All of the staff at RangerACE were incredibly excited to welcome campers to their first day at camp and introduce them to this year’s project. Each group of campers across the two weeks would be building half of a basketball court for Voigt Elementary, a local school in Round Rock. To prepare for working on the jobsite, campers learned about safety, created their own construction companies, and modeled the basketball court on CAD.

After completing the first day, campers were prepared to begin the construction of the basketball court. Throughout the day they would learn about the exciting job of surveying, estimate costs and assemble a mock “bid” for the court, and help prepare the court for the next step, concrete.

For the third day, campers were able to get hands-on experience with the diverse professions involved in concrete and heavy equipment. Before assisting in pouring and smoothing concrete for the basketball court, RangerACE Pros Hamilton McRae and Ryan Davis arrived to introduce campers to the engineering side of concrete.

Having learned about the aggregates used to make concrete on the third day, campers would spend the fourth day learning more about these and many more aggregates. Such product is mined and sold out of quarries, and thus for the fourth day campers would load up on buses in the morning for a field trip to the CC Aggregates Quarry, just 30 minutes outside of Round Rock!

The last day of camp focused on rewarding campers on their hard work throughout the week while also introducing them to two more fun and engaging professions in construction: striping and landscaping. Campers also got an opportunity to ask any unanswered questions to a panel of returning RangerACE Pros at lunch.

To start off the week, campers got introduced to the wide world of construction through discussions and activities with various RangerACE Professionals. Campers also were put into teams and given time to create their own construction company and logo! Throughout the week, campers will work towards creating a 8 ft. by 8 ft. concrete racing pad which they will race go-karts off of on Friday.

After completing their first day of safety and set-up, campers were prepared to start their go-kart racing pad projects in earnest.

An important step that must be taken before any construction project can begin is estimating the project cost and sending in a “bid” for said project, and this is right where our second day of camp began…

For the third day of camp, campers got the exciting opportunity to get familiar with two of the most well-known elements of construction: heavy equipment and concrete.

Having learned about a variety of aggregates used in construction on the third day, campers would spend the fourth day learning about quarries, where such aggregates are mined and sold, by actually going and touring an operational quarry!

The final day of camp was a culmination of the week, as after getting to paint their pads campers got to ask any unanswered questions to all the RangerACE Pros that came throughout the week and spend the afternoon racing go-karts off the pads that they created.