July, August 2024
TechLabs Overnight Flight Camp
For Ages 9-16 Pestalozzi Kinderdorf – Trogen, Switzerland
Everyone dreams of flight...
FLIGHT – Definition:
noun
noun
1. the action or process of flying through the air."an eagle in flight"
2. a trip made by or in an airplane or spacecraft
3. a brilliant, imaginative, or unrestrained exercise or display
2. a trip made by or in an airplane or spacecraft
3. a brilliant, imaginative, or unrestrained exercise or display
verb
4. an act or instance of moving under duress
My fascination with airplanes and flight began at an early age... Joel Radvanyi, Founder / CEO TechLabs, December 2023
In 1977, I was living in Paris, France, a six-year old political refugee - in a group home for asylum-seeking families from around the world - escaping from communist Hungary with my mother and father, and awaiting our entry visa into the United States.
During that seven month span my parents, without work, and having left all their belongings behind, somehow managed to scrounge the money to buy a present for my birthday: the Lego Spirit Of St. Louis model.
I cherished that little airplane: the grey propeller, the scaled realism, the authentic looking logo. I would run up and down the grand staircase of our residence, airplane in hand, while imagining being the pilot rising and falling inside of the airplane on its perilous one-man journey across the Atlantic.
My father took notice of my inspiration, and took me one day by Paris Metro to the annual Paris airshow at Le Bourget. Awed as a child walking between the Concorde, a full-scale mockup of the yet-to-be-built Space Shuttle, and every type of commercial and military airplane in the world, he informed me that one day soon we would be flying on a similar airplane to our destination, and new home in America. That evening I was inspired to draw a picture of a Boeing 747, “the queen of the skies” - which I had seen earlier that day - on graph paper, and with the only red colored pencil I had. A few months later indeed, I’d be aboard a Sabena airlines 747 from Brussels to New York. By then I’d become accustomed to the idea that an uncertain future was not to be feared - and aboard my four engined chariot in the sky, I was certain the future would be better than the past.
Flying is not simply physical movement from your location to your destination. It is an opportunity to free your imagination, to dream of possibilities, unencumbered by the concerns of your day-to-day life.
TechLabs has been operating model-airplane camps in Switzerland since 2016. Our camp, partnered with Pestalozzi Kinderdorf in idyllic Trogen, Switzerland offers a unique opportunity to share and immerse in this experience with kids and adults from diverse backgrounds while learning valuable skills from expert, dedicated instructors and peers who are similarly inspired.
Join us if you dream of flight!