Now in its 16th year in Bourbonnais, Camp Invention has become a tradition and grown into a family for many of its participants.

This week, 145 local students in kindergarten through sixth grades attended the summer enrichment program hosted at Liberty Intermediate School.

The week-long camp offers hands-on science, technology, engineering and math activities focused on creativity, innovation, real-world problem solving and invention.

A highlight from this year’s program included the “Fur-ensics” curriculum, involving a fleet of robotic capybaras helping students learn about forensic evidence analysis and investigation.

“I’ve been asked every day if they get to take them home,” noted Nikki Mosier, a Bourbonnais District 53 third grade teacher.

Students got to take their inventions home on Friday, including the “Cap E. Bara” robots, she said.

Mosier has been a Camp Invention teacher for about five years, and all three of her daughters attend. Her oldest is a “leader in training” on her way to becoming a camp counselor.

With many students participating year after year, Mosier has enjoyed getting to know return campers.

“It’s fun seeing how creative kids get with their inventions,” Mosier said.

Lila Saineghi, 9, of Bourbonnais, said the toy robots were her favorite part of camp this year.

“Capybaras are really cute, and I really like spy and detective work,” she said.

Lila has done camp a few times before and likes seeing and learning new things each time.

“It’s a fun place where you get to invent things that you probably won’t see in other areas,” she said.

District 53 teacher Ann O’Gorman brought Camp Invention to Bourbonnais 16 years ago.

“We needed this in our community,” O’Gorman said.

As nicknames are a traditional part of the camp, O’Gorman wore a name tag all week that identified her simply as “Frizz.”

“It’s so different than school,” she said.

O’Gorman noted that 30 students received full or partial scholarships to attend camp this year with donations from community sponsors, including Nucor, Meineke Auto Care and State Rep. Jackie Haas.

Across the nation, Camp Invention serves 140,000 students every year and partners with more than 2,600 schools and districts.

This was O’Gorman’s final year as the local camp director. She is preparing to pass the torch to another teacher for next year’s camp.

While she will miss it, O’Gorman said it is important to keep new thoughts and ideas coming in.

“It’s grown because the community wants it; the kids want it,” O’Gorman said. “It’s grown tremendously.”

Many of the camp counselors are former participants, like Emmeline Sovinski.

Sovinski, 19, participated in Camp Invention from kindergarten through sixth grade and has been a camp counselor for four summers.

“I would say this has been honestly one of my favorite experiences I’ve ever done — I mean, obviously, I just keep coming back,” she said.

Sovinski recalls Camp Invention being the best part of her summer.

“I feel like it’s a good way to keep learning but make it more fun because you’re not in actual school,” she said. “I’m very much like a science person, so this just really fueled that for me.”

Sovinski noted Camp Invention helped her discover that she loves working with kids.

A 2025 graduate of Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School, Sovinski is studying at Northern Illinois University to become a pediatric physical therapist.

One of her favorite parts of being a counselor has been seeing how excited kids get to show off their inventions to their families at the end of the week.

“Looking at it from afar, it’s like they built, you know, just something wacky out of cardboard,” she said. “But there’s so much thought and detail that goes into it, and it just has so much meaning behind it. I think that’s really cool.”

Iman Bokin, 12, of Bourbonnais, is a junior camp counselor who joined Camp Invention for the first time this year with encouragement from her teachers.

Iman said she enjoys helping the younger kids learn.

“It sounded like fun, and I wanted to be able to kind of be a teacher,” Iman said.

Ayomide Adeyemi, 12, of Bourbonnais, is a junior camp counselor who has been attending Camp Invention since kindergarten.

“It was fun to do math and stuff, and I really wanted to use a hot glue gun,” she said.

Ayomide, who wants to be a pediatrician, said she couldn’t wait to become a camp counselor.

Talking with the older kids was always her favorite part of camp. She now wants to make those same connections with the younger kids.

“There’s a bunch of nice people here,” Ayomide said. “You can make a lot of new friends here.”