50 students from all 16 voivodeships, dozens of hours of lectures and practical seminars, photography and film-shooting workshops, salsa and public speaking classes, a virtual trip to the Research and Development Centre, and a meeting with Piotr Pustelnik, a Himalayan mountaineer—this is how one could sum up the last two weeks of August spent at the ADAMED SmartUP online science camp.

On August 28, the sixth edition of the ADAMED SmartUP camp has ended. It will go down in history of the programme as a unique event that was organised entirely online. Campers were videoconferencing from their homes with lecturers and colleagues scattered all over Poland. However, this did not prevent them from learning and having great fun during extracurricular activities.

“From the very beginning of our programme, we know that it has been founded on the students’ participation and their unrestrained willingness to learn new things. This year, we saw it clearly in the webcam images. Our camp has proven successful even when held online. Its partakers actively participated in lectures and workshops, asked the lecturers to clarify interesting concepts, and talked to each other for a long time, up until small hours, exchanging inspirations and simply having a good time among fellow campers,” emphasizes Martyna Strupczewska, the ADAMED SmartUP Programme Manager.

For the first time, the ADAMED SmartUP camp has been organised in a different setting. However, its participants benefitted equally from gaining the substantive knowledge and new skills as acquired by their older colleagues, the graduates of the previous editions. Similarly, they worked with microscopes, practised surgical suturing and programming, and performed other practical tasks. After classes, they also took part in less scientific, though integrative, activities.

“Despite the fact that we are hundreds of kilometres apart, we had a chance to talk to each other virtually all day long. I made new friends but also learned about workshop and internship opportunities. I feel that I have substantially developed over those two weeks,” says joyfully Julia Woźniak from Komorów, Mazovia.

“I really liked the practical part of classes, when we could do something by ourselves, on our very own desks, and see how things work. We knew that this was the same degree of science that otherwise we would perform in a laboratory. It was intense because each day was filled with a lot of activities, but that was very rewarding,” adds Hubert Kubiszewski from Międzyrzecze, Lubusz voivodeship.

Now, our recent alumni have to wait for the announcement of the 10 winners of the main prize. Nonetheless, for science-driven students interested in our programme there is not much time left to wait—the registration for its next, 7^th, edition will start on September 1. One month later, the full gameplay of the new online science game will commence.