Invention Convention Held at Clarkstown’s Felix Festa Middle School

BY BARRY WARNER

New City – The 2014 Nick Serra Invention and Design Convention for grades one to six was a home-based project designed to help students’ problem-solving skills. Each participating student developed an original idea for an invention from the concept stage to the completed model project.

Criteria for the judging were three-fold: originality of the idea, usefulness of the idea and the oral explanation and presentation of the idea to the judges.

Brian Corey, technology education teacher said, “Participants were encouraged to identify a need or solve a problem by following the same steps that an inventor would follow in patenting an invention. Once a need was identified, students were directed to use creative-thinking skills to invent a product or process that would fill the need.”

Fourth-grader Samantha developed the ‘cloth checker set’ that could be rolled up easily during travel, then unrolled and ready for play at the destination.

Students learned that plans needed to be changed along the way and that trial and error were part of the invention process. The Invention Convention was open to the public and students enthusiastically answered questions about their inventions.