Morningside Inventors Win Big at State

Over 60 Morningside students were involved in the 2011 State of Idaho Invention Convention. Starting in October of 2010, and working hard through March 2011, young inventors from Morningside Elementary set out to tackle the challenge of identifying a problem and creating an original solution in the form of an invention.

Building onto last year’s motto of “It’s Too Early to Quit”, we added “Inventing: It’s Too Fun to Stop!” By putting the scientific method into practice, students worked for months and each built a model, kept a detailed scientific journal, and designed elaborate backdrops to present their project.

In January, their work was put on display at Morningside for parents and the community to view. Five judges had the difficult job of choosing 15 projects to be sent to the regional contest held in Boise. After the selections were made, those projects were taken to the engineering building on the campus of Boise State in February. Of the 15 projects taken, all of our inventors received awards; seven projects placed and five projects were spotlighted for the State Championship contest.

At State, all of our Morningside Inventors earned awards. In addition to this, Kyler Western from Mrs. Beck's 2nd grade class placed third for the state of Idaho in the adaptations category with his popular project "The Shoe-inator". Sara Mandura and Anders Wondrick in Mrs. Rush's fifth grade class teamed-up with their project "The Shoe Sizer 2000" to also take home a third place in the Jules Verne category. Standing at the top of the mountain of inventors, Holden Davis and his “Trash-bot” from Mrs. Speicher's 2nd grade class came back with the title of "Best of Category for Working Models” for grades 1st-8th. Our very own Holden Davis won the entire category!

Our Morningside students have proven to be creative problem-solvers that are capable of great things. They’ve also learned that inventing is…Too Fun to Stop! *Special thanks to the judges of our Twin Falls Invention Convention: Dr. Jim Tarter and Mr. Jim Woods (both of CSI), Mr. Ace Marcellus (O’Leary), Mr. Chris Bell (Idaho Power), and Mrs. Sallee Middlekauff (Middlekauff Auto/cousin of Barbara Morgan)

Also to be recognized and thanked: All of the parents, teachers and staff that helped out with the Invention Convention this year, our Morningside PTA, Mr. Bill Ebener and The College of Southern Idaho

Regional winners are pictured above.