Bethel Park hosts 10th annual Camp Invention

In 2016, a Bethel Park teacher offered to direct a program that attracted 74 students during their summer break.

This summer marks Laura Huth’s 10th year of leading local programming for Camp Invention, and she welcomed nearly 300 children in two, week-long July sessions at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School.

“When you reflect on the 10 years, it’s about providing children with opportunities. Kids don’t know what they can do unless they’re given the opportunity,” said Huth, who teaches first grade at George Washington Elementary. “So Bethel Park, through offering this program, is giving all of these children opportunities to grow not only as learners, but as people.”

Camp Invention is designed to help students create, collaborate and gain confidence through building prototypes and solving real-world problems, according to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, the sponsoring organization.

Franklin Elementary special education teacher Jessica Mahoney got on board with Huth that first year and continues to lend a hand. This year, she led the Camp Invention Games, daily activities full of friendly competition.

“I know that a lot of the students see it as a gym-type period,” Mahoney said. “But what they’re not realizing is how much collaboration is going on, learning how to win, learning how to lose. How do you build from that?”

Another objective of the games, Huth said, is building resilience within the youngsters.

“I always tell the kids, when you lose, you learn,” Huth said. “You have learned something by that loss that you can build on going forward.”

Lessons along those lines come in handy for campers as they embark on the Camp Invention curriculum of educational modules, as developed each summer by the National Inventors Hall of Fame. The subjects for the 2025 modules are:

• Claw Arcade, during which students construct mechanical claw machines and create prizes that can be grabbed, all the while learning about the physics behind the devices and how animals use their claws, as well as the aspect of how to become an entrepreneur.

• Illusion Workshop, teaching youngsters about how optical illusions are executed on stage and screen as the students invent their own special-effects props.

• In Control, with campers learning how to work with transmitters and receivers using custom dashboards and travel maps.

• Penguin Launch, focusing on the flightless birds of Antarctica, with students being aided by a robotic assistant, they develop penguin- and planet-saving prototypes.

“I would have to say what brings me back year after year is watching the kids explore different ways to come up with amazing things,” Mahoney said. “I also love that year after year after year, we tend to get the same families back, and those families will bring other families. It’s a real family affair.”

An example is first-year camp instructor Kristen Ritchey, a Benjamin Franklin Elementary School art teacher who attended with daughter Althea, a soon-to-be kindergartner, in tow.

Other members of the instructional staff included Megan Dolman, a Memorial Elementary third-grade teacher, also new for 2025; Lincoln third-grade teacher Madison Shakespeare, back for her second year; Lesa Donati, who teaches in Canon-McMillan School District; and Whitney Hemphill from the Allegheny Intermediate Unit’s Mon Valley School in Jefferson Hills.

Huth complimented her colleagues.

“If you want success, you have to build a strong team,” she said. “That’s where it starts.”

Her team further included students serving as leaders-in-training, assisting with numerous logistical and educational tasks. Among them was rising high school freshman Abigail Ricciutti, who has been a Camp Invention participant each summer she was eligible, from kindergarten through sixth grade.

“I can remember all of my counselors’ faces from when I was younger, because I made so many great memories with them, and I knew I wanted to do that since first grade,” she said about her eventual leadership role.

She mentioned a positive aspect of camp as it pertains to Bethel Park: “All the elementary schools right now are separated, and I would meet so many new people. I would love talking to them and getting to know them. Now I know pretty much my entire grade, and I can thank the camp for that.”

With the district constructing an elementary center for 2026-27, replacing the five current elementary buildings, Camp Invention could be of particular benefit for participants.

“They’re meeting kids that they might then see once they go to the new school,” Dolman said. “And then they’ll have friends.”

As an educator, she enjoyed devoting a portion of her summer to Camp Invention.

“I’m glad to come back to the classroom,” she said. “It’s fun to have a break, but at the same time, it’s fun to be with the kids.”