Before Christmas break two students represented OSHS in Chattanooga at Inventanooga. Please enjoy this student article written about this experience from earlier in the school year.
Inventanooga by Brooklyn Ambrose
On the website for Inventanooga it describes the competition as, “Inventanooga is a student showcase, where students from STEM School Chattanooga and other partnering schools are given the opportunity to pitch an invention and business plan in front of a panel of judges within the entrepreneurial field for a final prize,” or in more simple terms Mrs. Channell describes it as “a competition where students present original ideas and solutions.” This competition is mainly unknown to others, yet in 2023 two Oliver Springs students, Ariana McKenzie and Jailyn Phillips, with the accompaniment of two teachers, Mrs. Channell and Mrs. Robbins, went to this competition which was held in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The competition itself lasted only one day, yet in the words of Mrs. Channel it took “many months to plan.” The planning for Inventanooga started when Eva Robbins attended a conference in Chattanooga where it was mentioned. Some students who had previously attended the competition were there to discuss what they created, a working claw machine made solely of cardboard. Mrs. Robbins watched training videos that were about the competition and decided to inform Mrs. Channell about it since she is one of our science teachers. Mrs. Channell then asked students if they would like to participate and two students, Ariana and Jailyn, stepped forward.
The students detailed that Mrs. Channell was talking about the Oliver Springs water loss in class and that is what inspired their idea which was a prototype of a device that goes on cracked water pipes to monitor water flow. Channell then provided them with a prompt to help get their ideas written out. As part of the planning progress, they got to meet the mayor of Oliver Springs. They described him as being “very helpful, funny, and nice.” They submitted a video to the event holders and then were told they had two days to finish their idea before the competition.
The competition itself is broken up into three different categories: Ideator (pitch a problem and solution), designer (pitch a problem, solution, and prototype), and executive (pitch a problem, solution, prototype, and business plan). The Oliver Springs students participated in the ideator category and their problem was the water issues in the town of Oliver Springs. They decided to participate in the ideator category because it was their first year competing, and next year they plan on competing in the designer category. They were up against fifteen different groups, yet there were about one hundred fifty people there in total.
The Oliver Springs students, Ariana and Jailyn, ended up placing second in the competition! They were also invited to present their proposal at a city council meeting on April 11 and have already presented at the Oliver Springs Academy STEM night.
When asked why they wanted to do the competition, Ariana and Jailyn both responded that they “liked the idea of helping the community, being aware of issues the community faces, and getting to have the experience with Mrs. Channell.” Channell’s highlight of their trip was getting to experience different kids' ideas while the students favorite part was the trip to Chattanooga and getting to work in the office for two days while finishing their presentation. Overall, they said that they would go again and the event would be incomplete without Mrs. Channel who Ariana says “has a very kind heart.”
Inventanooga, sites.google.com/hcde.org/inventanooga/home. Accessed 26 Feb. 2024.