BUTLER TWP — Butler County Community College has been brimming with children's creativity this summer, with the Kids on Campus program offering more than 100 day camps over six weeks for school-aged students.

About 200 students from kindergarten through 12th grade participated in activities each week. While some of the programs offer traditional summer camp fare, like acting, cooking and painting, others provide more unique opportunities to be resourceful.

One of the BC3 programs, called “Out of a Box,” truly focuses on imagination and ingenuity.

Children enrolled in second through fourth grades were busy constructing castles, cars and rocket ships, using only cardboard, toilet paper tubes and egg cartons as building supplies.

Nine-year-old Rachel Wayne of Butler was busy constructing a three-story dollhouse, complete with toilet paper tube elevators and egg carton chairs.

“I thought of my dolls and I drew the blueprint. And then I thought of different furniture to add,” Rachel said, painting her creative masterpiece.

Meanwhile, her friend, 8-year-old Meredith Mycka of Mars, sat beside her building a dollhouse pool for her.

“I thought of my grandma's pool, and I always wanted to make it,” she said, painting the water a bright blue.

A cut toilet paper tube stood in as grandma's new water slide. Egg cartons were lounge chairs, and cut pieces of cardboard acted as poolside tables.

On the other side of the room, 8-year-olds Jacob Hensler of Zelienople and Timothy Peng of Gibsonia were busy painting a red car and a blue castle. Jacob stuck his head in his friend's castle, with a cereal box cut out into a TV inside.

“The cereal commercial is on again!” Jacob joked.

The castle's other features included a flag, an elevator and a telescope. Jacob's red car was equipped with a steering wheel, a license plate and a bumper sticker.

“In the future, when this is in the museum … We think it's going to be great,” he said with a big smile.

Across the hall, older students also were using their imaginations and creative sides, but in a different way. They were building lego robots in a weeklong Robotics program.

Butler boys Brock Hepler, 11, and Dustin Scott, 12, pieced together a sumo bot with a plow. Playing with legos made many boys and girls interested in enrolling in the class.

“I love legos and building things, so I thought it would be a cool experience,” Brock said, who's building a robot for the first time. “It's a really good learning experience for us.”

He's planning on taking more science- and computer-based classes in the future.

Various robot designs were available to choose from on a robotics computer program, called LEGO Mindstorm. Once it's assembled, functions may be added by the children downloading existing movements or reactions, or coding new ones.

Some of the more advanced robots can react to light and sound. And a few of the robotic designs had more unique qualities.

Twelve-year-olds Rebecca Peng and Catherine Lee, both of Gibsonia, were building a “robo gator.” The robotic alligator was being programmed to open its mouth and wag its tail when completed.

The girls learned that it takes teamwork to follow the instructions to ensure the robot worked.

“We have to work together to get it all done,” Rebecca said.