Camp Invention Central Kansas
What is Camp Invention?
Spark your kid’s creativity and build their confidence at Camp Invention®! Ellsworth County is hosting a week of fun where children in grades K-6 will learn STEM concepts by collaborating with friends, building creative problem-solving power, sketching, building and testing inventions, and completing high-energy challenges inspired by world-changing innovators!
We are THRILLED to offer TWO opportunities in Ellsworth County this summer for your child to participate! Follow the steps below to easily navigate the enrollment process!
BREAKING NEWS"""
The Kansas Education Enrichment Program (KEEP) provides qualifying parents and guardians with a $1,000 award per eligible child to pay for a variety of educational goods and services that promote learning recovery and facilitate academic enrichment opportunities.
Camp Invention has been APPROVED as a qualifying expenditure, opening up the camp registration fees to be fully paid through this program. If the tuition fees were a barrier for you, this is a great opportunity to enroll your child to experience Camp Invention this summer!
We recommend parents and guardians begin the qualification process NOW so there is ample time to be approved.
Qualifications and step by steps instructions are available here:
Camp Invention encourages employers to sponsor their employee's children to attend the camp to provide enrichment activities. If your employers would like to sponsor your child(ren), find more information on the process here.
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Camp Invention 2023 - WONDER!
Build Big Ideas With Pop-Up Venture™
Children become innovative entrepreneurs as they design their own mini pop-up business! Campers create a business plan and choose how to spend their startup funds. Employing their imaginations, they add lights, greenery, logoed signage and other features to attract customers. After inventing unique ways to distribute their products, children launch their business with the ultimate pop-up event!
Create and Skate With Catching Air™
As children build their own mini skate park with ramps, bowls and rails, they take an exciting ride through physics, design engineering and art! Campers personalize their mini skateboards, create DIY skateboard riders and design awesome skate park features. Then it’s time to grind the rails of innovation as they kickflip their way through each other’s one-of-a-kind Skate Parks!
Show Your Style With MimicBot™
Children investigate the inner workings of their own MimicBot — a robot that mimics sounds — and transform it into a one-of-a-kind animatronic stuffie! They find inspiration in nature, get hands-on with design and use the power of intellectual property to protect their stuffie from the idea-stealing Copy Cat. Then campers take their stuffie home to keep creating and innovating!
Party On With Invention Celebration™
To create the best celebration ever, children become confident event planners! They have fun engineering light-up party hats, inventing a Party Assistant to help with their big plans, exploring color with bubble art banners and experimenting with sound as they create instruments. When the day of the big celebration arrives, children rotate between fun stations as they celebrate all their amazing accomplishments.
Learn More About Camp Invention
Camp Invention's Inspiration
Every good idea starts with a story, and Keri's personal journey created the motivation and inspiration to bring this STEM Camp to Ellsworth County and the surrounding area.
Keri's story begins in Ellsworth, where she grew up and graduated from Ellsworth High School. A discovery journey into her professional career landed her at Raytheon, where she grew her passion for process improvement and change management.
Keri's professional and personal road took an unexpected and life-changing pivot in 2017,when she suffered a brain aneurysm, stroke, and heart attack, right here in Ellsworth, Kansas. Her life was forever altered as she faced a long road to recovery.
The summer following Keri's aneurysm was fraught with new challenges as Keri and husband Marion struggled to balance their family life with recovery and workload. It was then that Keri discovered an opportunity for Sierra. Camp Invention was offering a summer camp of STEM learning opportunities that seemed to be a way to occupy time in an educational environment. Little did Keri and Sierra know that Camp Invention would ignite a fire for STEM learning and the opportunities that come from developing these skills at a young age.
During this 5 year anniversary of Keri's recovery, this is her "give-back" to the community that enveloped her during her trials, and to those gifted healing hands that set her on the road to recovery. Keri is the inspiration and Director for Camp Invention Central Kansas 2022.
