Inventions

How does one make a new invention? Where do you get the idea? As the saying goes, "Necessity is the mother of invention", which means that inventions are born because there is a NEED for them.

This morning, I had the privilege to be a judge in my school's Invention Convention.  Our Gifted and Talented 5th and 7th Grade students were challenged to create a new invention.  As part of the process, they had to keep an invention log.  As their ideas developed, they kept track of all of the steps along the way.  They created a prototype to be displayed and hopefully experimented with at today's convention.  They also had to prepare a short introductory speech to inform the judges as they visited their station.

I was quite impressed by our students' work.  They worked hard on their inventions and had some excellent ideas.  Among my favorites were "The Automatic Remote Control Finder", "The Auto-Clean Hamster Cage", and "The Cleat Cleaner".

A few years ago, Melody had the opportunity to create an invention for a similar fair at her school.  She created the "Pillow Alarm".  You see, Melody has always had a hard time waking up in the morning.  She created the pillow alarm as a way to not only wake her up by sound, but also vibration.  Her pillow had a pocket that she put her cell phone into.  It really worked!  It's funny, however, that she only uses it now on days when SHE really wants to make sure she wakes up, like on Christmas morning.  Hmmmm...