From Curious Campers to Breakthrough Inventors

Innovative collaboration is front and center each year at the Collegiate Inventors Competition^® (CIC). The 2025 CIC Graduate Runner-Up team of Jacob Belding and Ava Forystek invented RedAlert Living Sensors, a new approach to quickly and clearly indicating nitrogen deficiency in crops. The Cornell University students collaborated and combined their expertise in horticulture and engineering to achieve this promising invention. 

Early Interests in STEM: Discovering the Joy of Exploration and Innovation

From early days of exploring STEM to showcasing their invention at CIC, Belding and Forystek’s journeys have been anchored by curiosity. With an eagerness to discover the inner workings of mechanics and a passion for plants, their early interests in STEM served as a compass for their innovative paths and future discoveries.

“I became a horticulturalist because I love plants,” Forystek explained. “Growing up, my bedroom was full of every plant I could get a hold of, from the grocery store to plant nurseries. I just fell in love with them – they were mesmerizing. I’ve done research on lettuce, my master’s on strawberries, and I’ve worked with rice a bit. I really love ornamentals – flowers and houseplants that we can’t eat but can still include in our lives.” 

Belding began thinking like an engineer from an early age. “In my childhood, I was really interested and curious about understanding how things work [by] taking things apart and putting them back together. I think the people in my life really encouraged me to pursue that curiosity and that has definitely led to where I am today as a scientist and an engineer."

Early Exposure to STEM at Camp Invention

Finding joy in taking technology apart, Belding’s enthusiasm for investigating inner mechanics was met with inspiring learning experiences at Camp Invention^®, a K-6 summer STEM camp of the National Inventors Hall of Fame^®. Empowered to bring his own ideas to life as a camper, Belding’s early exposure to engineering motivated him to understand more. A core component of the camp experience, take-apart experiences shaped his earliest experiences of exploring STEM. 

“I went to Camp Invention as a kid, and I had so much fun when I was there. It really inspired me to learn how things work and how things were invented. I feel like that’s really the key step to going on to then invent things yourself,” he explained. “I remember we got to take [devices] apart, piece by piece. Every screw, every component, we were taught what that was. It really stuck in my head –  I thought that was fascinating. If you understand how it works, you can work with it safely.” 

Belding also values another foundational Camp Invention experience: the chance to develop his own ideas to solve real-world problems. After constructing invention prototypes using upcycled materials as a young creator, Belding shared that he still has one of the prototypes he created at camp. He frequently refers to this prototype when recalling his earliest and most impactful STEM experiences that inspired his next milestone. 

Encouraging the next generation of young inventors who will dive into hands-on STEM challenges at Camp Invention, Belding advised campers to lean into their curiosity. “Never stop asking questions,” he said. “Always try to understand how the things around you work. Being an inventor is a real career! Sometimes it goes under different names, sometimes you might be called an engineer or a scientist, but you really can be an inventor and contribute new ideas to the world.”

Developing a Smart Solution for Agriculture

Combating wasteful applications of fertilizer, Belding and Forystek developed RedAlert Living Sensors, an agricultural innovation that communicates important information to farmers to indicate nutrient levels in the soil and the corresponding needs of a plant. 

Belding and Forystek’s invention aims to improve the sustainability of modern farming by reducing chemical waste and benefiting agriculture and the environment. Promoting rapid plant growth and higher crop yields, nitrogen plays an essential role in plant production, but the current techniques for indicating nitrogen levels – measuring chlorophyll – have less accuracy. To easily indicate nitrogen deficiency, RedAlert Living Sensor plants are genetically modified to produce a plant pigment in a vivid red color. This helps facilitate plant-human interactions as farmers quickly recognize deficiencies and apply nitrogen fertilizer only as needed. 

Belding explained, “Invention can help to solve environmental problems because a lot of the way we currently do things sometimes just happens to be the first thing that works and not necessarily the most efficient or environmentally friendly solution. We see this with our invention, which we hope will help to reduce the wasteful use of nitrogen fertilizers.”

“Currently these nitrogen fertilizers are applied in excess as a way to solve the problem of a lack of information by overcorrecting,” Belding said. “This causes a lot of negative environmental problems, including the carbon emissions from manufacturing the fertilizer and the negative effects of when excess fertilizer runs off and contaminates groundwater and surface water and can cause health affects in people and harm aquatic ecosystems. By reducing this waste, a lot of those negative consequences can be avoided.”

Excelling at CIC 

Since 1990, creative and innovative college students from across the country platform their inventions at CIC. Finding new inspiration from the cohort of collegiate inventors and competitors, the team excelled as Finalists and Graduate Runners-Up.

“My favorite experience of CIC has been getting to meet a lot of my peers and colleagues from all these different universities that all have such great ideas. It’s great to have a sense of comradery and kinship with people that think a lot like I do. They are creative and use their minds to solve problems in the world. It’s also been such an honor to get to be in a room with so many brilliant people that have impacted the world in so many way,” Forystek explained. 

After participating in CIC, Belding said receiving expert feedback and advice from Judges, including National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductees and USPTO officials, has strengthened their pathway to a patent. “Now I feel more confident and able to pursue intellectual property for our invention,” he said.

Reflecting on his invention journey from Camp Invention to CIC, Belding shared that seeing the Gallery of Icons^® at the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum was one unforgettable highlight from participating in the national competition. “One of my favorite experiences at CIC was visiting the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum and the wall of plaques of the previous Inductees and just seeing these names that I recognize – a lot of my personal heroes – represented on this wall. Even knowing that some of them were standing right there where I was standing was really inspiring.” 

Encourage Your Child’s Curiosity

Learn more about Camp Invention and the unforgettable STEM experiences to empower your young innovator this summer! 

If you have a Camp Invention story you want to share, we'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected].