UNB Sent Middle Schoolers Back to Class With Games, Websites and AI

The University of New Brunswick Faculty of Computer Science closed the books on this summer's Adventures in Computing camps in mid-August. The thank-you went to campers, parents, student counsellors, and assistant teaching professor Connor Wilson, who directed the program. The campers themselves are the ones walking into Grade 6, 7, and 8 classrooms this September.

That is the point of a back-to-school story that is not about phones. New Brunswick's rewritten Policy 311 takes personal devices out of the school day. The faculty's camp is the other half of that argument: computing as problem-solving and making things, not as a feed.

Two identical weeks in the ITC

The faculty's 2026 camp page listed two identical day-camp weeks at the Information Technology Centre, 550 Windsor Street, on the Fredericton campus: July 13–17 and July 20–24. Drop-off ran 8:30 to 9:00 a.m.; pick-up 4:00 to 4:30 p.m. Tickets were $200, with a fixed number of bursaries through cssquare@unb.ca.

Eligibility was explicit: middle schoolers entering grades 6 through 8 in September 2026. No prior technology experience required. Both weeks ran the same syllabus.

The advertised topics were concrete — website development, video games, artificial intelligence, and "the overlap of computer science with other fields." The page noted that some 2026 content would overlap with 2025. Wilson, listed as BCS and MCS and an assistant teaching professor in the faculty, led the camps with a team of computer science students.

The people who ran the rooms

The faculty's wrap-up named the student leaders: Josh Bacon, Nick Boucher, Reilly Green, Amanda Samarita, María Victoria Millan, Wyatt MacKay-Dawson, and Bella Wedge. Wilson got the director shout-out.

This is not a new sideline. CBC watched Wilson run a high-school AI day camp on the same campus in 2023 — undergraduates teaching teenagers that a smartphone's autocomplete is already AI, and that the box is not magic. The 2026 middle-school weeks sit on that same outreach line.

A pipeline that starts before first year

Fredericton's cybersecurity cluster and UNB's startup machinery do not refill themselves from first-year orientation. They refill from kids who have already written a small game or a first webpage before they pick a high-school course.

The McKenna Institute's TeXplore days cover the same bet on a different calendar — non-instructional days during the school year. Adventures in Computing is the July version: two weeks in the ITC, then a backpack and a classroom.

The faculty did not publish a headcount. What it did publish is who the camps were for, what they covered, and who stayed late enough in August to thank the people who ran them.

Sources

• UNB Faculty of Computer Science Summer Camps and Workshops — official 2026 Adventures in Computing page: two July weeks, grades 6–8, ITC address, $200 tickets and bursaries, topics, Wilson as lead
• Faculty wrap-up on Adventures in Computing — mid-August thank-you; names student counsellors and Wilson as camp director
• Connor Wilson faculty directory — assistant teaching professor, Faculty of Computer Science
• UNB Faculty of Computer Science — faculty home
• Active.com camp listing — July 13–17 week, ITC address, advertised topics
• High school students learn role AI plays in daily life at UNB day camp — CBC — 2023 background on Wilson's CS outreach camps