’s next great movie, so they proclaim. They are equipped with Pentax adventure cameras, a sense of determination, a willingness to collaborate and, a JOBY GorillaPod Video tripod. Summer camp is not the typical setting for JOBY users, but these tripods are no less valuable here.

Galileo Summer Quest: GorillaPod Video Positioning

Campers need equipment that is weather resistant and can withstand eight straight weeks of heavy use. Galileo provides over 36,000 weeks of camp to Bay Area kids and providing high quality equipment that enhances the camp experience is a top priority. High quality equipment is important because it enable kids to focus on the art of their idea. Galileo Summer Quest helps campers tap into their natural creativity and empowers them to design and build projects with tools that are often unavailable at home or at school. Their adventure is one of wild imagination and innovation. The JOBY tripod helps budding photographers and videographers push their ideas beyond the confines of a typical class and into the exciting and risk-free environment of an innovation summer camp.

Galileo Summer Quest: GorillaPod Video Notebook

All summer, campers at Galileo Summer Quest’s 14 camps from Tiburon to San Jose have been putting JOBY tripods to the ultimate test of endurance and usability. Galileo Summer Quest offers a wide range of one-week courses in the fields of Digital and Fine Arts, Building and Making and High Technology. This year, JOBY tripods were offered as a compliment to three of these courses: Digital Filmmaking, Digital Photography and Lego Robotics. In Digital Filmmaking, campers use the JOBY GorillaPod Video tripods for shooting a 3-5 minute movie. In Digital Photography, campers use the GorillaPod SLR Zoom tripods with their Nikon SLRs to set up their images for portrait photo shoots and for their Public Service Announcement photographs. In Lego Robotics, campers use the JOBY GorillaPod Hybrid tripods to film their “vlogs” of robot competitions, which they then upload to YouTube to share with parents and friends.

The JOBY tripods replaced the aluminum tripods used in the field last summer. They had been one of the greatest bottlenecks for campers in Digital Filmmaking and Photography. The aluminum tripods continuously broke and were a great frustration to campers who had designed their projects to require tripods for stability in their films and photos. This summer, the tripods have far exceeded expectations. One highlight of the JOBY tripods has been their use in Digital Photography. Campers love the size and versatility of the Zoom tripods. One camper wrapped her tripod around the branch of a tree to get a unique angle and another balanced it on picnic tables for a wide aperture photo shoot.

GorillaPod Video

The JOBY tripods not only have proven rugged enough for constant handling by 11 and 12 year olds, but have also engaged middle-school aged campers with their bendable and magnetic legs. Stored with the magnet side attached to metal file cabinets and hanging from metal binders, the Joby tripods looks very much at home at Galileo summer camps.

Galileo Summer Quest: GorillaPod Video Herd

 

As the summer comes to a close, the tripods will be packed with their cameras and stored away for next year when campers will return, eager to capture their ever-evolving stories. A sense of adventure and openness to new ideas has always been part of the culture at Galileo and now, so is JOBY.

 

 

JOBY Inc

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