Local students competing in Invent Idaho finals competition
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IDAHO FALLS — Student inventors from Grace Lutheran Middle School and American Heritage Charter School are headed to Moscow to compete at Invent Idaho’s state finals competition. The young inventors will present their inventions at the competition on Friday and Saturday, showcasing their hard work and ingenuity.
When they present their inventions, the students will be competing to be one of the 25 inventors to go to the national convention at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn, Michigan in June.
Beth Brubaker, the State Director, called Invent Idaho the, “premier student invention competition in the Northwest.” She founded the organization with a colleague 34 years ago.
The state competition this year has around 120 students participating from all three regions of Invent Idaho and out of those six of the students are from Grace Lutheran and American Heritage.
One of those students is Kyson Ozburn who co-invented the Illuminating Catch with his partner Cole Reichert, who can’t attend the event because of his parent’s scheduling. The boys are both sixth graders at Grace Lutheran.
Over three decades since Brubaker worked in a partnership to found Invent Idaho, Ozburn and Reichert worked together to create their invention.
The idea came to them because they’ve had a problem with small animals like skunks and raccoons harming their chickens. To catch these animals without harming them, the boys invented an animal trap with a light that illuminates when an animal is caught.
“Then we can relocate them safely”, Ozburn explained.
To make this trap work, the boys had to assemble a nine volt electrical circuit to power the light on the trap. To do this, they had to round up parts that they already had, and go to Walmart to pick up the rest of what they needed. They worked out a schematic for the trap, and then the boys figured out how to connect this electrical circuit and complete the Illuminating Catch.
The student inventors have a working prototype that they’ve tested before going to this event.
“We tried it on my cat in our garage,” Ozburn said. “We put some tuna in the trap and then we left it for a little bit and then we came back out, the cat was in the trap and the light was on.”
Ozburn said that they received a good response at the regional competition and he feels confident that the Illuminating Catch could win the whole competition.
While Grace Lutheran and American Heritage are the only schools competing in Invent Idaho right now, Christine Casselman, the Assistant Southeast Idaho Regional Coordinator, said that other schools in the region would be welcome to participate. She’s approached School District #25 to see about getting more teachers in the district involved with the program.
Casselman pointed out that this competition isn’t like a typical science fair, where a student can look at someone else’s project and replicate it, which isn’t an option in Invent Idaho.
“They have to find an original, unique idea that’s not out there,” Casselman said. She said they then have to do a patent search to determine this.
“When a kid gets an idea and they’re like, ‘wait, that isn’t out there,’ It’s kind of fun,” Casselman said. “And I think that really motivates a student.”
Casselman said that even when students don’t place in the competition, participating in this event increases their confidence going forward in life.