It’s time for the most exciting part of the year here at Cricket Media: the Spark!Lab Dr. InBae and Mrs. Kyung Joo Yoon Invent It Challenge! For the 11th year in a row, we’re taking part in this innovative global challenge for kid inventors. Each year, kids across the world compete in their age groups to follow Spark!Lab’s 7-step invention process and come up with a brand new invention to solve real world problems. Past years have included making healthy food accessible to everyone, helping the elderly, disaster relief, and solving global health issues. Pretty tall orders, but we think kids can do anything!
Anyone can invent
The cornerstone of the Invent It Challenge is the believe that everyone is inventive. In fact, many inventions created by kids make a real impact on the world. Each year, we publish themed magazines that line up with the theme of the current Invent It Challenge, and our 2019 issue of ASK was all about kid inventors. One of the kids we profiled, Gitanjali Rao, has now been named the first-ever TIME Magazine Kid of the Year for her incredible inventions! Will one of our Invent It Challenge winners be next? Check out our 2020 and 2019 winning entries to learn more about some of our past winners and their inventions, from a pop-up planter for people with limited mobility to a biodegradable spoon that grows new food when planted.
Become a game-changer
This year’s theme is especially exciting. We’re teaming up with Shawn Springs, a former NFL player and current CEO of Windpact, to encourage kids to come up with solutions to make sports more fun, fair, and safe for everyone! Shawn Springs was inspired by a car seat designed to protect an infant’s head to design a new kind of football helmet. Concussions are a serious concern for athletes, especially football players, and this helmet was created to minimize the danger of head trauma.
How can you create a game-changing invention? Just follow seven simple steps!
- Think it (Brainstorm ideas for a solution to a common problem)
- Explore it (Do research on the problem you identified and what similar inventions already exist)
- Sketch it (Draw a sketch of the components of your new invention)
- Create it (Build a prototype of your invention)
- Try it (Test it out to see if it works, or interview others about if they would use it)
- Tweak it (Make changes to make it work better or to make people more likely to want to use it)
- Sell it (Create an advertisement for your new invention)
Share your work in a video or PowerPoint and submit it to our Challenge website by April 27! The website is full of handy tips, tricks, and advice for navigating the invention process. Check it out here!
We can’t wait to see what you’ll create!
