LAKE STEVENS — Summer camp at Skyline Elementary School required dozens of screwdrivers, hundreds of water balloons, piles of old appliances and gallons of duct tape.
The Lake Stevens School District recently hosted Camp Invention, a national program put together by the nonprofit Invent Now for elementary school students.
Three school districts in Snohomish County have week-long Camp Invention programs this summer, according to Invent Now. Lake Stevens and Stanwood held camps last week, and Monroe’s camp kicks off July 13 at Fryelands Elementary School.
The program is “infectious and fun,” Lake Stevens camp director Kristin Wells said. Students rotate through lessons and projects in different classrooms.
“You have to use your imagination and come up with something new, so we stretch their brains that way,” said Clarene Ricarte, a longtime teacher who directs Stanwood’s Camp Invention.
Camp Invention is about ingenuity and imagination, she said. In one activity, Stanwood campers designed tools to scoop things from “the bottom of the ocean.”
“Our ocean is a kids’ swimming pool, but hey, it works,” she said. “It gives them a chance to come and share what they know and accept help and build new things.”
Boxes of recyclables and clusters of old appliances lined the hallways at Skyline Elementary in Lake Stevens Wednesday. There were keyboards, computers, blenders, VCRs and DVD players.
“Everyone brings something to camp and we take it apart,” Wells said. “It’s one of the things the kids really latch onto … A lot of them are younger and no one’s ever given them a screwdriver and said, ‘See what’s inside.’?”
Parts from gutted appliances, along with things like pool toys, bubble wrap, CDs and vacuum hoses, were used for projects.
One lesson challenged students to select pieces from gadgets they dismantled and map out a video game on a large cardboard square. They created heroes and designed mazes with off-the-wall obstacles to overcome.
Alexa Smith, 8, threw all of her weight behind a screwdriver as she battled a stubborn screw in an old stereo. She was gathering pieces for her maze. She doesn’t play video games much, but her brother does so she knows a lot about them, she said. Her favorite part of camp was the freedom.
“I get to make my stuff,” she said.
Down the hall from Alexa’s classroom, teams of four worked on shields to protect them from a water balloon onslaught. They took the shields outside for a test, yelling as they charged toward a little blue pool filled with water balloons, snatched them up and hurled them at the shields, each other and their own feet.
Charlotte Schweizer, 7, said her team tried to make a shield with milk cartons “but that didn’t happen.” They settled instead on using a lunch tray enhanced with bubble wrap, duct tape and a plastic cup meant to bounce balloons back at their foes.
“We’re trying to be the driest,” she said.
A third classroom of campers worked in groups to turn newspapers, magazines and masking tape into the tallest tower possible.
Ghett Hardwick, 11, Gabriel Bowling, 10, and Conner Tallman, 9, crafted theirs with rolled up paper and an entire roll of masking tape. They tested balance and built carefully.
“We have to make it heavier on the bottom so we can go higher on the top,” Ghett said.
The three had the tallest tower out of five paper structures. Ghett said one of the others “structurally perfect, but ours is definitely the tallest.”
They named their creation “The Leaning Tower of Paper and Tape of Doom.”
Third-grader Joey Haynes built a model of a snack machine out of a spinning toy, flower pots, headphones, an ice cube tray and an empty baby wipes container. He wants to be an inventor someday.
The students heard from professional inventors in person and in videos.
“It just takes away one more barrier,” Wells said. “They think an inventor is a guy in a lab coat, and what they don’t realize is anyone can be an inventor.”
The Lake Stevens camp had 82 children this year and Stanwood had 39. High school and middle school volunteers helped out while teachers led the lessons.
Onika Miles, 15, volunteered in Lake Stevens. She helped students with difficult pieces and tried to inspire them to solve problems on their own.
“One of the best things is seeing the smile on their face when they figure out how to fix something they did wrong,” she said.
Camp Invention costs $220 and the districts accept donations throughout the year for scholarships. This year, Lake Stevens gave partial or full scholarships for 33 students and Stanwood gave scholarships to five students.
The curriculum changes each year, so students can come back, Wells said.
“I really love this program,” she said. “The kids are learning but they’re having fun. They don’t even know they’re learning.”
Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com.
Camp Invention
To learn more or register for a camp, go to www.campinvention.org.
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