Summer is always the time of the year for kids to go to different camps to learn and have fun. Typical summer camps usually consist of basketball or band, but this past week, 120 kids went to Central Lakes College to take part in Camp Invention.

The camp is a great way for kids to learn about inventions along with interacting with other kids to build different inventions.

“The camp is a STEM camp, science, technology, engineering, and math, and we want kids to come away with an understanding of how that relates to life and all the different career choices they have,” said Camp Invention teacher Lisa Laasch.

The camp was made up of four stations with each having different learning objectives, and the first was the “Orbots” station.

“Our orbots are controlled by the remote control to do two very simple things: they can circle around and around and they can go forward,” said Camp Invention teacher Sheri Levasseur.

The orbots teach the kids about engineering, as they had to modify their bot every day of the camp.

The next station was the “Farm Tech” station, which touched on agriculture.

“We started off with land and had to get the pollution away from it, plant crops, and then we got animals  and we had to protect our animals,” said Camp Invention teacher Kaarin Hanske.

“Deep-sea Mystery” was the next station, where campers were able to construct a boat in order to see how many washers they could fit in it before it would sink. And last but not least was “Innovation Forest,” where kids were able to make their own superhero logo.

“They are engraving their logos today on a piece of acrylic and turning that into a night light or kind of a Bat-Signal type thing for their own superhero logo,” said Camp Invention teacher Mindy Glazier.

Not only do the campers get enjoyment from Camp Invention, but the youth counselors love it as well.

“Whenever they complete something and it works, and they smile and give you a hug, that’s the best feeling ever, that’s why I keep coming back here,” said Camp Invention Counselor Noah Ebinger.

“I’m helping the kids express their ideas because they have so many of them, but they don’t know how to get them down on paper and actually make them,” said Camp Invention Leader-in-Training Grace Holcomb-Smith.

All week long at Central Lakes College, the focus of Camp Invention was to teach the kids that learning isn’t something that they have to do, it’s something that can be a lot of fun.

“It’s basically like school, but having fun in school,” said Camp Invention camper Sam.

“It really builds a lot of teamwork, so it helps if you have a hard to working with someone else and you have your friends here, it might make it easier,” said Camp Invention camper Sophia.

The week-long camp provided many smiles to the kids and a lot of them are already looking forward to taking part in Camp Invention next summer.

By — Chaz Mootz