Invent Idaho Winners!!

This year our kids signed up for a contest called, "Invent Idaho". It is a contest where they get to be in charge of inventing something that helps humanity. This is a really broad spectrum... We decided that it was something that Riley would really enjoy, Mr. LEGO, turns out it was our little princess that would take State!!!

Riley picked the category "working model", being as though his dad makes robots work he thought he could take advantage of this. He came up with R.R.A.V (Robotic Rescue Avalanche Vehicle), this invention would make it so that rescuers did not have to go into an avalanche scene, the robot would have heat and depth sensors and dig out the victim. The robot had a real dog that came into dig around the face and pull after R.R.A.V got the snow mostly dug out. It was really neat. Josh hooked up pneumatics to bike pump and made a small scale robot complete with G.I Joe victim. Riley got a blue ribbon at the school level, and lost to a dog dryer in districts (how does that help humanity??? just kidding I'll be a good sport).

Liv signed up for the game category. She had to think of a problem facing the world, and how to fix that problem with her game... she decided that families don't spend enough time together, so she developed "Are You Smarter than a Kindergartner". The games object is a trivia game, but the twist she threw in was that it included blank cards to act as flash cards so that kids and parents could study together while playing a game. She got first at school, district, and regional!! This in turn took us to state down in Boise! The kids and I drove 10 hours on our own (yeeha), while Josh flew to Wisconsin for a job interview. We got to spend the weekend with Auntie Kara and her wiener dogs, Grandma and Grandpa Nampa, and even got to spend time with cousin Shannon (1 week before delivering her 5th) and Brent, and all their brood. It was really special because we don't get to spend much time with them one on one. Everyone came for the big event which was held at The Discovery Science Center, and Olivia placed second in the state! She was the youngest competitor, she was up against 1st and 2nd graders, no other kinders. WOW! You know what she said when she didn't get first "That's okay I needed a red ribbon anyway :)!" Great job Olivia!!