The Cabinizer. I have always loved it. The simplicity, the usefulness, the efficiency. Most camps, overnight and day, have some form of grouping to do, either putting the campers into their cabins or their weekly groups. And, for most camps, it is an extremely important task, wanting to get just the right mix in each cabin or group.

I am sure many of us recall camper cards (think rolodex cards with camper details on them) being shuffled around on the floor or cork board to capture the appropriate grouping. There was a need to see the whole picture, all of the cabins at once, and easily move campers around. So many camper requests to consider…and some “dis-requests” to ensure!

When we first introduced the Cabinizer in our Desktop version many, many years ago, there were fears of “I can’t do this without my camper cards and my cork board!” from some corners and tears of pure joy from others. Without a doubt, the Cabinizer has become a truly beloved part of CampBrain.

When it was time to bring it to the Web-based version, the pressure was on to bring the same love to the table. Many of the features remain the same:

There are a few things that we enhanced for the Web-based version, based on feedback from you:

That last point deserves some elaboration. In the Desktop version, you can only have one cabin/group assignment per session. In the Web-based version, there is no limit. We created an extra tier to remove this per session limitation. Personally, I think the real benefit of this particular feature goes far beyond cabin and group assignment. It means you can use the Cabinizer for any type of grouping you want – create teams, colour war groups, dining table assignments, anything! You can take a session (or sessions) of campers, name a new “set” in the Cabinizer and drag and drop everyone into their groups/teams/tables/cabins. It is one of those features that is so flexible and powerful, that we will look back in a year and say “Wow, our camps are really creative in the way they have used the Cabinizer!” Frankly, the “Cabinizer” is probably a little limiting as a name…we may need to consider something like the “Groupinator”. 🙂

Can you see some other ways you like to separate and group your campers beyond just cabins and groups?

Whether on Desktop or Web-based, I wish you happy Cabinizing in the days ahead!