Wizards & Warriors STEM Camp

Fighting monsters with foam swords and physics...

Wizards & Warriors STEM Summer Camp



Where adventure, learning, and friends await!

Our mission is to create life long learners who want to make a difference in the world. We do this by emotionally engaging our campers in safe, fun, and educational adventures where they are excited about learning science, languages, world cultures, history, myths & legends, and more in order to solve the mystery in which they are the Hero. Our company values are courage, honor, and compassion – which are also the attributes of our heroes.


About Wizards & Warriors Summer Camp

Wizards & Warriors Camp is a licensed educational Live Action Roleplaying (LARP) Summer Camp (ages 8-15 and 16-19 CIT) in central MA.

For pricing and dates, please contact us.

The next step is simple… just  call us at  (781) 270-4800 or fill out the below form and we will contact you and answer your questions.  We look forward to helping your hero live their adventure at our creative summer camp!



“What some might dismiss as a geeky alternative to more traditional camps, where sports and art classes rule, is actually a precious, even irresplaceable resource to the population it serves… these kids get to engage in more physically challenging and socially interactive versions of the [computer] games they already love. For many, the excitement comes from playing characters of their own creation in a multilayered adventure story their actions help shape. For others, it’s about sword fighting. But everyone seems to agree on the value – and fun – of turning video-game materials into real-life play,” – The Boston Globe

“A sensitive exposure to other cultures adds an ethical dimension to the experience, reinforced by the camp’s emphasis on compassion, courage and honor as the highest virtues to which the young heroes should aspire,” – NPR

“What (Guardian Adventures has) accomplished, seems to me, is to have done what Campbell would want us to with his work: synthesize it into our own work which puts us in service to our passion to the fulfillment of not only ourselves, but to the larger community,” – Joseph Campbell Foundation



COURAGE

The ability to do something that frightens one; strength in the face of adversity.



HONOR

High respect; great esteem, adherence to what is right despite the influence or pressure of others.



COMPASSION

Empathy, care, and concern for the mistreatment, suffering, or misfortunes of others.





Learn More about our Camps…

How we do this:  Our heroes revel in adventure at our STEM-based summer camps and learn a thing to two in the process.  Many of our activities are designed to promote education while campers strive to solve the mysteries before them.  For example…

  • Potion Making Class involves basic chemistry lessons where campers combine safe ingredients to make potions.
  • Our scrolls and spells are in Latin and other languages – waiting to be deciphered.
  • Campers learn about biology, environmental sciences and conservation while hiking about our acres of woods and researching in our classrooms.
  • Many of our counselors are Teachers or Masters of Education students who are resources for the young heroes as they  research the various creatures and mystical items from real world literature and mythology.
  • Life skills are refined as campers learn how to work as a team, learn creative problem solving and experience the opportunity to actively practice important character traits such as honor, courage and compassion.
  • Campers have the opportunity to interact with our “Living Characters” from History, Mythology and Literature. What this means is that kids and teens have the chance to learn about historical figures (like Hippocrates), mythological beings (like a Chinese Dragon), or characters from literature (such as Oberon from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream) by interacting with our professional actors who portray them. Our actors heavily research these characters so as to portray them and their time period as accurately as possible. We all know that stories are one of the best vehicles for teaching since they capture our attention; but interactive stories spark our creativity and inspire our dedication.
  • Our adventures emphasize the development of critical thinking and communication skills such as understanding cause and effect, gathering and analyzing facts, as well as communicating thoughts and decisions.  These are important skills that can benefit growing individual throughout their life.
  • Our summer camp takes safety seriously.  We have a 5:1 camper to staff ratio.  Our average staff age is 26 – we don’t have teenagers as lead counselors.  All of our counselors are certified in CPR and First Aid – not just our medical staff.  Our counselors are on 2-Way Radios, which is good for our story logistics, but also available in case of emergency.  Our camp is run by parents who have their own children attend this camp.  Yes, an active adventure can have higher risks than playing computer games… but an active camper is also at a risk of having more fun!
  • Since many of our campers stay in touch throughout the year as they plan for the next summer’s adventure, your Hero’s allies can be lifelong friends.


TACTICAL TRAINING


Your hero will learn how to use their foam swords and special skills while incorporating team tactics so that their group can withstand the hordes of monsters that plague the land. They will stand shoulder to shoulder with friends and allies and face the oncoming threat with courage and resilience.



SCIENTIFIC METHOD


Campers learn how to formulate hypotheses and conduct experiments to test their ideas. They use their research and findings to solve the mystery of what happened, how it happened, why it occured, and what they can do with this information to succeed in the game.



STEM
LEARNING


Team Leaders help the Heroes learn what they need to know in order to succeed. All ages work together in their ongoing quest to “power up” by learning STEM. Once they prove their knowledge by teaching it to their friends, they gain skills and special powers for the battle.



DISCOVERING CULTURES


Each summer, the story is based on a different world culture’s myths and legends. Heroes learn about monsters and characters from around the real world and throughout history as they gather important keys to solving mysteries, discovering treasure, and restoring peace to the land.



Take a moment and imagine how your child will feel when…

  • In a moment of strife, they discover their courage…
  • When they stand before a villain and fight for those who cannot defend themselves…
  • When they speak for those who suffer from lack of a voice…
  • When they face failure and continue forward because they know, deep in their heart, that they can survive this setback and try again…
  • When they bond with other kids who feel the same call to action and desire to be greater than the moment before them…
  • When they celebrate their victory with an intense feeling of accomplishment – because they had a part in this story and they made a difference.

Safety and Risk


We are constantly attentive to your child’s physical and emotional well being:

  • We have rules of conduct and special equipment to help keep our events safe.
  • We provide campers with an “Overload” word that allows them to exit an adventure if it’s too scary.
  • We offer adventures that are rated for different levels of “scariness” so that campers who are frightened easily can opt to attend a less intense interaction.
  • During sparring sessions there is an assigned Safety Marshall who does not participate in the sparring.
  • We make sure that campers understand that this is all just pretend; in reality, our monsters are people too!
  • Our staff are trained in safe conduct and assessment as well as emergency response. Our counselors and instructors are certified in CPR and First Aid – not just our medical staff.
  • Our counselor are on handheld radios – which helps with the logistics of the story, but are also useful in case an urgent matter needs support.
  • And finally, there is a dress code at our Burlington day camp facility to make sure your Hero stays as safe as possible while running around and having fun. We require all of our campers to wear closed-toed shoes and long pants. Please: No sandals, shorts, or skirts. This it to reduce the likelihood of tripping and scraped knees.  Our Overnight and Quest Camps allows for shorts, but closed toed shoes are still required.

As mentioned in the Philosophy/Mission/History section, safety is the first rule of assessment in our three rules of operation. However, it deserves its own heading and details. It is an aspect of all of our camps, classes, and events.


Even though our safety record is impressive, we train for and try to consider the unknown. Since our camp and company is owned and run by parents whose own children attend, safety is part of our regular assessment for each activity.

Our camps and events are filled with physical interactions. We have both indoor and outdoor excursions where kids run and play like healthy, active kids should do. As such, we cannot guarantee that a child will not experience risks associated with physical contact activities in a dynamic environment. Trips and falls do happen. Excited kids sometimes don’t look where they are running. An accidental hard hit with a foam sword can be scary.

This is not like sitting in a living room, playing a computer game. There are risks. But we can insure you that your child will also be at a higher risk for having serious fun… and an increased chance of burning calories, learning important skills, and making friends of the real kind instead of the virtual kind.


We are parents. We want to protect our kids. But we also want them to experience more than a virtual life… and feel the excitement of real adventure. We hope you feel the same way too.

Letter from Guard Up Camp Directors:

Take a moment to look over this article called The Overprotected Kid by Hanna Rosin. What was your reaction to the kind of environmental dangers found in “The Land”? Were you one of those who thought, “This is insane”?

Children grow up in a very different environment today than 30 years ago, and there has not been a consensus on whether this is good or bad. Most likely, it’s a little of both. Parents today are challenged to construct an environment for their kids that protects them from danger without missing out on the personal growth that comes from making mistakes, getting into trouble, even getting hurt.

Then again, there’s a fine line between giving children the freedom to experience danger and allowing them, through their inexperience, to cause themselves serious harm. Active parents have to analyze the environment that they construct for their children with this balance in mind. As Rosin points out, the lengths that parents go to with the intent of insulating their children from danger ultimately have very little effect on their odds of falling victim to the catastrophes that we might see on the news or in a movie.

At the same time, what is lost when parents too often place themselves between their children and a perceived danger? Rosin projects consequences as severe at “more fearful children and increased levels of psychopathology.” But fundamentally, what is lost is the child’s ability to engage in risky behavior with the understanding that consequences may follow. This is a critical adaptive tool for adults, making risky behavior a very important part of a child’s development.

To allow children to learn how to adapt to risk while avoiding major danger, communities need to contribute by building dedicated locations for kids to encounter danger, to behave in a way that is out of control, and to become exposed to the consequences of that behavior. Places like “The Land” provide a model for an environment that a child can shape to match their imagination, and where they can grow into strong and adaptive adults.

In our classes and at our camps, kids are engrossed in activities involving physical contact… they are hitting each other and getting hit by our staff with swords! They are running around, tripping and falling, getting bruised, scraped, and on a rare occasion, ending up with a cast (Owner Meghan Gardner’s youngest daughter) or stitches. Yes, it happens. How many of you parents reading this escaped an adventurous childhood free from a trip to the hospital? The hospital trip is not the objective… it’s just a possible sidebar journey for any active child.

We pride ourselves in our mature staff who are trained intensively and who make good decisions. But the truth is, our staff are human and cannot foresee every circumstance. They cannot prevent every painful moment. The more physically dynamic any activity is, the more the kids are at a greater risk of serious injury. They are also at a greater risk of having some serious fun!


Note: Our classes, events, and camps use foam weapons and masks which are constructed with latex.


* In our expanding efforts to keep Sidleterra as safe as possible for our young heroes, only vaccinated children or children who cannot receive vaccinations due to medical reasons will be allowed at camp. Documentation will be required to complete any and all camp registrations.

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