This year's Invention Convention at MTSU marks an impressive 20-year milestone and will feature approximately 237 inventions by 477 grade-school students from the surrounding middle Tennessee area.

Contributors are public- and private-school students in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades. The young inventors choose between two categories to submit their creations: "Games" and "Make Our Lives Easier," and winners in each category will be selected. The participants also will create presentations as well as working models of their inventions to display to visitors.

Featured speakers at Thursday’s event will include high-school and college students who are former grade-school Invention Convention competitors.

In addition to the student presentations, every year a featured invention is selected for display. The 2012 convention choice is Chapstick.

The event is sponsored by State Farm insurance.