Inventor (Brownie Try-it)

The Inventor Try-it is part of the “It's Your Story - Tell It!” badge set introduced in 2011.

Activity #1: Warm Up Your Inventor's Mind

 * What can you do with a box? The girls brainstormed different ways to use a box with the two girl leaders writing them down. In 5 minutes, they came up with 14 different uses. SArcher (talk) 19:58, October 9, 2012 (UTC)

Activity #2: Find Lots of Ways to Solve the Same Problem

 * The girls took miscellaneous recycling materials (oatmeal canisters, yarn spools, aluminum cans, boxes, paper clips, rubber bands, etc.) and made their own musical instruments. They then went around the group and showed off their instruments and all of the different sounds they could make from them. SArcher (talk) 19:58, October 9, 2012 (UTC)

Activity #3: Make a Needs List

 * Improve our Brownie meetings. The girls came up with their own brainstormed list of problems they saw on their own with how our meetings go, including girls bothering each other, being disrespectful, not listening to the leaders, and not following directions. They then chose the top 4 items to work on in Activity #4. SArcher (talk) 19:58, October 9, 2012 (UTC)

Activity #4: Solve a Problem

 * Mind map solutions. The girls took the meeting issues they identified in #3 above and broke up into pairs with each pair working on one of the top 4 issues. They used the mind map diagram from the Try-it binder to list out possible solutions. SArcher (talk) 19:58, October 9, 2012 (UTC)

Activity #5: Share Your Invention

 * Act out the solutions. Each pair of girls chose one of their mind-mapped solutions about how to improve our meetings and came up with a charade to act out in front of the other Brownies. They came up with some great ideas, such as having a special cheer to get everyone to listen to the leaders (Leader: "Hocus Pocus"; Girls: "Everybody focus!"), doing some meditation to get everyone to calm down, and having everyone talk about why their excited to be at the meeting at the beginning of the meeting so they don't do it as much during the meeting. SArcher (talk) 19:58, October 9, 2012 (UTC)

Activities
Marshmallow Challenge. "The task is simple: in eighteen minutes, teams must build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be on top."

Books
Girls Think of Everything; Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women by Catherine Thimmesh. From a mortar and pestle to an ice cream cone, from liquid paper to Kevlar, women have invented some of the most useful and popular items in history! This book profiles female inventors and their brilliant inventions in an engaging and lively fashion, from early times through the end of the 20th century. Also included in the book is a timeline, a list of resources and references for young inventors, as well as the stories of two young inventors and their work.