Turning Your Idea into Reality with Glass

Hosted by: The University of Texas at Austin Chemistry Department Glass Shop

2025 STEM Girl Day Glass Shop Imaginary Invention Contest

Calling all K-8th graders: Do you have an idea for an imaginary invention that can solve a real problem in our world? Imagine an invention that will solve a real problem in our world. What would the invention look like? How would it work? What will it do? 

Participants will use no more than one page or piece of paper to draw and describe their invention idea, how it works, and/or what problem it is solving in our world. A team of scientists and artists will select one idea from STEM Girl Day at UT Austin submissions and will bring this idea to life as an artistic glass sculpture to be debuted at STEM Girl Day 2025 on February 22, 2025.

Complete the following THREE steps to submit invention ideas by Sunday, January 5, 2025:

  1. Create a drawing and description of your invention. The invention drawing and description should be no larger than one 8.5x11 size image/paper. The invention drawing and description should include the invention's name, the student's first name (ONLY first name), and a picture and/or description of the invention, how it works and/or what problem it is solving in our world.
  2. Upload a PDF, JPG, or PNG of the invention idea to the 2025 STEM Day Imaginary Invention Contest Padlet. Complete the required fields on the Padlet submission. Padlet will be used by our team of scientists and artists to review all submissions. All submissions are moderated and will be approved and visible by Friday, January 10, 2025.
  3. Email a PDF, JPG, or PNG of the invention idea to wistem@utexas.edu. Include the student's first and last name (last name will never be shared publicly), student grade, student school and city/state, adult first and last name, adult email address. The email is needed so that we can notify winners and provide updates regarding the contest.

The announcement of the selected invention will be included in the WiSTEM K12 STEM Newsletter sent February 14th.

Check out Invention Ideas from Past Years

Find photos and videos of Invention Ideas from STEM Girl Days on Flickr.

STEM Girl Day Glass Shop Imaginary Inventions on Flickr

 

Learn More about the Glass Shop

Without glass, the world would be unrecognizable. It’s in the eyeglasses on your face, the lightbulbs in your room, and the windows that let you see outside. From the lenses of telescopes used to discover other worlds to the glassware used in chemistry to the optical fibers used to transfer information across continents, glass has also been critical to scientific discovery. Here at the UT Glass Shop we continue to enable world-class research through scientific glassblowing. You can usually find us fixing broken glassware and making complex apparatuses for researchers. Today though we thought we would showcase the immense engineering needed to create one of the most common glass-containing items we encounter every day: the light bulb.

Although many believe that Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, he was not the first to show that light could be produced by passing electricity through a filament (a thin wire). Edison’s light bulb was the first that could be used long enough to be adopted for widespread use lasting up to 1,200 hours (50 days) before burning out. The next major milestone was replacing Edison’s carbon filament with a tungsten filament that lasts up to 10,000 hours and is still in use today. The filament is surrounded by a glass bulb and all of the air is removed from inside the glass bulb to protect the filament from burning out. Glass is used because it is transparent and can withstand the high temperature of the filament which can reach 4,500°F (10 times hotter than your oven at home).

How does this activity connect to STEM?

  • The light bulb is a great example of the engineering needed to light our world and was a major milestone in human development.
  • Incandescent light bulbs like the one we are making today are not used as much now because more energy-efficient alternatives are used like LED light bulbs.
  • While light bulbs are made by large, automated machines in factories, our journey of making one by hand showcases the range of skills needed to make such a simple item.
  • Skills we are using today include scientific glassblowing, machining of filaments, chemistry and electronics.

More about the UT Glass Shop

The Glass Shop at UT is located in Welch Hall (WEL) 2.146 and is staffed by Adam Kennedy. We create, repair, and modify various glass instruments for departments throughout the university. This can be as simple as fixing a small crack, or as complex as collaborating with scientists to create an entirely new design and building it from scratch. While most people think we make beakers and test tubes, scientific glassblowing is much more complicated than that requiring a great deal of planning and experience to make the apparatuses needed. The work we do here enables UT research amongst a broad range of disciplines.