New Designs for School

The Real Deal: Innovative Learning with Project Invent

It’s Not Just an Advertisement for Hope, It’s the Real Deal

My whole life I’ve been fed advertisements, who hasn’t? Program after program, promise after promise, and pretty smiles that tell us we’re doing well while nothing is changing. Even other educational programs that are set up similar to Project Invent morally seem to forget what their root goal is. These other programs were promising individuals that they would develop skills in leadership and push constructive and creative mindsets to better the community. Each time, sometimes at the beginning or near the middle of the program, I was met with the same outcome: Follow the leader until you can stand next to the leader. Do as they say the way they say to do it until you fit their criteria.

Since I was young I’ve always had a loud voice when it mattered, despite the fact my family would say I was a quiet child. I was quiet until I found something important to say, something that needed to be heard. In my heart I have always felt the need to lead. I often found it hard to sit back and watch a protest, I always had something more I wished to add to a speech, and I could never stay quiet when I witnessed suppression of speech. I joined these leadership programs feeling I had to start somewhere small in my community in order to gain connections to be a voice loud enough to project smaller voices.

I’ve tried these programs time and time again and met failure and disrespect when I stood out of line, even though these programs were supposed to encourage independent thinking; and then I was introduced to Project Invent. I thought, “Oh. It’s going to be another advertisement for change and, ‘you get to be part of it!’ like every other big program.” But I took the chance at it anyway.

And good thing I did, because my mind was blown away. Everything the teacher told my class we would be doing actually happened. From coming together as a team to making an original invention for a real world struggle to speaking with engineers and experienced innovators, it all happened. The teachers were teaching but they weren’t just following a rubric, they were learning with us. They were a guide, not an instructor; they were our support in failure and the microphone to our voices.

This is the kind of teaching that needs to be implemented into the education system everywhere, for all students. I truly believe that Project Invent created an opportunity and experience for me to grow that I had never gotten in high school.

Project Invent Behind the Scenes

The first few weeks of the program were rocky, I won't lie. Getting settled with our new peers, coming together to agree on a community challenge to focus on, and finding someone with that challenge to build our invention with was a mess of decisions. We’re not perfect, we’re human; but Project Invent was there to pull us through. They reminded us to think outside of what we wanted to do and put our minds toward what we were really about: giving back to our community. That’s what got our gears turning and our minds communicating.

My team, Team Oakridge, focused our project on facing challenges in the classroom. We worked with three local Community Partners. One is a retired teacher, from whom we learned about different learning styles. We learned they often aren’t accommodated for by teachers, which leaves those with different learning styles behind in education. From our second Community Partner, who was still in school, we learned that quality education was based around how much money a school was funded, and this often led to a great difference in the energy and resources the school had to give to its students. Finally, from our third Community Partner, who currently teaches those with different learning styles, we learned it was most frequent that the sensory aspect in education was ignored. He has ADHD and helps teach many others who have ADHD. He gives a way for them to learn with the stimulation they need; but he could not push the education system to do the same.

From all of these voices, my team decided to focus our project on supporting those who need sensory stimulation to help them learn. My team made the Study Block, a compact computer that could record the user’s notes in one place, much like a notebook. It has customizable fidgets on the sides of the computer to accommodate for the sensory stimulation needed by the user while also giving a space for them to focus on the class material in the same device. The Study Block is portable, customizable, and affordable. Rather than spending yearly on school supplies that would likely have one use, the Study Block can be used through every school year and cost relatively the same price as purchasing school materials.

I truly felt like a part of my team while in the making of the Study Block. Everybody was given a role to fulfill in their part of the project, and it's that sense of purpose that brought us to collaborate and innovate with open minds. We worked through success, setbacks, struggles, and rethinking together. Once it came time to show off our prototype at Demo Day we came across our biggest challenge.

I was on the project design aspect of my team, but something went wrong on the presentation side. Due to unforeseen circumstances, two weeks before our team was set to present at Demo Day, only one of three of our planned presenters was able to be at our group sessions to practice presenting. I stepped in and took some of that weight off our team’s shoulders, because that’s what being open minded and a team player is about, stepping in where it’s needed even if it's outside of my job. During those two weeks leading up to Demo Day I got up to speed, and in three team sessions, I was ready to present. This experience was both new and challenging, and that’s when I knew Project Invent had reached me.

I had innovated, experimented, failed and succeeded, faced numerous challenges, and found myself anxious about what I would do next, but not about what would happen if I failed.

The Performance: Project Invent Demo Day

Demo Day was advertised in an inspiring Project Invent video as a day to collaborate with other inventors, learn from one another, show off your team's work, and possibly receive funding to further the idea. Unlike other inspiring videos I’ve watched online, though, the experience and the videos of Project Invent’s various Demo Days were identical; it blew my mind to be given exactly what I invested in. It felt real, I felt changed, I was inspired, and I am truly happy for the opportunity to now intern with the organization the summer after, as they continue to help me learn and grow.

I see a future with Project Invent and the honest standards they present. To anybody who joins the program, as a teacher or student, I believe it is important to go in with an open mind and curiosity. Project Invent offers an experience of growth and innovation like no other.

Photo at top: the author’s Team Oakridge with the Explorer Award. Credit: Joe Chi.