Camp Invention adds entrepreneurship

In a classroom-turned-lab at a Hudson elementary school this summer, students turned toothpicks and blocks of Styrofoam into robotic animals and powered them with tiny motors and batteries.

Power'd was one of the new programs piloted in Hudson by Camp Invention. For the last decade, children at Camp Invention have been encouraged to create and invent to solve problems. But the programs stopped short of the leap from creative product development to entrepreneurship and business launch.

A $40,000 grant from The Burton D. Morgan Foundation has enabled the creators of Camp Invention to rewrite some of their programs and infuse an entrepreneurial element.

The new programming was being tested in about a half-dozen camps this summer, including one in Akron, one in Wooster, and one at McDowell Elementary in Hudson.

"I love this camp," said Senior Program Designer Cathy Kittinger of the McDowell site. "We can learn so much. We are changing things as we go."

Next summer, the entrepreneurship-focused modules will be rolled out to the more than 900 camps nationwide.

Power'd is one of the new modules. A wacky scientist (in real life, Hudson science teacher Cinda Sheldon) tells her students she is allergic to real animals. So they need to invent some non-allergenic pet creatures. The students explore a number of kinds of power to make the creatures move. Alas, they discover that batteries run out of power, so alternative sources are explored.

However, these young science students are also encouraged to think about the market. Is there a demand for their invention? Or how might their creature be adapted to fit the needs of the market?

Across the hall from Power'd at McDowell was a program called Hatched. Campers are told that a virtural world is disappearing and needs help from Camp Invention to bring it back. The campers, broken into "tribes," must create a new economy. That means creating products that tribes sell to other tribes.

"Products" are made from duct tape, yard sticks, cardboard, and squares of colored felt. Each tribe has a little money and must use it to buy the basics to create products to sell.

As the pilot program progresses, the Camp Invention curriculum creators see what works and what doesn't - and make changes before the national roll-out next year. For instance, they have discovered that Hatched is a bit too challenging for most of the first and second graders. But even the younger children gain some financial literacy and the concept of selling something in the marketplace.