Young inventors share their creations
By Melissa Muntz Community Reporter

Shrewsbury - "Don't you hate when you have to scoop dog food out with your hand and it gets all dirty? Well, have I got the answer for you!"

It may sound like the beginning of any late night infomercial, but the voice trying to sell a hands-free dog food dispensing machine belongs to a fourth-grader at Paton Elementary School.

As part of a science unit about simple machines, each of the district's fourth-graders took part in an Invention Convention, where they were required to solve a problem in their lives using wedges, levers, pulleys, wheels and axles, inclined planes, and screws.

Liam Davidson was responsible for creating the automatic dog food dispenser, which he said would be helpful to anyone who has an animal at home.

"You'll never have to touch the dog food again," he said. "And a lot of people can use it because you can use it for cat food too or even for water, but you'd have to make modifications because it's designed for food."

The Bedmaker 8000; a Gas Powered Snow Melter; the Green Machine, an environmentally friendly, manpowered snow blower; and an Automatic Baseball Return were among the dozens of new ideas the kids created to deal with the problems they face in their day-to-day lives.

Fourth-grade teacher Kathleen Soderstrom gets a personal demonstration of Liam Davidson's "Hands Free Dog Dispenser" at the Invention Convention at Paton Elementary School March 7. PHOTO/MELISSA MUNTZ

For sports nut Matthew Franczosa, making sure he can play any sport he wants at any time was the inspiration for Sports Mania.

"You can play baseball, basketball, football, soccer or hockey and all of the diff erent pieces like nets and hoops are all together," he said.

The Invention Convention was organized by fourth-grade teacher Kathleen Soderstrom, who is also the school's science content leader. In addition to guiding the children through their projects, she provided them with examples of inventors who were born and raised in Worcester County.

Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, sewing machine creator Elias Howe and Shredded Wheat inventor Henry Perky are just a few of the creative locals Soderstrom highlighted to show kids the vast number of ideas that can come to fruition with enough eff ort.

"I always tell them that they can do anything that they want and to reach for the stars, and this is a really good opportunity to show them that they can achieve great things and that really, the sky is the limit," she said.

Soderstrom gave no guidelines for the inventions except that they must contain simple machines, which she said increases the kids' interest levels because they get to work on something that matters to them.

"Everybody can be successful with this. It's hands-on and there's no right or wrong, which, in days of lots of testing and academics, is a good thing," Soderstrom said.