Local kids are wired

11.18.05 - At the end of the school day, Cameron Davis, 14, designs his own video games, digitally inserts himself into frames of his favorite games, and travels the entire world with a satellite's-eye view - all with the click of a mouse.

"I've gone to Anaheim to see Disneyland, zoned in on sports stadiums, stuff like that," he said on a recent afternoon, deftly hopping continents in the program Google Earth to zoom in right on the very spot he was sitting - the brand-new Intel Computer Clubhouse lab at the Boys & Girls Club Valley of the Moon.

At its grand opening on Saturday, the Sonoma clubhouse will officially join the 99 other state-of-the-art clubhouses across the world founded for youth ages 10 to 18 to stretch their creativity and learn the tech skills they'll need for our wired world.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini is flying in for Saturday's event, where he'll see projects by the 20 youth who were given early access to the lab.

At the clubhouse, two younger kids crowded in behind Cameron, calling out their addresses so he could zero in on their houses. A few minutes later, he hopped back and forth between the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty, comparing the two monuments' shadows to see which is taller.

Lab staff got him started, but for the most part he taught himself how to manipulate photographs or to train a digital cat to follow his video game character.

"Basically, these kids are doing calculus and they don't even know it," he said.

The lab has video editing, architectural, graphic and Web-design programs among others, and the various workstations are hooked to a panoply of gadgets - digital microscopes, a microphone, webcam and digital drawing pad. The clubhouse also has a digital camcorder, a digital camera and a sound recording studio.

The club had a soft opening in October, admitting 20 kids who had helped out with set-up. Interest from the rest of the pack is sky-high.

"Every day there will be 35 kids poking their head in. When I walk out, I'm mobbed," Hardeman said.

One group that's currently using the lab are the Valley's two Lego robotics teams, the Dragons and the Bluebots, who meet on Tuesdays. Their current stumper is training their whirring bots to sprint across a short space, turn and hit a button that flips a Lego dolphin out of its cage. They set the robot free over and over again in a contained area that looks like an obstacle course, jumping back up to the computer monitor to reprogram after each chorus of groans.

"I'm in this for the scholarship," said team member Alexander Alexander, 10. He's looking forward to the regional First Lego League competition in Pacifica in December.

"Are we going to play China?" he asked coach Marc Helfman. "God, I hope not."

Helfman told him the team would have to make it far beyond regionals.

It isn't impossible, however - the Intel Clubhouse can connect the kids to people and places far beyond the Valley.

The Sonoma lab is connected to a Web site called the Village where kids can e-mail or video chat with kids at Intel Clubhouses from Brazil to Denmark to India.

They can take the friendship out of cyberspace; each year, there is a world summit in Boston, attended by three youth and a chaperone from Intel Clubhouses around the world.

"Technology is the common language," said Davis, who attended the last summit and was knocked out by many of the projects he saw.

Boys & Girls Club Valley of the Moon Executive Director Cathy Wilson took advantage of her vacation in Belfast, Ireland, to check out the lab there. She's already working over the time zones to figure out how local kids can meet the kids in Belfast online via webcast, and even eventually meet in person through an international exchange.

Around 5:30 p.m., a few teenagers started cruising in, including Mauricio Acelvedo, 16, who has been pestering staff for more activities for teens for some time. He's hanging out with NBA stars these days - at least in the photos he alters in Adobe Photoshop. You won't catch him behind the mike in the recording studio, but he messes around with the keyboard and computer.

"I make the beats for my friends that know how to actually rap," he said.

By 6 p.m., the whole room is shaking from bass beats booming from the studio, which doesn't faze Cassidy Everitt, 17, who calmly turns digital photos of the nearby forest into surreal and abstract art to hand out to ceremony attendees on Saturday.

"You can change all the different colors and change it to what you want it to look like," she said, causing a tree trunk to blaze up in magenta with just a few clicks.

Coming to the clubhouse helps her in her computer graphics class at the high school, she said.

The club is actively trying to woo teenagers to the lab - there will soon be a teen-only lounge and the local club is jumping on a national campaign to chip at the biggest obstacle to getting them through the door - the name above it. The staff who work with teens will wear shirts with a new logo for "the Club." There will also be rubber band bracelets, dog tags and letterman jackets with the logo.

"Teens are the most underserved in this community," said Hardeman, who graduated from Sonoma Valley High School in 2002. "I've seen it and I've lived it."

The club does not intend to be a one-stop shop for teens in the Valley.

"Our best bet is to have things throughout the community for teens," said Wilson. "Then they have more options and opportunities."

The goal is to eventually have a full-time teen director to supervise programs on-site and coordinate with others in the community.

The Boys & Girls Club Valley of the Moon is also working with Sonoma Valley High School to establish SAT and PSAT workshops as well as a college and career fair, a natural outgrowth of the resources teenagers can tap online. Through CareerLaunch, a Web site run by the Boys & Girls Club of America, students can search for colleges, take a career-interest survey, look for national internships, write a résumé, practice interviewing and dressing for the workplace, and more.

The Computer Clubhouse initiative was founded by the Museum of Science in Boston in 1993 and works in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab.

Everything about the clubhouse reflects the Museum of Science's four-point philosophy: learning-by-designing, following your interests, building community and fostering an environment of respect and trust.

Intel will sponsor the club for the first year, with $200,000 for staff development, equipment, furniture and software, and the Museum of Science provides curriculum, program support and advice.

The Boys & Girls Club raised $160,000 to pay for the remodel of the space and has secured funding to run the center for the next four years. The local community has been very supportive of the project, especially the Vadasz Family Foundation, which was founded by former Intel executive and Valley resident Les Vadasz, whom executive director Wilson credits with making the dream a reality.