Far-out fun: Children explore space concepts at camp

Jun. 21—DANVILLE — More than 100 youngsters from Danville's elementary schools designed aquatic habitats, built their own robotic artist, created mega marble arcades, and explored space with far-out devices, asteroids and ice volcanoes last week.

These activities and many more were part of the weeklong Camp Invention, a nationally recognized summer enrichment program that took place at Northeast Elementary Magnet School and inspired creativity, inventive thinking and problem solving in children entering first through sixth grade.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Camp Invention did not take place in-person in 2020 at a Danville District 118 elementary school, but rather happened virtually in each child's home. Participants received big boxes of materials and worked through the program's activity modules on their own before showing off their projects on the last day of camp in a video chat. Last year's Camp Invention took place at Northeast Elementary Magnet School but with many precautions and restrictions.

This year's Camp Invention returned to Danville with in-person learning and hands-on activities. The program promotes science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning; builds confidence, leadership, perseverance, resourcefulness and problem-solving skills; and encourages entrepreneurship in a fun and engaging environment.

"This year we're back to a normal camp," Lori Woods, a Danville High School social studies teacher and Camp Invention adviser, said. "If kids want to wear masks, they can."

Each year the program features new curriculum inspired by the National Inventors Hall of Fame. The theme of this year's camp, which has been offered in Danville District 118 since 2013, was "Explore." The camp's hands-on activities encouraged children to be confident in their ideas and explore their innovativeness.

"This year's camp had a different curriculum that included the arts, such as sewing, which is a technical skill," Woods said. "They need those hands-on skills to be able to invent. They can't be inventors if the only thing they do is digital."

The heart of the camp was the 10 leadership mentors, who are Danville High School students or recent graduates, and four instructors, who are college-aged DHS alums pursuing a career in the education field. The teens and young adults helped facilitate the camp activities for the children.

Some of the mentors and instructors have been involved with Camp Invention for years, either as a young camper themselves or as a leader in training right after eighth grade.

Halle Thomas, who recently finished her freshman year at Eastern Illinois University as an elementary education major, was a camp instructor for the third year.

"Each of us (instructors) have a class and do two activities per day with the kids," Thomas said. "This year is different because we're integrating arts into the STEM activities."

One of Thomas' activities involved creating a robotic artist.

"The kids got to make a robot that spins by connecting wires to batteries, and then they placed a paper on top of it to create art like a Spirograph," she explained.

Thomas said working with the young children participating in the camp helped validate her career choice.

"It's confirmed those are the grades I want to work with," she said.

Incoming DHS freshman Matthew Sherman has attended Camp Invention since he was a first grader.

Being a mentor this year allowed him to see a different side of the camp and the work that goes into it.

"It's a lot more work than I expected," he said. "I have to get here early, set up and make name tags."

Sherman said he's "always had a passion for mechanical engineering," so it was only fitting that one of his favorite activities during the camp was helping the youngsters make "astro-arm" devices.

"We made these hydraulic arms out of syringes, tubing and water for the hydraulics," he said. "They used popsicle sticks to construct the arms and paper clips to pick up things."

But most of all, Sherman said he enjoyed mentoring the youngsters at the camp "because I want to give opportunities to the kids like I had."

DHS senior Katie Kittell returned as a mentor for the second year. She said the camp allowed her to interact with children from various socioeconomic backgrounds.

"I'm interested in psychological research," she said. "I've gotten to see a lot of kids from a lot of different backgrounds ... I've learned what works and what doesn't work to get them to calm down."

One of Kittell's favorite activities was creating an ice volcano.

"I had the youngest age group, so it took them a while to do it," she said. "It glowed neon green if you put a black light on it."

DHS alum MaKayla Smith, who graduated Purdue in three years and will enter the school psychology program at Illinois State University in the fall, was a camp instructor for the third year.

On Thursday, Smith was in charge of guiding the children on visits of two of Jupiter's 79 moons.

That morning the young campers visited Europa, one of Jupiter's cold moons, which entailed creating the ice volcanoes.

"We used a polymer powder for snow and mixed it with a glowing liquid which was blue food coloring in water," she explained. "There was salt in the bottom of their (volcano) bowl, and it turned into slush and expanded."

In the afternoon, the youngsters visited IO, one of Jupiter's hot moons, where they used their "astro-arms" to cook cardboard pizzas with "lava," which was red food coloring, water and alka seltzer tablets.

"I love getting to teach and teaching all of the grades," Smith said.

The activities offered during the weeklong camp included:

—Robotic Aquatics: While researching the ocean with cutting-edge techniques, children adopted aquatic animals as well as designed and patented aquatic plants. At the end of camp, the children took home their aquatic animals and plants in a mini tank.

—National Inventors Hall of Fame's The Attic: Children combined science and art to build their own robotic artist, while engaging in design thinking, creating spin art and learning how inventions change the way people create.

—Spacecation: Children discovered real space exploration technology as they created "space packs" and "astro-arm" devices, mined an asteroid and observed erupting ice volcanoes.

—Marble Arcade: Children experimented with physics, engineering and gaming to design, build and test their own mega marble arcades.

The camp wrapped up Friday with a one-hour inventors' showcase during which campers showed off their projects.

Camp Invention is a program of the National Inventors Hall of Fame in partnership with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the Army Educational Outreach program.