Impacting Others...at Summer Camp!

Hello hello hello! Today's post is going to be about this project idea that I created at this year's summer camp. Hope you enjoy!

I've never actually been to a sleep-away camp, but I have been to day camps. Just a month ago I went to a camp called Inventor's Club, where we got to work on projects in groups of two, making things like pinball machines, paper airplanes that really flew, and straw towers that could hold tennis balls (Yikes! That was a difficult task!) At the end of the camp, we got work individually on actually inventing something practical and that would help other people. Whether the people we wanted to impact were our friends or the whole world, our teachers that ran the summer camp helped us create presentations to help explain our ideas to the rest of the kids at the camp. Some people made simple things and even made models to further show what their finished product will look like. Others took advantage of the technology we have today and made things that would use computers or phones to function. I decided it would really cool to make an app. Little did I realize the possibilities behind this little app.

I had a couple ideas of what I wanted the app to do, but in the end, I decided that I wanted to make the app for people with food allergies.  My idea was that when people downloaded the app, the app would have them fill out what they were allergic to. The app would then save this information. Once people had filled this in, people could scan a barcode of a product in a store (or anywhere, really!) and the app would read for any allergens in the product and it would tell you if there were any allergens in the product.

I thought this would be a good idea because it wouldn't just impact a couple people I knew. It would probably impact lots of people in my neighborhood, or my school, or my town, or my state, maybe even the whole country. It might even help the whole world! Pretty freakin' amazing!

But of course, making a complicated app like this one isn't as easy as 1-2-3. I found a free app-maker online that I thought would work, but it was nowhere near the advanced type of thing that I needed. I talked to my teachers about the problem, and they said that I would probably have to communicate with some very important people and companies to get this thing to work. And by important people and companies, they meant companies like Apple, Microsoft, maybe even Google! I was told that during the school year I could join the Invention Convention club they have at my school to see these companies and get my idea out. They also said that in order for people to actually trust it, I would need to get a global food allergy company/website, like FARE, to give me a "stamp of approval", or look at my app and prove to everyone that it does work and it does what I claim it can do.

Wow! This app may be more work than I thought it would be! I'll probably be joining the Invention Convention this year so I can hopefully get my idea noticed. Maybe I'll get to meet Apple or Microsoft or Google so I can get my app created!

The Invention Convention starts in the spring. I'll tell you more about the app once I join the club.

Thank you for reading this week's post. Talk to you soon!