Invent Wisconsin

On Tuesday, Girl Scouts from Troop 2444 in Kaukauna joined Hearthstone's Museum Educator for a tour and the Think Like an Engineer Journey! Cadettes created life vests for "corgi" cans to swim, built a shelter inspired by an animal shelter of their choice, and thought about how they could build an elephant leg prosthetic. These Girl Scouts are so creative and collaborated wonderfully with their peers!

Happy belated Labor Day! Here in Wisconsin, most schools are back in session. Teachers and homeschool educators: want to get a jump start on Invention Convention? Sign up today to get more information. https://forms.office.com/r/PqWbVzmAd3

This summer has been very eventful! For the first time, we hosted returning 2023 Spark Your Imagination Summer Camp students for a special "2.0" version of camp in mid-August. 7 students were able to return to invent again with many fun twists and additions, including...
🧪A visit from a local Amcor Packaging Chemical Engineer and Inventor to discuss patents and inventive food packaging.

💥A field trip to the LU Makerspace at Seeley G Mudd Library at Lawrence University to learn about 3D printing and paper circuits from Angela Vanden Elzen, Associate Professor and Reference and Learning Technologies Librarian.

🔨A visit from Ken, a Hearthstone Historic House Museum volunteer and master woodworker, to learn about inventing tools for hobbies and practice woodworking.

💻Hands-on practice with block coding and debugging (via Girls Who Code and MIT's Scratch) and Arduino programming.

🤝A surprise "merging" of inventors into teams, wherein each inventor had to find a way to use a part or aspect of the invention they individually built on Wednesday to make a new team invention on Thursday.

This camp was so much fun! It allowed returning students to really build on what they learned last year and see that inventing skills can be used in careers, hobbies, and for creative projects or games...and that you can work with others to improve your ideas! We are very proud of camp "2.0" and our amazing student inventors.

Last night, we hosted Girl Scouts from Neenah and Menasha for a tour of Hearthstone and to do activities from the Think Like an Engineer Journey. The Daisies and Brownies learned that they could be engineers anytime, especially when making fairy houses and levers to grab bags from up high...they are so creative!

In July we hosted two sessions of our Spark Your Imagination Summer Camp! We had 10 students from Kimberly, Hortonville, Appleton, and Neenah schools and 3 of those students are part of the English Learner/Newcomer program at Ronald C. Dunlap Elementary School. As always, it was amazing to see the creative inventions they came up with and built in just 5 days at Hearthstone!

Yesterday, we hosted Girl Scouts from Camp Evelyn (Girl Scouts of Manitou)'s Wisconsin Voyagers camp for a tour of Hearthstone Historic House Museum! These campers from the Sheboygan area are spending the week on a road trip from Camp Evelyn to Door County, Green Bay, Appleton, and all the way to Madison! We are glad they could stop by Hearthstone during their Appleton visit!

We had a wonderful first day of camp today with 6 students from Greenville, Neenah, Kimberly, and Appleton!! We learned about Hearthstone Historic House Museum's history, discussed what inventions and innovations are (and inventions for inventions!), did experiments to learn about sound and electricity, and ended the day with a scavenger hunt around the Museum. We can't wait until tomorrow!

Will your student be joining us for Spark Your Imagination Summer Camp at Hearthstone Historic House Museum next week (July 8-12)?? It's not too late to sign up! The deadline is this Thursday--register here: https://www.hearthstonemuseum.org/summer-camps-2024

We are happy to work with the wonderful people at Invention Convention and the many affiliate programs nation-wide!!

ATTENTION: as of 6/18, we have decided to cancel Session 1 of Hearthstone Historic House Museum's Spark Your Imagination Summer Camp, originally scheduled for June 24-28, due to low enrollment. This is your sign to register your student for Session 2 (July 8-12) or Session 3 (July 22-26) of camp!! Everyone is welcome and Scouts have the option to earn badges at camp! For more information:

Summer Camps 2024 — Hearthstone Historic House Museum Summertime Learning Fun! Spark Your Imagination Summer Camps 2024

We are just under 2 WEEKS away from our first Spark Your Imagination Summer Camp session of the summer, running from JUNE 24-28! Will your student join us?? It is not too late to sign up. Please share this post with the young inventors in your life (ages 9-12) and get them excited about inventing!!

For more information: https://www.hearthstonemuseum.org/summer-camps-2024