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App Lab Level 1: Builder Mode
From idea → to app design in one week
Stop scrolling and start building this summer! Launch your ideas with Slingshot App Lab—a three-level pathway where young tech enthusiasts design and build real digital apps, developing creativity, problem-solving and digital literacy.
This unique program gives students skills typically offered in a post-secondary setting. Levels 1 and 2 teach accessible app-building, from concept to code to live data integration. Level 3, arriving fall 2026, advances to publish-ready app design.
Whether new to coding or already experimenting, participants gain hands-on experience, real skills and the confidence to create technology, not just consume it.
Registration opens January 21, 2026.
Register here
Join us to hear from our program experts as they introduce Branksome Hall's 2026 summer Slingshot programs. These programs are specifically designed to give young students the opportunity to live innovation, not just learn about it. Build real mobile apps. Pitch startup ventures. Master debate and public speaking. Explore AI and business fundamentals. We encourage your child to attend with you and discover exciting opportunities, gain valuable insights, and ask all their questions!
Key Focus Areas
- Design Thinking: Discover real user problems and turn them into app ideas.
- Creative Coding Basics: Learn simple logic, variables and conditionals to understand how apps “think.”
- Interface & UX Design: Build clean, eye-catching screens and use visual storytelling to guide users.
- App flow and user journey mapping
- Wireframing and prototyping
- UI asset creation
- “Vibe Coding” sessions for experimenting with app logic and interactive features
- Walk away with a polished wireframe for your own Productivity App, like a habit builder, reminder system, or next-gen to-do tool.
Key Information
Ready to start building? Let’s make it happen!
One-Week Program
Co-ed for ages 11–13.
Bring Your Own Device. For more information, please see our FAQs.
Dates
July 6–10 or August 17–21
Hours
9:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m.
Location
Branksome Hall - In-person
Fee
$950 for one week and $1,900 for two weeks
(includes daily hot lunch)
Program outcomes
Learners will earn a certificate of completion for inclusion on their LinkedIn profile and leave with confidence, problem-solving skills and a designed app prototype ready to showcase—complete with wireframes, user flows and interactive mockups that bring their vision to life.