Camp Invention lets imaginations, creativity flow

The name of her invention, “The Tummy Tickler,” doesn’t really tell what Bailey Mueller was designing Thursday afternoon while in Invention Point at Sunset Elementary.

The fifth-grader from Northridge was building a prototype of a amusement park ride — one that would take four people up a tower, then let them drop before slowing their chair to a halt.

“I like these rides, and I go on them at all the parks we have been too,” Mueller said.

She was building her prototype as part of the week-long Camp Invention at Sunset, a first-year program for the Newton area.

The program has 44 students enrolled, representing Halstead, Hesston, Peabody and all five elementary schools in the Newton school district.

Next to Mueller sat Calla Potturi, a fourth-grader from South Breeze who was using a compact disc, condiment cups and a pop bottle filled with water to create the prototype of her own amusement park ride — the Spinning Disk.

The ride uses centrifugal force to push riders to the outside of their seats.

“This is much easier when you are thinking about it,” Potturi said. “But doing it can be hard.

“I just can’t get my seats to stick,” Mueller added. “This was easier in my head.”

They were in day four of a five-day camp, one stressing innovation.

Next door, students were building demolition derby cars out of popsicle sticks and attaching the drivers who were represented by eggs.

Across the hall in Planet Zak, students were trying to figure out how to get home after their space ship crash-landed.

“This has far exceeded my expectations,” said Sunset principal Janet Weaver. “Anymore we do so much to get kids ready for assessments. It is wonderful to see kids work in a creative environment where everything is right and nothing is wrong. This allows for creativity and allows kids to have fun.”

The Camp Invention program was first created by the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1990 in Akron, Ohio.

The program was successful at schools in Ohio, and it was expanded.

It is now a national program.

“The thing about this is it comes in a kit,” Weaver said. “It comes with a curriculum.”

Elementary teachers teach from the curriculum, which is designed to engage kids in science.

It’s also designed to tap their creativity.

“It’s been fun to see the creativity and what the kids can do,” Weaver said.

During the camp first through sixth-grade students rotate through a schedule that includes five classes each day — with a variety of hands-on activities that range from creating an invention out of old appliances to figuring out a way off Planet Zak.

This summer the camp was offered for just one week, but it is possible it could be offered more often next summer.

“If we have enough interested we’ll add more weeks,” Weaver said.