SMC Hosts Innovation Expo For Local Students

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58 students from grades three through twelve have taken part in the first Southwestern Michigan College Innovation Expo, showing off their problem solving skills. SMC says the November 1 event welcomed student groups to help them develop science, technology, engineering, and math abilities with 21 projects on display. The judges named six winners based on presentation and display of inventions, similar to a science fair. SMC partnered with the WMU College of Engineering and Applied Sciences to bring the event to Dowagiac. Among the winners were two Marcellus seventh graders with their “Swamp Angel Trap.” The device, inspired by this fall’s Eastern Equine Encephalitis scare, goes in the ground and attracts and kills mosquitoes. Another prize went to Lake Michigan Catholic’s “Fold-a-tron,” a laundry basket that helps fold clothes. A third prize went to some Dowagiac middle schoolers for their backseat cup holder.