Camp Invention Kicks off Velocity Jr. Camps

At Utica Community Schools’ Camp Invention, nearly 100 elementary students are  utilizing recycled materials and earth-friendly ideas to navigate challenges
such as “Surviving on Planet ZAK,” “Saving Sludge City,” designing and building
“Balloon Burst” machines or devising non-traditional games.

Housed at  the Rose Kidd Elementary building, Camp Invention is one of several week-long  STEM (science,technology, engineering and  mathematics) summer learning camps offered through Velocity Jr., the  district’s unique educational partnership with Sterling Heights and the city’s  Velocity Collaboration Center for business and manufacturing development. The  camps are lead by UCS teachers and staff from area colleges and  universities.

Fun and team-building are part of the equation as the  children imagine, for example, crash landing on Planet Zak, then figuring out  how they could survive the planet’s harsh conditions. They interpret weather  data to design adequate shelter and clothing to ward off acid rain. They find  and retrieve unusual food sources. They engineer how to reassemble their crashed  space craft and launch it to escape. Science fiction plays a role as the  children author a movie script based on their adventures.

In the Balloon  Burst challenge, Rube Goldberg-type inventing takes the spotlight. Working in  teams, the children first take apart old technology brought from home, such as  computer hard drives, wireless phones and other gadgets, while learning proper  tool use. They investigate how the gears, motors, magnets, springs and other  parts work. Using this knowledge, they plan how to use the parts to build  functioning machines that can (hopefully) burst water balloons.

Along  the way, the children learn a bit about intellectual property, patents and
marketing. They practice the engineering process, retesting and making
adjustments to perfect their machines. For the oldest inventors (fifth and sixth
graders), the machines must consist of two items from each team member’s take
apart device, accomplish four separate actions and incorporate two simple
machines. Once a machine starts, it must complete the task without anyone
touching it.   

Each day marks a special theme: Group Color Day; Alien  Day, when students dress like their favorite alien; Upcycle Day, when they wear  something made with recycled items; Inventor Day for dressing as real-life  inventor in history and Showcase Day, when families are invited in to see the  children’s accomplishments. 

Velocity Jr. is slated to offer more than 20 STEM-related camps running through August, including engineering and computer science, metal casting, VEX robotics, LEGO engineering, “Roamer the Robot,” TiViTz math, underwater robotics and electric vehicles – all in partnership with Western Michigan University, Lawrence Tech, Oakland University, Macomb Community College or the Center for Advance Automotive Technology.

To learn more, visit www.ucscommunityeducation.com
and click on the current Community Education catalog option, pages 22 and 23