← ProjectsPlate II

PASDC

A debate camp that I ran as director in 2024 and 2025. A new pricing structure, a new team format, sixty counselors, 742 students, and ActivityHero’s #1 Language Arts Camp of 2025.

Role
Camp director
Year
2024–2025
Status
Directed two summers
Made with
Operations, Pricing, Curriculum, Training
The camp staff in matching olive-green camp T-shirts, posed in rows on a lawn under a wooden pergola.

the staff

A staff member in a green STAFF T-shirt, seen from behind, reads from a sheet of paper while addressing a large group of campers seated on a lawn under trees.

addressing the camp

Drag to move the photo, or use the arrow keys. Press Enter to open it.

Plate II · PASDC

Overview

The Palo Alto Speech & Debate Camp is a summer camp that teaches students to speak and to debate. I was its director for the summers of 2024 and 2025, which made it the closest I have come to running a small business: it had customers, prices, staff, a calendar, and a budget.

Over those two summers we taught 742 students and raised more than $425,000, breaking a 20-year revenue record. ActivityHero named it the #1 Language Arts Camp in its Best of 2025 awards.

What I did

I was the camp’s director, with the job that title implies: I led about ten months of logistics planning each year, and I trained more than sixty counselors. On top of running it, I changed two things about how it works, the pricing and the debate format.

Decisions worth explaining

Three tiers, so students have somewhere to go next. I introduced a three-tier pricing system, Normal, Intermediate and Advanced. As students progressed they moved up a tier, and the structure drove re-enrollment from one year to the next.

A two-versus-two format. I pioneered a team debate format with two students per side. It increased collaboration among campers, and it halved the number of rooms we needed for the showcases.Fewer rooms is less to staff, schedule and supervise on the busiest day of camp.

One against one

20 rooms

Two against two

10 rooms

Same debaters, half the rooms: two to a side puts four in a room instead of two.

Try it.The same debaters laid out both ways. Slide the number up and the gap between the formats grows.

What came out of it

Two summers, 742 students, over $425,000 raised, a 20-year revenue record, and ActivityHero’s #1 Language Arts Camp for 2025. The tiers did what they were meant to do: students re-enrolled as they progressed.

Next plateNeuroView