NEW LONDON--Its called the "Invention Convention," and dozens of middle school students had the chance to show off their own inventions.
Students from the Renzulli Academy and the STEM Magnet Middle School, both in New London, participated in the event, which not only encourages invention, but also helps students hone presentation and public speaking skills as they explain their designs.
According to Rebecca Reyer, a teacher at Renzulli Academy, "Each student has to identify a problem, and then build an invention to solve that problem, and then they have to present it to judges “
Those judges come from Electric Boat and the school board, and Tuesday was pitch day.
The Invention Convention is one part science fair, one part imagination, and even one part QVC sales pitch, but some of these students have bigger plans than just selling their household ideas. One example is Francisco Colon, from the Dominican Republic, who is hoping to change the world.
"I was from the countryside, and there we didn't really have heat, I mean electricity, so we had to boil water ourselves," he said. His invention, the "hydro wash," is meant to help others still in that situation. It's for "people who don’t have money, or can't live in places where there's electricity."
Winners of the Invention Convention will go to UConn for the finals at the end of the month. And just maybe, they will head down a new career path that will take them past this convention.