Weekly Syllabus
Five days. One portfolio website. Real AI tools. Here's exactly what your child will learn each day at Camp Vibe Code.
What to Bring
- A laptop (Mac, Windows, or Chromebook)
- A charger
- Curiosity and a willingness to create
- No coding experience needed
What You Leave With
- A live portfolio website you own forever
- Free hosting on Vercel or GitHub Pages
- Real skills with tools used by professional developers
- A portfolio piece for college apps and internships
Each day builds on the last — students layer new tools onto their workflow
Google AI Studio
Day 1 · Brainstorm & prototype
GitHub
Day 2 · Save & version code
Codespaces
Day 2 · Cloud dev environment
VS Code / Antigravity
Day 3 · Professional IDE
Claude Code
Day 3 · AI coding agent
Vercel / GitHub Pages
Day 3 · Deploy & host free
Day 1
From zero to a working site in one session
Students hit the ground running. After a quick intro, they jump straight into Google AI Studio (Gemini) to describe the personal website they want to build. Within minutes, they see real HTML and CSS appear. By lunch, every student has a working, personalized prototype.
Schedule
Welcome & Quick Setup
Introductions, camp overview, and a quick laptop check to make sure everyone is ready to go.
What is Vibe Coding?
Brief intro: how AI is changing the way software gets built, and why describing what you want is now the most important skill. Then straight into building.
Build with Google AI Studio
Hands-on: students open Google AI Studio (Gemini) and start describing the site they want. They generate HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and see their first web page come alive in the browser.
Snack Break
Customize & Make It Yours
Students personalize their site: colors, content, layout, images. They learn to describe changes to the AI and iterate until it looks the way they want.
Show & Share
Every student shows their prototype to the group. Day one and everyone already built something real.
By End of Day
- A working HTML/CSS website prototype running locally
- Comfort using AI to generate and refine code
- A clear vision for their personal portfolio site
Day 2
Learn GitHub, then get back to building
Morning starts with a 45-minute crash course on GitHub: how developers save, track, and back up their code. Then students open their project in GitHub Codespaces and spend the rest of the day building new pages and features, committing as they go. Sites start looking real.
Schedule
GitHub Crash Course
Why version control matters (quick demo of what happens when you break something). Create a GitHub account, set up a repository, and learn to commit and push.
Push Your Project & Open Codespaces
Students push their Day 1 prototype to GitHub. Then they open it in Codespaces, a full coding environment right in the browser. Their code is now in the cloud.
Snack Break
Build New Sections
Back to building. Students add a projects gallery, skills section, contact page, or whatever fits their vision. They use AI Studio to generate new content and commit each change to GitHub.
Show & Share
Sites are growing. Students show their expanded pages and their GitHub commit history.
By End of Day
- A GitHub repository with real version history
- An expanded multi-section portfolio site
- Fluency with GitHub Codespaces as a cloud dev environment
Day 3
Unlock AI coding agents and deploy to the internet
The biggest day of the week. Students level up from browser-based tools to a real IDE (VS Code or Google Antigravity) and unlock AI coding agents like Claude Code. The speed increase is dramatic. Then the moment they have been building toward: they deploy their site to Vercel or GitHub Pages. By lunch, every student has a live URL they can share with anyone in the world.
Schedule
Meet Your IDE
Introduction to VS Code and Google Antigravity. Students import their GitHub project into a professional development environment with file management, a terminal, and live preview.
AI Agents Unleashed
Students try Claude Code (a terminal-based AI agent) or Google Antigravity's built-in agent. They describe a major new feature and watch the AI build it across multiple files. Navigation menus, animations, responsive layouts.
Snack Break
Deploy to the Internet
Students connect their GitHub repo to Vercel (or GitHub Pages) and deploy. In minutes, their portfolio is live with a real URL. They test it on their phones.
Share Your Live URL
Text the link to a parent, share it with a friend. The site is live and real. Push a change, watch it update automatically.
Show & Share
Live URL demos. Everyone pulls up each other's sites on their phones. The energy is real.
By End of Day
- Proficiency with a professional IDE and AI coding agents
- A live, deployed website with a real URL
- Understanding of the push-to-deploy workflow
Day 4
Advanced features, polish, and portfolio strategy
Now that the site is live, the goal shifts from 'working' to 'impressive.' Students use AI agents to add advanced features, polish the design, and think strategically about their portfolio. This is a real asset for college applications and internships. Sites transform from good to standout.
Schedule
Review & Plan Upgrades
Quick review of live sites as a group. Each student identifies what would make their site go from good to great and plans their Day 4 upgrades.
Advanced Features
Time to go deeper. Responsive design for mobile, CSS animations, dark/light mode toggles, image galleries, contact forms, embedded videos. AI agents make complex features accessible to beginners.
Snack Break
Portfolio Strategy
Framing the site for the real world. How to present projects, write an about section, and showcase skills. This portfolio is a living asset for college applications, internships, and beyond.
Open Lab
Flexible time: students who need to catch up get 1-on-1 help. Advanced students explore new ideas, experiment with features, or help peers. Everyone pushes updates and sees their live site improve.
Show & Share
Before-and-after comparisons. See how far every site has come since Day 1.
By End of Day
- A polished site with advanced features and responsive design
- Portfolio framed for college applications and internships
- Continuous deployment mastery: push, deploy, iterate
Day 5
Final sprint, presentations, and what comes next
The final day. Students get a long morning build sprint to make their last improvements using every tool in their toolkit. Then they prepare a short presentation and demo their finished portfolio to the group and parents. They leave with a live site, real skills, a certificate, and the confidence to keep building.
Schedule
Final Build Sprint
Almost two hours of focused building and polishing. Instructors circulate for 1-on-1 help. Students use the full workflow: AI Studio for ideas, Claude Code or Antigravity for building, GitHub for saving, Vercel for deploying.
Snack Break
Prepare Your Presentation
Students prepare a 2-minute demo: what they built, what tools they used, and what they would build next.
Demo Day
Each student presents their portfolio site to the group. Parents and guardians are invited to attend and see what their teens created this week.
What Comes Next
Resources for continuing the journey: how to keep updating their site, start new projects, and keep using AI tools. Introduction to the Camp Vibe Code after-school program (Fall 2026).
Certificates & Celebration
Every student receives a certificate of completion. Group photos, high-fives, and the start of their journey as builders.
By End of Day
- A shipped, polished portfolio website they own and control
- Confidence presenting their work to an audience
- A clear path to keep building after camp
Ready to start building?
No experience required. Just bring a laptop, curiosity, and the willingness to create something real.