Invention Convention

Malad Elementary School’s “Invention Convention” was held at the school last week. The Convention was a chance for students to show off their problem solving and engineering skills to the large crowd of parents who flocked to see this year’s inventions, which ranged from the utterly practical to the more quixotic.

The Invention Convention is a recent program from Malad Elementary School to increase interest and involvement with STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) subjects. Students were encouraged to identify something that could be improved, or a problem that could be solved, and come up with a plan and model of their idea.

On the practical side, Isaac Bird invented movable hand grips for monkey bars, which would allow both shorter and taller kids to have equal access to the equipment. Bentley Godfrey developed a “gun strap” that would allow hunters and users of fire arms to keep them accessible and usable in a variety of circumstances. Jocelyn Purdum’s “Jar Scooper” is a device that fits into the underside of a jar lid, and allows the user to turn it order to fully remove the jars contents before throwing it away. Kaicen Clark decided to improve the function of lubricant spray to help with a variety of household and other tasks. Sawyer Beutler developed a “Refrigerator Spring” to make placing and retrieving items from the refrigerator doors easier. On a similar note, Sylvie Gleckler developed a “Quick Restocker” to resupply shelves with needed items based on their scan codes.

Ivy Wright invented a “Playful Robot” to help kids with homework, and provide someone to talk to and play with. Draven Wise’s “Foldo-Tron” can create any number of items through 3-D printing, which can expand outside the confines of the device itself to create longer or larger objects.

Cassidy Schrenk’s very practical invention “the Marker Saver” allows users to swing a marker around on a fixed pivot (a string) in order to restore the maximum amount of ink to the tip possible. Gage Steed’s ambitious “Animal Eater Feeder” provides a mechanized way for young kids to feed their animals in the morning with a minimum of discomfort.

Overall, the Invention Convention provides an excellent opportunity for students to learn the basic principles of problem solving and applied science. Each of the projects required a plan, a description, and a model or diagram. The steps involved in creating the projects mimic the steps involved in engineering and mechanics projects that students are likely to encounter in their future careers or academic work.

Many of the inventions, as mentioned, were also highly practical, which lets students see the STEM concepts have uses beyond the abstract and that engineering and science are things that they can use in their every day lives to benefit themselves and others.

Most of the students on hand were very proud to show off their ideas, and very confident explaining them to the large streams of adults that made their way through the fourth and fifth grade classrooms with questions. While some of the inventions may never ultimately see the light of day, some of them have an excellent chance of being available at a shop near you soon!

Bentley Godfrey

Isaac Bird Draven Wise

Ivy Wright Cassidy Schrenk

Jocelyn Purdum

Kaicen Clark

Dragon Doings

By The Malad High School Journalism Class

New Student

By Kylee Tanner, Brylee Oglesbee and

Katie Coatney

We have two new kids from Nampa, Tommy and Levi Angell. Levi is in 9th grade and is 15. Tommy is in 11th grade and is 16. They say that so far Malad is pretty good and their favorite classes are P.E and Auto. Levi’s favorite food is starts. Tommy is currently part of the wrestling team and he also is a part of the rodeo team.

Some of our foreign exchange students are Natchan P (Ping) and Praiya C (Bay). They are from Thailand. They are in 11th grade. They think that so far Malad is good. Ping’s favorite food is pizza and her favorite subject is forensics. Bay’s favorite food is hamburger and her favorite subject is art. So far Ping has managed for girls volleyball and in Thailand she played basketball. FFA Trip By: Whitnee Waldron,

Sydnee Sorenson,

McKenzie Leckie

The Malad FFA Chapter went on a field trip to University of Utah on November 29, 2022. They traveled to many different divisions of the USU Agriculture Facility and explored many job oppertunities.

First, they traveled to the Dairy Farm which they were lucky enough to see first hand how it operates. They saw the automatic milker which had alignment lasers to get as much milk from each cow as possible. All the cows have to do is walk up to the milker and wait for the machine to start.

Next, they traveled to the other farms on campus, such as the goat and sheep farm. They got to see goats and sheep that were not just used agriculturally. Some of them were used as experiments. There was one specific goat that the students and teachers on campus infused with human antibodies and were able to study. As you can imagine, this goat is quite valuable and is worth nearly 2 million dollars.

After lunch, they returned and toured the Meat Processing Facility. They were able to see how fast and seamlessly the cattle are processed and put in a freezer to be sold. All of this was done by mainly students, and teachers there to supervise.

Finally, the students concluded their trip by visiting the campus greenhouses. The greenhouse features many Hibiscus plants that the students were researching. The Hibiscus was put into many different variables, light intensity, humidity, and water, to see which is more effective.

The Malad Chapter learned much about Agriculture and Job Opportunities on this field trip. They were able to explore interests and hopefully have a better idea of what they want to do with their future.

Boys Basketball Vs.

Ririe and Grace Lutheran

By: Jaden Ward,

Austin Jacobsen,

Chase Briggs

On Wednesday Nov. 30, the Malad Dragons Boys Basketball Team traveled to Ririe to face off against the Ririe Bulldogs. The JV team played first at 6:00 p.m. The JV team played very well against the bulldogs but in the end could not pull-out a win. The Varsity team played next at 7:30 after the JV game was done. The Dragons had a solid first half against the Bulldogs and were only down by ten at the half. After halftime, the Dragons started running out of players to substitute in and out for the starters to give them breaks and that helped the Bulldogs pull ahead and win the game 64 to 33. After the game against Ririe, The Dragons then had a home game against the Grace Lutheran Royals. The JV team played an outstanding game with holding the Royals to no points in the first quarter and four points at the half. The Dragons JV ended up winning the game. After the JV team played, it was time for the Varsity teams home opening game. The dragons started the game strong with a couple of quick three pointers and some good passes for layups that resulted in two points. The dragons battled the whole game and by the fourth quarter, the dragons pulled ahead by a big margin and won the game 55-27. Senior Austin Jacobsen said, “I thought that we played very well against both teams. I wish that we would have had subs in for the Ririe game but it proved that when we did have subs against Grace Lutheran, we won the game so I am very confident for this year.” The Dragons will not have any games this week.