Seven Inventors Share Their Projects

  • Posted January 28, 2021
carter cruzen

Carter Cruzen

This week, seven elementary students from the Ottumwa Community School District demonstrated their ingenuity by creating inventions for this year’s 2021 Invention Convention, held as a virtual event.

Student participants and their inventions included:

Second Grade

  • Carter Cruzen, Liberty Elementary with “Light Saver”
  • Charles Smith, Homeschool/Eisenhower Elementary with “The B.O.S.S. (Beneficial On-Site Skin Scanner)”

Fourth Grade

  • Blake Goldsmith, Horace Mann Elementary with “Bankies”
  • Allyson Lewis, Horace Mann Elementary with “Shoe Massager”
  • Payton Kendrick, Liberty Elementary with “The Super Desk”

Fifth Grade

  • Madalynn Sertterh, Liberty Elementary with “Cold Defense”
  • Morgan Smith, Liberty Elementary with “N95 Helper.”  

Dylan Sauer and Chirag Panjikar were judges for the event, representing John Deere Ottumwa Works. In addition to receiving project feedback from the judges, all participating students received certificates, medals, a pizza certificate, and an ice cream gift card. Students have the option to try to qualify for the next level of competition at the State Invent Iowa event. The State Invent Iowa Competition will be held as a virtual event on Monday, April 19th, sponsored by the Belin Blank Center at the University of Iowa.  

At the closing ceremony, Carter Cruzen and Morgan Smith were the winners of the two free Camp Invention scholarships (a $235 value). Camp Invention is a week-long summer STEM program for students who will be in grades K-6 for the 2021-2022 school year. Camp Invention will be hosted at Evans Middle School from June 21st-25th. For more information or to register your child, visit https://www.invent.org/.  

The local Invention Convention is presented each year by the Ottumwa Schools.  A special thank you to John Deere Ottumwa Works for sponsoring the event; Dylan Sauer and Chirag Panjikar for taking time to judge the inventions; the Bike and Trophy Shop for creating the medals, Ottumwa's Domino's Pizza for donating pizza certificates, and Ottumwa's Sonic restaurant for donating ice cream gift cards.  The event coordinator was Breanna Dehrkoop, elementary TAG teacher.

charles smith

Charles Smith

Blake

Blake Goldsmith

allison

Allyson Lewis

peyton

Payton Kendrick

student

Madalynn Sertterh

morgan

Morgan Smith