A boost for young inventors

Central Michigan University students helped make bright ideas real Saturday in the Center for Excellence in STEM Education.

The center's makerspace in the Education and Human Services Building hosted about 175 area students in grades 3-8 and their teachers and families for an Invention Convention Michigan regional competition.

The Henry Ford Invention Convention is a nationwide program where students use the invention process to create and pitch a product. Students may create a new product or modify an existing one. Each presentation includes an identified problem, research on how to solve it, a log book showing the work in progress, a presentation board, a prototype of the solution and an oral pitch. CMU STEM Education Scholars and teacher education students judged the presentations.

Participants attended from Mount Pleasant's Mary McGuire and Fancher elementary schools, Alma Middle School, Fellowship Baptist Academy, Grayling Elementary, and Ithaca North Elementary.

In all, 10 CMU student organizations hosted activities in the EHS and Biosciences buildings. Students from the College of Science and Engineering residential college volunteered as guides to the families.

At the end of the day, 22 student projects advanced to the State Invention Convention to be held April 25 at The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn, Michigan. The national competition is June 3-5, also at the museum.