Around the gardens at his family's Springfield home, Alex Stinson decided there be a better way to get the dirt out of the bulb planter than digging it out with his bare hands or banging the tool on a nearby rock. Especially when the dirt was clay that he frequently dug up in the garden. So he took advantage of a Young Inventors contest that was put on by Craftsman tools and the National Science Teachers Association and came up with the "mechanical plunger," which was a device that attached to a bulb digger that pushed the dirt out after the hole was dug.
"I noticed problems with the hand one, it was full of clay and peat humus," Alex said, holding a bulb planter. "I was actually using this to plant some small plants."
"Last fall, he planted tulips, he was the planter," said Alex's father Dean Stinson.
So Alex bolted a few pieces of metal together, attached to a plastic plunging piece that fit into the planter perfectly. After digging a hole with the planter, a lever is shifted downward, pushing the plastic plunger through the round part of the bulb planter where the dirt gets stuck. Alex divulged his secret.
"This is a laundry detergent lid," he said.
ALEX IS an eighth grader at Lake Braddock Secondary School and his invention was a third place winner in the sixth through eighth grade category of the Young Inventors contest. He received a plaque and a $250 savings bond for his effort. Each entrant had to build a prototype and write a summary of his or her invention, and then follow it up with ideas on how it could be improved.
"You had to write a whole inventors journal," Alex said.
His father could see his investigative skills taking shape at an early age.
"He's always tinkering around with electrical stuff, he always liked to take things apart and put them back together," Stinson said.
The metal Alex initially used bent slightly, so he recommended stronger metal if the tool goes into full production.
Other inventions around Alex's Lake Braddock class that didn't win included an automatic plant watering device and a mouse pad wrist rest but they weren't selected.
"Science is fun, I've always liked biology," Alex said.
His teacher at Lake Braddock is Linda Doyle.
THE YOUNG INVENTOR program attracted nearly 9,000 students nationwide with an objective to invent a new tool or modify an existing one. Thirty-six prize winners received $250-5,000 bonds with two top winners receiving a $5,000 bond.
"The contest is to encourage them to get involved in science," said NSTA/Craftsman spokesperson Carol Simantz.
The tools that the students invent do not automatically get produced by Craftsman though, according to Simantz, but it is possible for their invention to go further than the contest.
"The kids retain ownership of their ideas," Simantz said.
"This gets them involved," said Brian Short, NSTA spokesperson, of the competition. "It helps them find where their niche is."