It’s the 40th anniversary of Earth Day and to celebrate PBS’s Emmy® and Peabody Award-winning TV series, Design Squad is launching a nationwide 2010 Trash to Treasure competition for kids 5 to 19. The launch will begin on April 5, 2010. 2009 was the first year that Design Squad held this competition.
The competition asks entrants to find something in their environments to re-purpose – something that is on the way to the trash, but is rescued and re-engineered into a new creation – an invention that moves things or people, protects the environment, or something that would be used indoors or outdoors for play. The categories are actually: Mobility, Environmental, and Play.
The invention must be made of at least two repurposed materials. PBSKIDSGo.org offers these examples: fabric, paper, plastic, small electronics, wheels, clamps,
springs, batteries, hardware, wood, bike parts, string, rubber bands,
cardboard, kitchen gadgets, etc.
Kids don’t need to actually build their inventions. They will get online tools to sketch out their ideas or to upload photos.
Three winners will be selected to go to Boston to work with a studio that will help them prototype their inventions and the process will be documented by Design Squad, and be broadcast nation-wide. The top 25 designs will be posted on the show’s website.
Here’s last year’s winner, Max Wallack, who invented the "Home Dome," a temporary shelter for homeless persons and disaster victims.
By the way, Max leaves some advice for new contestants: “Identify a problem and then try to come up with a solution to it. Be
prepared to make several attempts at designing before one design jumps
out as the right one.”
The Trash to Treasure competition is on from April 5 to September 5, 2010. Go to http://pbskids.org/designsquad/contest/ and follow the links!
via Island Life
