Future Waco ISD inventors flex engineering muscles for new creations

Waco ISD-funded Camp Invention has kids creating new inventions while learning STEM: science, technology, engineering, and math. It's a way for kids to explore their creative side and be innovative.

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You might not think of kids in our neighborhood when you think of the show Shark Tank, but this week, kids here in Waco are flexing their creative and engineering muscles at Waco ISD-funded Camp Invention.

“We’re making a pizza spoon,” 8-year-old camper Max Estrada said.

Rising first through fifth graders go to different stations in groups learning how to communicate and work with each other just like these three boys working hard on their latest creation.

“I love pizza, I love eating with spoons, and we love pizza. It’s a pizza flipper combined with a spoon. The spoon’s for the eating part and this part is for flipping it,” 7-year-old camper Jude Davoust said.

Sparking imagination and interest in STEM: science, technology, engineering, and math at such a young age.

“They learned the basics of circuitry which, we see in high school a lot, and it really helps them build that foundational knowledge, which then translates up into middle school and high school,” high school volunteer Osmar Cazares said.

Cazares is a fan of exposing the younger generation to this material early.

“Kids have a lot of ideas and it’s really nice that they’re learning this at a really young age,” Cazares said.

A sentiment that coordinator Paula Miller told me she's seen firsthand how life-changing this camp can be in our own community.

“That’s when kids learn the most: They can talk with their peers and put their ideas together to come up with even better ideas and if this is the way we can teach all day every day, it’d be a perfect world,” Miller said.

We might not live in a perfect world, but these future inventors are trying to make our neighborhood a little better, one idea at a time.