In August, I was selected to take part in iNVENTIONATOR 2019 along with Grace, Will, Sylvie, Ethan, and Ted. iNVENTIONATOR is a challenge for gifted learners, in which skills such as team work, creativity, and innovation must be used, to create solutions to real life problems. Leading up to the event, we received a series of emails, with information and challenges, such as recording problems you notice, or learning your mihi. Yet, even with those emails, we still had no idea what iNVENTIONATOR would be like. On the day, we drove up to Founder’s Park, where we used the old granary as our main workstation. We began with some team building activities, such as finding creative solutions to one of the 17 global goals for sustainable development. We then pitched our ideas, whether it be a problem which needs solving, or a solution to an existing challenge, and formed our teams.
Together, we worked on our ideas, to present to the judges at the end of day 2. I worked with students from Lower Moutere Primary School and St Mary’s School on my idea to produce a pen/pencil which can be rubbed out, but doesn’t have lead that breaks. There were so many good ideas, some of them wacky, some of them super well thought out. At the presentation my team won the award for the best pitch delivery. Vortex Co., Will and Ted’s team, got an award for the most even score across all areas.
All of the teams did well, and we all went home feeling pleased, and happy that we were lucky enough to go to iNVENTIONATOR.
