Richland students put inventions on the line in ‘shark tank’ (with video)

Would you buy a pair of Mop Shoes so your children would help with the housework?

How about a portable shelter to provide to a homeless person?

Or have you ever looked at a toothbrush and just known there had to be a way to improve on it?

The ingenuity of fourth-graders at Richland’s Jason Lee Elementary School was on display Friday as they presented inventions they devised as solutions to everyday problems.

“You can easily play on your phone while you’re mopping,” Mariah Williams told the judges of the Mop Shoes she and classmate Pilar Rika invented.

Taking a page from TV’s Shark Tank entrepreneur investment show, panels of judges made up of engineers, retired teachers, scientists and others grilled the students about their inventions, sometimes praising them, sometimes poking a hole in them.

“If your point is to save people time in the morning, why not invest in a better alarm clock?” one judge said of the Switch Brush, a toothbrush-comb combination concocted by Ryan Gummow and Frankie Vejar.

While many of the prototypes weren’t functional and some students weren’t able to answer all the questions from the “sharks,” teachers said they were impressed with what their students came up with.

“They think of things that are way outside the box of what adults think about,” teacher Liesl Batdorf said.

It’s the second year Batdorf and fellow teachers Lyn Leyde and Megan Smith have had their students make innovations and have them assessed by professionals in the community. It’s all part of their lessons on electricity and looking at historic inventors.

“From there they became the inventors and had to come up with a problem they thought they could solve with their invention,” Leyde said.

Not all the students, broken into groups of two to four, presented to the judges Friday. The teachers assessed all the projects Thursday and only those scoring high enough would continue on. Along with the prototype, posters describing their invention and the problem it solved, the students had to answer questions about its cost, use and to whom it could be marketed.

Toothbrush-related devices, such as the Switch Brush and the All In One Toothpaste Toothbrush, were popular approaches. Other items, such as a device to help make collecting eggs from chickens easier, considered relatively simple tasks most people don’t enjoy doing.

“You’re making it so people don’t even have to use their hands? I can get behind that,” one judge said of the Mop Shoes.

Emma Perez said she was inspired to invent Light Paws, a dog collar rigged with her father’s old headlamp because her young neighbors were struggling to hold onto a heavy flashlight when they took their dog outside for a restroom break.

“I thought it was cool and a good experience for the future,” Perez said of creating her invention.

Batdorf said some students came away from their presentation a little humbled by judges and were often more motivated to think of something better. But a few still had faith in their creations and were sure there were people whose lives could be improved by them.

“Not everyone can afford an alarm clock or they’re just very sleepy,” Frankie said in defense of the Switch Brush after his team’s presentation.

This story was originally published February 5, 2016 at 6:49 PM with the headline "Richland students put inventions on the line in ‘shark tank’ (with video)."