Month: May 2021

Student Groups Impress Judges at the KID Museum Showcase Event

With over 100 participants in the Zoom call, our 8th grade magnet students wowed judges, parents, and teachers alike with their informative and entertaining invention presentations. Students collaborated in teams of four to design and build prototypes of their original creations to help protect life on Earth.  Each team also wrote and executed a “pitch” identifying the problem and explaining how their invention would help to address it. At last night’s live virtual event, all 19 teams got the chance to share their video pitches with a wider audience, and to elaborate on their ideas and process with a panel of judges. It was fantastic to see so many parents join us for the showcase! Because teams were split into separate rooms, nobody was able to see all of the presentations, so we are linking them at the end of this post for your perusal.

Next, the KID Museum’s guest judges will assess all entries from the region and present awards and notable entries at the Invent The Future Challenge Summit on June 3rd at 7:00 p.m. Here’s more information from their email blast:

“In this inspiring virtual celebration we’ll honor the more than 700 middle school students, educators, and parents who took on this year’s challenge. We’ll announce the award winners and share a behind-the-scenes look at the experience and impact of this program. The Invent the Future Challenge is one of the region’s largest science, engineering, design, and invention challenges, where students innovate to answer the question: what will you make to protect life on this planet? Join us to celebrate the hard work and achievements of the students and teachers who participated in the challenge — and discover how the next generation is inventing the future.” The event is free of charge and open to all; families can RSVP for the summit by clicking here.

This week-long, hands-on learning opportunity was certainly a new and unique venture for KID Museum and RCMS, and we want to hear about the experience directly from our students, parents, and teachers. It’s truly impressive what our students were able to imagine and make manifest in such a short span of time… however, one common suggestion we’ve already heard is to allow more time for the complex creative processes involved. If you have ideas and insights to share, please look for a feedback survey in the coming days — your input always helps us to continually reflect and improve.
Many thanks to our hard-working teachers, who made it all possible, to our parents and families, who supported our inventors at home, and of course to our students, who brought their A-games and persevered brilliantly through challenges and setbacks. Not only were the inventions themselves incredible, but the production value of the pitch videos was inspiring. This up-and-coming generation is all about applying their burgeoning STEAM skills in order to improve life on this precious planet!

Student Group Videos (Sorted by Teacher)

Ms. Ramasamy’s Groups:
  • ARM (Steven, Jack, Kevin, Oscar) – Algae bloom removal
  • Contaminated Soil Solidifier (Lorraine, Claire, Mina, Flavia) – Landfill leeching prevention
  • Microplastic Robot (Alexander, Kenneth, Shashwat, Jocelyn)
  • MTAS (Sanjay, Matthew, Jason, Michael) – Deforestation
  • SDHD (Bram, Brendan, Chance, Rebecca) – Solar distillation for water
  • The ZOAT (Annie, Grace, Michelle, Nathaly) – “The Plastic-Sucking Ship” [with outstanding hand-drawn animation]
Ms. Seifert’s Groups:
  • Automatree (Aayush, Aaron, Nick, Carter) – Deforestation/tree planting
  • Eco-Scooper (Ann, Agga, Maher, Naomi) – Clearcutting rainforests, algae for nutrients
  • Quicklead (Eugene, Alina, Sumukha, Eric) – Lead detection for pipes & filter
  • Sortinator (Sana, Sophia, Jose, Sanjana) – Capacative sensor in schools
  • Water Recon Drone (Karthik, Shreyas, Ethan, Yash) – Water pollution
  • Waterbot (Sehaj, Sujit, Wesley, Mihith) – Clean water
Mr. Walker’s Groups:
  • Aquadroid (Aarush, Sameen, Kuhu, Swarnabh) – Affordable, effective water filtration
  • Chesapeake Watershed (Brooke, Krithee, Sayan, Drew) – Algae bloom removal [and a cheeky Rickroll]
  • Easy Filter (Rohith, Samuel, Tatenda, Shivatsa) – Water filtration
  • JANB (Aaron, Jacob, Nick, Bryan) – Air Quality detector
  • Ocean Pollution (Ruhika, Julia, Samiksha, Sylvia) – Water pollution
  • Plastx (Zain, Yusef, Wren, Nathan) – Water cleaning/filtration
  • SPARCS (Karthik, Saahas, Pranav, Arav) – Sea life-friendly water cleaning

KID Museum Kicks of Virtual “Field Trip”

Eighth grade magnet students collaborated today with teachers from RCMS and KID Museum to begin the week-long “field trip” experience centered around the national Invent the Future Challenge. Students are working together in groups of four, innovating to solve problems using cardboard and other common materials. Today, students designed solutions to a dangerous intersection, helped a space alien land safely on Earth, and began planning toward their culminating projects.

Tomorrow, they will continue working through engineering lessons and design workshops, moving toward more independent work as the week unfolds. With a familiar blend of direct instruction, inquiry, collaborative work/build time, and presentations, students are developing their own answers to the Invent the Future Challenge question: “What will you make to protect life on this planet?”

As they move into the later days of this experience, students will have more and more time to work independently, with RCMS and KID Museum teachers [and nosy inquisitive Mr. Orders!] assisting and guiding them through the process. By the end of this unique experience, each student group will have created a prototype of their design, as well as a video “pitch” presentation of their creation. Parents are invited to view all these presentations at the online showcase event on May 13th, from 4:00 – 5:30 p.m.