Windows Phone Camp tips

I've recently had the privilege to attend one of Microsoft's many developer camps.  After coming out of it, I won a few prizes and learned a few new tricks in code.  If you are thinking of attending one of these, here are some things which you should bear in mind.

1.  Get used to the Visual Studio IDE BEFORE the camp.
   I would suggest about a month before the camp to start educating yourself in the environment. Watch some tutorials, read some articles, make your own applications.  You want to have a base level of experience in this environment before you jump into a Microsoft camp.

2.  Instruction, walkthrough, produce
  This is the way Microsoft structures its education process in the camps.  They have 3 'sessions' using this method.  They tell you it, they walk you through, then you try it yourself.  However, they almost always run out of time, so it become an instruction then a quickly produce it.  I guess life never goes to plan.

3.  Do the workshops ONE at a time
  I accidentally did two of them in one time period because I thought we had to finish them all in one session.  I was totally lost after that (however, that was mainly due to the fact that they were talking about database integration.  Do you really expect me to know all of this at my age!?).

4.  These workshops are aimed at people who are not minors who have worked in programming for a bit
  So fair warning to you teenagers (including myself), if you go to one of these, you probably won't understand half of the stuff they talk about.  However, try to pay attention, as making your brain hurt will help you along your development career.

5.  If you are going to enter their app competition, HAVE AN APPLICATION IDEA THAT YOU KNOW YOU CAN MAKE BEFOREHAND!
  I thought I was going to learn how to make all sorts of applications.  However, since most of the stuff went over my head, I spent an hour of my two hours scrambling to get an idea and another hour trying to make it.  I barely made it in time (although I couldn't put all the features I wanted into my app). Ah, good times.

Anyways, these are my 5 big tips for you who are thinking of going to a develop camp from Microsoft.  One thing to note, every camp is different.  So expect everything.  But most of all, HAVE FUN.  Life is there to enjoy, so don't mope about it.