Nationally-recognized, youth STEM camp held on campus

BLOOMINGTON – Ivy Tech Community College hosted Camp Invention for the fourth summer in a row. Camp Invention is a nationally-organized, locally-run, STEM program of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. The goal of the weeklong summer camp is to turn curious youth into innovative thinkers through a series of interactive activities and challenges. Each day, the program’s 92 K-6 students developed their inventive skills with a series of courses designed to build off each other and form a comprehensive week of learning and fun.

“One of the things that I really like about Camp Invention is that it teaches the campers critical thinking skills,” said Sarah Cote, the program’s director and professor of biology at Ivy Tech Bloomington. “Campers are presented with a problem and are given time to brainstorm a solution—making plans in their inventor’s logbooks. It’s amazing to see the creativity of the campers and I love their concentration and determination when working to get their project ‘just right’!”

To create their projects, campers used supplies from the recycle room, tested their inventions to see how they worked, and then had the opportunity to rework or modify them based on test outcomes.

With Farm Tech^™ the students engaged in projects such as programming crop-planting robots, exploring groundwater clean-up technology, devising pollination machines, testing cow DNA, building pig corrals, and designing lawn mowers.

In Innovation Force^® the children created their own super hero personas, crafted costumes, heard from a series of real life inventors, and used their powers to combat plagiarism and learn about the importance of patent protections.

For Deep Sea Mystery^™ the kids extracted fossils, learned to navigate the open seas, constructed prototype sailboats, and invented ways to search the depths of the oceans for coelacanth fossils.

Finally, in DIY Orbot^™ each of the participants received their very own remote-controlled machines, which they modified to tackle a series of obstacles, took apart to learn about their inner workings, built bridges, destroyed towers, choreographed dances, and competed in a final challenge arena. On the last day, campers got to take home their very own Orbot^™.

To learn more about Camp Invention or to register for next summer, visit invent.org/programs/camp-invention.