More than 250 K-12 student inventors from 44 schools across the state arrived on the Georgia Tech campus March 12 to showcase their inventions and compete in the 2025 K-12 Inventure Prize State Finals.  

In this year’s competition, 101 student teams advanced from the online qualifier and regional qualifying events of the STEM invention/entrepreneurship program. The students were joined by family, friends, and teachers, as well as Georgia Tech students, staff, faculty, and community partners, many of whom worked as volunteer judges or helped with registration or other event duties. More than 40 student inventors were honored at the ceremony with awards. Twenty-four winners, singled out by contest judges, will advance to the next round of the competition, Invention Convention U.S. Nationals at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, June 4-6.  

The K-12 InVenture Prize, based in the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC), challenges kindergarten through high school students to identify real-world problems and design novel solutions through analysis, creativity, and the engineering design process.  

“State Finals is always the highlight of our year, and this year was no different,” said Danyelle Larkin, director of the K-12 InVenture Prize. “It is so amazing to have our students, teachers, and families all gathered here on campus to compete and celebrate our amazing student inventor-entrepreneurs. Some of our students return with new iterations of their inventions each year. They keep on working on their designs, refining and continuing to make improvements. We love to see our students grow and learn. They actually teach and inspire us with their tenacity, hard work, and willingness to learn and grow.”  

At the ceremony, each first-place team received a patent search or patent filing offered by longtime supporters, the Georgia Intellectual Property Alliance (GIPA). Cameron Schriner, an engineer with local software company IronCAD, also presented at the event.  

Award-winning student projects included: 

• A stabilizing glove for Parkinson's disease tremors;
• A mobile plastic recycling device that converts recyclable metals and plastics into plastic chips and metal ingots;
• A medical device that helps patients to predict diseases like stroke;
• A 3-D printed cast constructed in part from mushroom spores;
• A kid-friendly litter grabber for picking up trash in parks and communities;
• A birdbath that uses a simple drain system to make the chore of cleaning easier;
• And an app that connects homeless people to services and shelters nearby.

In addition to the awards ceremony, students participated in hands-on STEM activities and visited Georgia Tech’s Paper and Clay craft studio for a wide variety of fun, creative projects. The day of events concluded with the annual InVenture Prize at Georgia Tech collegiate competition at the Ferst Center for the Arts that aired live on Georgia Public Broadcasting and online. Nicknamed "American Idol for Nerds," the Emmy Award-winning InVenture Prize at Georgia Tech is an interdisciplinary innovation competition open to all Tech undergraduate students.  

To see a full list of winners and their projects, please visit https://k12inventure.gatech.edu/competition2025.  

For more information on the K-12 InVenture Prize curriculum and competition, please visit https://k12inventure.gatech.edu or https://www.k12inventure.org.  

—Randy Trammell, CEISMC Communications