Camp Invention challenges kids to think like future innovators

Lima, Ohio (WLIO)--This week at St. Charles school, kids in kindergarten through sixth grade had the opportunity use their creativity and problem-solving skills to solve a mystery with robotic capybaras and learn how to make waves with boats to promote a cleaner environment through the National Inventors Hall of Fame's Camp Invention. 

 

"Last year we got to make arcades. This year we get to make like boats and stuff, and we get to make our own planet in our fourth class. Our third class we're like secret spies trying to defeat those people over there. They're like causing mischief in the town, taking trash away underground and stuff," said sixth grader Colton Menke.

 

"You kind of get to make the ideas from scratch, and you have to like think of what you're going do. And it's not like you get told what you're going to make. Like, you can make your own thing," said sixth grader Lainey Scheid.

 

The kids are learning new ways to use their imagination, and organizers are seeing that moment when kids develop their problem-solving skills. 

 

"So, over the past three years that I've been doing this I see the kids, like the light bulb go off, like 'I didn't think of that.' They're learning how things work. They're learning how to put things together. I like what we've done here this week is they've learned what it takes to build a product and then release it out into the world and get it sold. It doesn't happen overnight. So, it's a lot of critical thinking skills," said Candace Keating, a Camp Invention volunteer.

 

Camp organizers say they hope the program will inspire kids to be curious and create new inventions to make our world a better place.