A hand-drawn Camp Invention logo and motto inspires TNCS inventors.

Over a clamor of hammering, chatter, whirring, and buzzing, a shout is heard—“What’s our number one rule?” “Have fun!” is the enthusiastic reply of a dozen or so 1st-grade voices. For the third summer running, The New Century School hosted Camp Invention, a week-long day program and the brainchild of the National Inventors Hall of Fame in partnership with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Presenting kids with real-world challenges that encourage them to solve problems and present their solutions through themed, scientific, engaging hands-on investigation, the Camp Invention program integrates four key components: 1) STEM enrichment, 2) consistent and effective implementation, 3) collaboration and other 21st-century skills, and 4) teacher and student development (read details here).

TNCS Kindergarten/1st-Grade teacher Teresa Jacoby headed up the program as Camp Director, joined by Camp Instructors Miss Danielle, Miss Fanta, Miss Katie, and Miss Sarah, who are public school teachers in various subjects during the school year. “I really enjoyed this program,” said Mrs. Jacoby, “because it’s very thorough, and everything is broken down into steps.” A science enthusiast in her own right, she plans to use some of the Camp Invention approach in her classroom. The thematic aspect, she says, shows students where a particular lesson is heading and what it all leads up to.

This year’s theme was Morphed!, which is divided into four modules that participants in one of three groups (orange = 4th–6th graders, green = 2nd and 3rd graders, and blue = 1st graders) cycle through each day:

1. Amplified: Kids explored the dynamic realm of the five senses on a bionic adventure. They joined “research teams” and unlocked clues to uncover nature’s blueprints (i.e., animal evolutionary adaptations), which hold the key to superhuman senses. To build essential STEM skills, they developed bionic gadgets and explored sensory illusions.

Campers explored how the rubber band motion of the hand worked and predicted how many times they would be able to accurately hit a target with it.

“Sight tells us one thing but we also have to touch it,” said Mrs. Jacoby. We use our different senses together to accrue data and confirm or modify our original hypothesis.

Campers put one hand in hot water and one in cold, then put each hand in the warm, which felt hot to the cold hand and cold to the hot.

Campers recorded observations as well as drawings of their invention prototypes in daily journals.

Animals use a variety of means for mobility, which campers explored to incorporate into their own research and eventual invention prototypes.

All part of the research to create supersenses and bionics!

Ears are an important evolutionary adaptation and were key to the amplified module.

2. Super Go: Kids created morphing, motor-powered vehicles that operate on land, in the air, and underwater. Using nature’s designs, they explored energy, fuel, movement, and animal features and then applied these discoveries to motor-powered vehicles. In preparation for the Super Go Road Rally, they used their STEM skills to build their vehicles, ramps, and tunnels and let ’em rip!

Even starfish self-propel themselves . . .using hydraulics!

These vehicle prerequisites are pretty stringent! Wow!

What kind of fuel(s) will your vehicle use?

This super go vehicle uses rubber band motion to move, as the inventor researched in the amplified module.

Each inventor’s prototype vehicle was stored in labeled plastic bags for safekeeping and easy identification!

This journal drawing represents the direction one inventor plans to take to allow her vehicle to “swim” out of water onto land . . . like an amphibian!

A gaggle of Super Gos!

3. I Can Invent: Pinbug: Kids disassembled electronics to build insect-themed pinball machines. They used tools to uncover mechanical guts and upcycle them into bumpers, targets, and scoreboards. Then they used physics, anatomy, and math to propel ping-pong balls onto the playfield with a cardboard launcher and insect leg flippers.

Mrs. Jacoby helps a member of Team Rollie Pollie strengthen their pinbug machine casing.

Team Rollie Pollie from the orange group collaborated on a pinbug machine.

Campers were not permitted to work with any kind of tools unless they had donned their goggles. Safety first!

Miss Fanta guides a team in constructing their pinbug machine.

Where do all of the resources come from to create all of the amazing inventions? Recycled materials!

Camp Instructors Miss Katie (left) and Miss Sarah (right) help the 1st-grade campers with some of the more arduous cardboard cutting, but constructing the pinbug machines will be all done by the campers themselves.

This pinbug machine is really coming together!

Various parts from a disassembled alarm clock and a disassembled keyboard will find new life as components of a pinbug machine!

Rules of Brainstorming

In response to being asked what he liked most about Camp Invention, this camper said, “We get to take things apart and then make new things!” (He never looked up from his engrossing project!)

4. Design Studio: Morphed!: Kids invented and tinkered with circuits and design solutions to nature-based challenges. As entrepreneurs, team leaders, and designers, they worked alongside other campers to bring their inventions “to market” in an environment modeled after real-world research and development.

In this case, magic markers are the mother of invention.

Some drawings of what promise to be some pretty fantastic inventions one day . . .

A money machine would definitely improve the lives of many!

These recycled materials will actually be “upcycled”—that is, they will become something altogether new.

The design station beckons!

Balloons, beads, pipe cleaners—oh my!

What did this happy camper like best about Camp Invention? “Making stuff—I made a car, and I’m also making a pinbug machine!”

Thus, each module intersected with and built on the others, resulting in kids really making the connection between what they were doing and why. Said Mrs. Jacoby: “One of the things I got the biggest kick out of is that [Camp Instructor Miss Danielle, an AP Physics teacher] told me that a lot of her advanced high school students would have trouble putting the circuit boards used in Design Studio together, but these elementary-aged Camp Invention students are totally getting it. This is amazing!”

Look what I can do!

Using tools is so much fun!

Mrs. Jacoby thoroughly enjoyed teaching the camp she says because she was impressed with how much the kids actually used tools to figure things out and to create, fix, and experiment. She also appreciated the number of girls participating; the ratio of girls to boys was equal. “There’s not a girl in here who’s going to be afraid to change her own light fixtures,” she said.