Student Inventors Keep Classmates Upright

“We had a problem with kids falling off chairs,” explained Davis Academy fifth grader Mila. School chairs easily tip over when kids rock or lean over too much, which not only disrupts class, but can cause injuries.

So Mila and her co-inventor Kayliani came up with a solution: the Fall Preventer, a suction-powered, stick-on mat to keep chairs from toppling.

Kayliani and Mila created the Fall Preventer as part of the Connecticut Invention Convention, a statewide contest in which multiple public schools across New Haven are competing for the first time this year. The two classmates joined fellow Davis Academy students on Tuesday in presenting their inventions to a panel of judges.

Davis Academy, the Westville arts and design-themed magnet school at 35 Davis St., is one of over a dozen local public schools that elected to participate in the Invention Convention as an alternative to the schools’ usual science fair program. At Davis, Magnet Resource Teacher Victoria Raucci coordinated the new program and helped teachers break down the process of designing new devices to meet concrete world problems.

According to NHPS Science Coach Heather Toothake, the traditional science fair focuses more on observing trends and answering questions than on solving problems. ​“Some kids are very oriented to that way of thinking,” Toothake said, but others prefer a more solution-oriented approach to science. The Invention Convention ​“gives kids an opportunity to tackle real world problems,” from glitches and quandaries that occur right in their classrooms to large-scale challenges like climate change and crime.

For nearly two months, Davis Academy students in kindergarten through third grade brainstormed original invention ideas together with their classes. Meanwhile, students in fourth through seventh grade, who are officially eligible for the contest, competed in small teams.

On Tuesday morning, students in every grade presented their projects to a group of judges, who ranged from high school students to professional scientists.

Mila and Kayliani started off their pitch by explaining the problem they sought to address: the frequent clatter of chairs tipping over due to the movement of a fidgety student.

When a chair falls over, the whole class gets disrupted, Mila said. More importantly, students can get injured, added Kayliani.

According to Kayliani, Davis students are far from alone in being bothered by toppling chairs. Last year, 18,000 people across the country received injuries after falling off of a piece of furniture, she said.

The students’ contraption is a stylish square-shaped mat with four adhesive strips to attach to each leg of a chair. On the other side of the mat are four suction cups, which hold the mat — and by extension, the chair — in place on the floor.

During the design process, the pair discovered that the suction cups would only keep the chair in place when someone added weight to the Fall Preventer by sitting in the chair. When no one sat in the chair, the suction cups released some tension — making it easy to move the chair to a different spot if need be.

“We met up at the library a lot to improve it,” said Mila. The final iteration of the Fall Preventer, which other students tested out, ​“helps kids get a better education and helps them not get injured.”

Later, Davis parent and Peabody Museum employee Jessica Utrup praised their work. Her son frequently rocks in his chair at home, she said. ​“If I could suction his chair to the floor, I would.”

Another fifth grader, ten-year-old Adorah Leani Gilles, designed an additional invention with school safety in mind. The Keep Safe, as she titled it, is an ID scanner system that enables teachers to keep track of students’ rough location and attendance records.

The Keep Safe system, as Adorah envisions it, would entail giving an ID card to every student. The scanner system wouldn’t track students’ exact locations to protect their privacy, but it would allow kids to electronically sign into school — and give teachers an easy way to track which students are currently in the building.

“There’s a lot of safety issues,” including ​“threats to schools,” Adorah said. ​“A lot of teachers are stressed.”

Her invention design would ease some of that stress by helping teachers keep track of their students at a glance.

The Keep Safe prototype doesn’t actually have scanning capacity, but the model itself posed some challenges. At first, Adorah said, the tinfoil scanner model was top-heavy and kept falling over. She tinkered with the structure until she reached the perfect shape.

Fourth-grader Zachary, who’s turning 10 next week, designed an invention to address another high-stakes problem: the issue of litter and pollution.

Zachary remembered recently going to a beach at camp and stumbling upon broken glass on the ocean floor. That experience prompted him to brainstorm how to ​“help pollution not be as bad.”

“Water is part of the earth,” he said, and when there’s lots of litter in the water, ​“the earth can’t be healthy.”

So Zachary designed a water-based trash collecting system, constructing a miniature version to present. His invention consists of two boats that will travel side by side. A net connects the two boats, catching litter as the boats drive forward. A set of weights lines the bottom of the net, allowing the device to reach deeper into the water.

Meanwhile, among the younger kids’ inventions was the Shoe Sparkler, designed by a class of kindergarteners. The Shoe Sparkler consists of a water pump, a soap dispenser, a drying fan, and a tissue pocket — an all-in-one contraption that fits right onto a shoe, because as five-year-old Uriel explained, ​“Our shoes get muddy.”

The kindergarteners had noticed that their shoes were often dirty after recess, tracking mud into school hallways and creating a mess for maintenance staff to clean up. The Shoe Sparkler is designed to prevent that mess with a portable cleaning system built right into the shoe.

According to Uriel, the most important part of the invention is ​“the soap.”

Other inventions included pizza-flavored lip balm, a vending machine for pandemic personal protective equipment, a box for valuables disguised as a pencil case, a giant eraser holder to help teachers reach high-up spots on the whiteboard, and a pair of athletic gloves attached to sleeves to prevent football players from losing important accessories.

The judges, who comprised New Haven teachers, science professionals, and students from Lauralton Hall, were impressed by the kids’ creativity and presentation skills.

“There is something in each project to celebrate,” said Toothake.

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