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Sunday, October 9, 2005
Pupils learn by inventing
By MATT KANE
News-Journal Correspondent
EDGEWATER — Kids say the darndest things. They also invent them.
Take 10-year-old Emily Kemp. She was tired of tripping over her pet´s loose food and water dishes scattered on the floor, so she invented the Multi-Pet Feeding Station. The design is a square, wooden platform with four circular cutouts where two water dishes and two food dishes fit snugly.
 Daniel, 7, learned that part of inventing is failing. His first batch of Sunny Breeze perfume, bottle on the left, dissolved a styrofoam cup, but his final mix was a hit with his female classmates. (Photo: News-Journal/Matt Kane) |
“We didn´t like all the bowls around because we stepped on them,” Emily said.
That´s not a problem anymore. Food and water spillage is eliminated with the Multi-Pet Feeding Station. And the dog and cat can enjoy a nice meal together. The invention seems simple, but effective.
Emily showed off her pet-oriented invention Monday and Tuesday during the Inventions Fair at the Discovery Days Institute of Learning, where she attends fourth grade.
Perhaps if still alive, Thomas Edison and Ben Franklin would have had smiles on their faces as the school´s second- through fifth-graders displayed their curious minds with a plethora of innovations, ranging from a remote control window tinter to a hamster luxury house.
Some of the other inventions included the old faithful spewing volcano, a toy sorter, homemade flashlight, Cheetah´s Great Escape board game, Erica´s Yarn Ball Maker, a pencil sharpener/money bank and the Sweet Dreams Sleep Support, a strap that keeps a person´s head from nodding while sleeping in the car.
It´s these ideas that the pupils´ teacher, Mary Sullivan, is looking for during the Inventions Fair at Discovery Days.
“This is the beginning of creative thinking, organization and responsibility -- getting it here on time,” said Sullivan, who puts the Invention Fair on to wrap up a section of teaching that centers on innovations.
Aside from the actual construction of their inventions, the pupils learn the importance of preplanning, trial and error and even marketing the product. And every new invention becomes official with Sullivan´s “copyright” stamp.
The pupils were given a month to come up with an idea, plan it and present the final product. And parents were encouraged to help.
Baker Ball, 10, had everyone salivating with his “Pasta Pockets” as the lunch hour approached. And Matthew Shells, 8, awed his colleagues with his water tornado demonstration.
But the invention that stole the show came from Cheyenne Baker -- a personal hovercraft.
“I saw it on TV and my dad went and looked it up online and said we could make it,” the 9-year-old said. “But we used all of our own parts.”
 Cheyenne brought the fun when she showed up at Discovery Days Institute of Learning in Edgewater with a homemade hovercraft. (Photo: News-Journal/MATT KANE) |
Those parts included a seat from a boat, plywood, rubber sheeting and a leaf blower, which, when assembled, made a personal hovercraft.
“We made our own version because we wanted it to be our own invention and we wanted it to be creative.”
Not much bigger than a card table, Cheyenne´s hovercraft had a plywood base with a rubber bladder underneath. The captain´s chair was the seat from a boat and the power plant was a standard leaf blower. So, for most of Monday morning, with the gas-powered motor fired up, Cheyenne and her teachers and fellow pupils hovered across the concrete patio in the back of the school until the gas ran out.
The total project -- from the time Cheyenne saw a hovercraft on TV to the time she rode it across the concrete -- took four to five weeks.
But it was well worth it, she said.
“(Inventing) is fun because you get to use your mind doing it,” Cheyenne said.
Sullivan said regardless of the outcome, no one gets an F grade.
“All the child has to do is do the project,” Sullivan said. “I explained it doesn´t have to work. Most inventions don´t.”
Seven-year-old Daniel Knighton found that out.
In his first attempt to come up with a new perfume, Daniel found that his first concoction was a little too strong. The mixture of lemon and lime juices ate its way through the bottom of his makeshift beaker -- a Styrofoam cup.
But a second attempt had the girls in his class giddy with excitement over his new fragrance, “Sunny Breeze.”
“If it doesn´t work the first time, that´s OK,” he lectured. “You can always make another one.”
This type of thinking is what Sullivan was looking for with her lectures on innovations.
“We explained inventions that didn´t work and ones that did,” she said. “This shows how far a child´s mind has reached. It´s magnificent. You give a child an idea and they run with it.”
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