WNY Invention Convention announces winners

Student presentations showcase creativity

Student inventors looked to the heavens, simplified laundry day, and gave their backyards a pro-football experience in the 18th annual WNY Invention Convention competition.

The event challenges students from kindergarten to eighth grade to use their natural creativity and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) learning skills to solve a real-world problem.

A press release stated, “The coronavirus pandemic may have changed the annual event from in-person to virtual, but it didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the participants, who hailed from several school districts throughout New York.”

This year’s winning entries were announced in a virtual closing program and awards ceremony hosted by WKBW-TV Channel 7’s Andy Parker. They are:

Inventor of the Year – Kindergarten through Grade 3

• 1st Place – Nora Radhakrishnan, 2nd Grade, West Street Elementary, Sanborn. “Brilliant Fire Safety Lights” is a lighting system for a house or building that automatically senses where the fire is and provides lighting for the best way to exit the house away from the source of heat.
• 2nd Place – Adabelle Ross, 3rd Grade, School For Young Performers, Croaton-on-Hudson. With “Ballet Fun,” a budding ballerina designed a game to keep young ballerinas from getting discouraged.
• 3rd Place – Sean Bartelo, Bartelo Homeschool, 3rd Grade, Hamburg. “Seeing Stars Observatory” is a quiz-based way for people to learn the constellations when the sky is too cloudy to see them through a telescope.

Inventor of the Year – Grade 4 through Grade 8

• 1st Place – Timothy Johansen, 8th Grade, East Amherst NY/Josiah Sheldon, 5th Grade, Rivendell Study Center, Grand Island. “Balance Retraining Rehab Device” is an assistive device that helps people who have injured themselves while snowboarding to regain their balance and agility.
• 2nd Place – Ava Vyas, 8th Grade, Our Lady of Mercy, Pittsford. “The Washy Bag” will work as a hamper bag, and one can simply toss this bag with their clothes inside in both the washer and the dryer. No need to load and unload one piece of clothing at a time. 
• 3rd Place – Sam Webster, 4th Grade, Hoover Elementary, Kenmore. The “Football Line Projector” is a portable unit that projects all the boundaries and the yard lines so there is never an issue about going out of bounds.

“COVID may have changed the way students learned this year, but it certainly did not quench their thirst for problem-solving or their entrepreneurial spirit,” Executive Director Merry Constantino said. “We were flooded with creative solutions, enthusiastic presentations, and well-made models. If these inventive students are the future leaders of our community, we are in good hands!”

These six inventors will participate in the virtual Invention Convention U.S. National Competition hosted by the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation on June 24.

For more information, visit www.wnyinventionconvention.org.