Shark Week

By Chloe Warmuskerken

(from left to right) Jack Damstra, Elizabeth Grandon,
Connor Wardrop, and Dan Frey

Held on various days at Davenport University, Shark Week aimed to bring innovative minds together, allowing students to practice inventing and pitching ideas. Selected Northview students attended the event on February 21st. One Northview team earned second place for their pitch.

Going into the event Tricia Erickson, art teacher at Northview and chaperone of this field trip, said she really had no idea what to expect; however, she was not surprised a Northview team did so well. 

“Our students came from our Creative Problem Solving class, which is an art class that focuses designed thinking strategies, so they took a different approach and we were interested to see how they would do-- and they did very well,” Erickson said.

Freshman, Jack Damstra, part of the overall second place team, said going to Shark Week was helpful because he and his teammates got to practice pitching ideas in front of an audience. A main portion of Shark Week was not only creating a product but understanding how to pitch and sell it. His teammates include all freshman, Elizabeth Grandon, Connor Wardrop, and Dan Frey. 

Students were given a subject, this year was animals and pets, and then given an hour to invent something around that subject and come up with a way to pitch the idea. Once the hour was up, each group presented in their room to a few other teams and judges would pick what team won from each room. After selecting a winner from each room, all the teams gathered and the room winners presented in front of everyone. Judges then selected an overall winner.

When asked what the key to their success was, the team, without hesitation, said it was how different they all were. Damstra, a swimmer, Grandon, an artist, Wardrop, an aspiring doctor, and Frey, a bowler, all came together with different angles on their invention. 

“Having different personalities helps to balance out the team and make us better overall,” Wardrop said. Grandon added that they bounce ideas off each other to create one great idea with many levels of thought put into it.

“It was really the differences between my students that brought them together and gave them success” Erickson said.

Photo courtesy of Mrs. Lockwood

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