Maker Fest returns to the Houghton High School on Saturday. Over the past several years the event has offered space for inventive people to show off creative tools designed to make life simpler. The event has also encouraged kids to get creative and invent stuff. This year the festival re-imagines the student competition as a part of the Henry Ford Museum’s Invention Convention.
Trying to create innovative solutions to these problems. And in doing so, they’re going through the end of the engineering design process. They’re making iterations on their inventions, and they end up with a prototype that is not required to be functional. But they do need some sort of physical manifestation of their prototype, so that an investor, for example, could get an idea of how their invention works. So yeah, we’re excited to see what kind of inventions they came up with. What I like about the Henry Ford Museum’s curriculum is that it has these habits and actions of inventors or innovators where students who maybe don’t identify themselves as engineer can still get behind this curriculum and still see themselves being creative and innovative. – Emily Gieger, Director, MISTEM Network – Western Upper Peninsula
regional MISTEM Director Emily Gieger says kids have been building excitement for Maker Fest alongside their creations. In December youth in the area worked with MTU students to learn about the Invention Convention. Over the past couple of months kids have worked on inventions they will display tomorrow.
You can go back and try and fix it again. Failing is not a problem. Failing is a good thing. And then as people grow and become older, it becomes things like, how do I fix my snowblower? Because it suddenly isn’t working this morning. And you have to go through that same process. And it’s stuff that had been developed when you’re younger. So it doesn’t even have to be for something that is that would be work-related. It could be something for a person’s hobby that they need to have some sort of solution that they’ve discovered a problem and having that skill set and to be at an event like Makers Fest or InventCon, especially with these two things coming together, it’s an opportunity for youth and adults to intermingle and see what each of them is doing. So it can give everybody new ideas and be enthusiastic about things. – Tom Oliver, Director, MTU Center for Science and Outdoor Outreach
MTU Director of Science and Outdoor Outreach Tom Oliver adds that Maker Fest brings multiple generations together to get inspired and learn new things. The event will begin at noon on March 15th at Houghton High School inside the Gymnasium. Join the fun until 5 pm. Learn more about Superior Maker Fest and Invent Con here.
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