From creating planets, inventing with duct tape and launching rockets, children in grades Kindergartan through sixth had fun during Camp Invention last week.
“It’s a lot of fun,” said Camp Director Mitch Rogowski, adding the camp focuses on principles in science, math, engineering and imagination. “The big one for me is imagination because that’s what we are about is imagination – kids thinking about their own creations.”

The four modules this year were Have a Blast, designing rockets and also building castles; Space Maker, creating their own planets along with plant samples and water samples; Duct-Tape Billionaire, making their own items to sell and learning to use resources by using fake money to buy supplies; and Operation Keep Out, making a Spy Gadget Alarm Box by taking apart and reusing everyday items.
“I know when I was a kid this is what I looked forward to,” Rogowski said about Operation Keep Out also known as the take apart room. “Kids learn how to be handy, take stuff apart using it for this specific module. It’s hands on – this makes it special. Usually we have someone from Ford come out and help us out.”
Camp Invention is based out of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. This year they introduced kids to real life inventors through their superhero counterparts.
“This year the inventors are drawn out as superheroes which makes them more relatable to the kids,” Rogowski explained. “Some of them do want to be an inventor, but some want to be athletes because it looks cool because they are made to be seen that way. The superheroes make it look like inventing is cool.”
For more information, please visit www.campinvention.org.
~Staff Writer Wendi Reardon Price

  Camp Invention, Clarkston Community Education