Friday, May 21, 2004 | 4:35 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION
May 22 - 23, 2004
When 11-year-old Bobby Roeder's grandfather assigned him the chore of picking rocks out of the backyard garden soil by hand, the sixth grader knew there had to be an easier way to get the job done.
So when science teacher Fred Goerisch at Hyde Park Middle School in Las Vegas gave his class the choice to compete in either a science fair, cyber mission or the 8th Annual Craftsman / NSTA Young Inventors Competition, Roeder didn't have to think twice.
"I already had an idea for an invention," Roeder said. "I wanted to make a tool to cut down the hassles of sifting rocks from the garden dirt."
The idea fit in perfectly with the theme of the competition, Roeder said. "We had to invent a tool, but it couldn't be electronic," he said.
With the help of his great uncle Ray Wheeler and grandfather Robert Roeder, the teen crafted an invention he dubbed, "The Shifter" -- a shovel with a built-in sieve in the center to help sift rocks and gravel from garden soil.
Roeder submitted The Shifter, complete with an eight-page report, to vie for one of 36 winning spots among 9,000 invention submissions by second through eighth graders nationwide for the 2004 Young Inventors Program, which is sponsored by Sears through its Craftsman tools brand and the National Science Teacher Association.
"This was the first time I'd ever entered any kind of invention in a contest like this," Roeder said. "I didn't know if it'd win, but I thought it worked great in the garden."
Apparently Roeder wasn't the only one impressed by his new garden wonder.
Roeder's invention stood out in the competition, landing him a spot among the third-place regional winners in the sixth through eighth grade category. The young inventor also won a $250 U.S. savings bond to put toward his education.
The Hyde Park Middle School student was also the only winner from Nevada -- an exceptional achievement considering 8,800 students nationwide, including 70 students from Hyde Park, submitted inventions.
It is the seventh year in a row a Hyde Park student has placed in a national science competition.
For the past six years Hyde Park teams of seventh graders have been finalists in the National Science Foundation's Christopher Columbus Awards.
Last year's team came up with a childproof matchbook that closed with two hooks and latches on the cover. The year before, the Hyde Park finalists invented a key ring beeper that sounds if a parent forgets to remove a child from a car seat. Those students patented that design and hope to sell it.
"Sometimes when we teach students, we think of their contribution to society as something that will happen after they finish their schooling," Principal James Kuzma said. But the top inventions of the past three years involved devices with practical application, he said.
All Hyde Park students participate in science competitions of some sort, Kuzma said. It's a required part of the curriculum at the academy, which is a magnet school designed to focus on science and math.
"They have to solve a problem," Kuzma said, "and he (Roeder) actually had a real-life problem he had to address."
Normally it's teams of seventh graders who bring national honors to the school, Kuzma said, but Roeder is only a sixth grader, the youngest group of scholars at the school.
"I was teasing him that next year, when he's in seventh grade, we expect him to bring home a Christopher Columbus award," the principal said.
The winning news was bittersweet for Roeder, the boy said. His great uncle Wheeler, who had helped him build the prize-winning tool, died just two days before he heard the good news.
"He didn't get to know that I won," Roeder said. "He would have been so excited."
Still, Roeder smiles when thinking back to the good time he had building The Shifter with his great uncle in his grandfather's old toolshed.
"It was a lot of fun," he said. "Making the tool was the fun part and it was quick. It only took two hours to make.
"I'm so glad we got to do that together," he said.
Roeder's mother, Jo Farwell said she was "thrilled to death" for her son, whom she described as a bright, straight-A student "who likes to take things apart and put them back together."
"He likes to take things apart like the (computer) printer and clocks," Farwell said. "He's very much into science sets and chemistry sets and for Christmas he got a kit to put an AM/FM radio together.
"He loves coming up with invention ideas too," she said.
Kuzma said Roeder's work is a feather in the school's cap.
"We pull in kids from all over the valley because we're a magnet school," he said. "We hope to get more kids like Bobby and hope this raises the eyebrows of other kids who have an interest in math and science."
Roeder admitted he had a few more inventions in the works, but opted to keep them a secret.
When asked what he wants to be when he's older, Roeder expressed interest in a variety of job fields.
"I'm really into science, so maybe a chemist," he said. "I might be an astronaut because I love space and I also love making Web pages, so I might want to be a programmer.
"I also might want to work in a crime lab with DNA and those things," he said.
The sky's the limit for Roeder, who is scheduled to receive an award for his invention at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday during the annual awards ceremony at Hyde Park Middle School.
"It's amazing he won out of all of those students," his mother said. "We're just so excited for him."
Roeder remains modest.
"It's funny," he said. "When I think about it, I can't believe no one's thought of it (The Shifter) before."
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