MISD Wild Ideas: Forest floors to ocean shores

This is the sixth amazing year partnering with MISD. We have witnessed its success snowball with each passing year. More schools, more makers, and more little inventors have joined us to participate in the challenges.

MISD is the Macomb Intermediate School District. In 2026, children across the county are set to experience a powerful surge of their imagination as we embark on the MISD Wild Ideas: Forest floors to ocean shores invention challenge.

MISD and Little Inventors are looking for your wildest invention ideas - inspired by animals or made to help them! From the tiniest ant to the biggest blue whale, animals are incredible inventors themselves! They build, fly, swim, dig and adapt in ways that humans can learn from. Every creature has its own special superpower - like how geckos stick to walls, bees build perfect hexagons, or birds navigate thousands of miles on migration.

When humans create inventions inspired by the amazing abilities of animals, it’s called biomimicry. But even though animals have incredible superpowers, they don’t always have all the answers – sometimes they need a little help solving problems, just like we do!

The challenge is to invent something - inspired by an animal OR designed to help an animal!

Maybe it’s shoes that help you climb like a lizard, a raincoat that sheds water like a duck’s feathers or a tunnel that helps frogs cross roads safely!

Get ready to explore, observe, and invent - because the animal kingdom has A LOT to teach us!