The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
The FTPS Invention Competition’s championship trophy is staying put for another year with the April 28 victory in the annual competition of Claremont Elementary School’s team.
Team members Julia Joseph and Angelie Mena took home the top prize with their invention, “Disability Dashboard Attachment,” designed to aid auto drivers with disabilities.
The competition’s theme was transportation, and students were tasked with creating “a sustainable, energy-friendly transportation model; a new idea that they could create based on what they’ve known so far,” said Gaye McGee, the co-coordinator of Enrichment for Franklin Township Public Schools.
“Our science specialists, their teachers, worked with them all semester in helping them to go from ideation all the way to creating a model, as well as researching the materials, making sure they were sustainable and eco-friendly,” she said.
Claremont’s was one of seven teams – representing each of the township’s elementary schools – to compete in the championship round. Each school held their internal competitions earlier in the month to determine who would go to the finals.
The students were judged on several criteria, McGee said.
“Mostly important in terms of the design model, as well as how eco-friendly their invention was, whether or not it was able to be reproduced, the cost of it,” she said. “Mostly, it focused on the engineering design process, in which they understood that even though they might have brought an idea to an invention, they still can continue to refine it, and eventually, hopefully, make some really wonderful additions to this world.”
All of the inventions, she said, “were all very creative, and they really just make us all feel so proud to know these students and to work with them, but so proud that we know the world’s in a great hands.”
“These kids are going to go out there and do some amazing things, and we know it kind of started with their Gifted & Talented program here in Franklin Township schools,” she said.
Crystina Cardozo, McGee’s partner in the program, said she felt it was important for students to participate in the competition because “it’s important for the students to be able to have some type of time and imagination and creativity to really explore, just know that the sky’s the limit, that they can create different things, and you know, every day there’s an opportunity for new things to be invented, and so I think it’s a really cool opportunity for them to just take the time to be imaginative and creative in their own space.”
This was Cardozo’s first year in the program, she said.
“I loved it,” she said. “I was so inspired by the students, really because of their creativity and, you know, just different ideas.”
Claremont principal Miguel Rivera said he was proud of his students retaining the championship trophy.
“But really just proud of their thought process, their creativity, their determination,” he said. “Just really exceptional work, you know, that they put forth and making us all proud of them.”
The competition is sponsored by the Sodhani Foundation, which also sponsors a similar competition for middle- and high school students.
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