Launched into Learning: Students Thrive at Ideaventions Academy

by Lincoln Patience, Staff Writer

Testing the catapult. Photo by Lincoln Patience

It’s catapult day at Ideaventions Academy, and everal seventh- and eighth-graders in hard hats gather around three wooden catapults. Two boys set the pumpkin-shaped dodgeball inside the net and prepare to launch it. Off to the side, a girl holds a lighter and some rope. Safety is a high priority at Ideaventions, but just behind it is the philosophy to let kids try things.

The boys launch the dodgeball, but it releases too early and bounces off to the side.

“I’m a firm believer that you learn faster from failure than from success,” math and engineering teacher Alex Spangler encourages the students.

They try again, and the dodgeball flies straight up in the air. Forward progress only technically, but progress nonetheless.

Ideaventions is one of Virginia’s top private schools, with a mean SAT score of 1532. This year, 74 students are enrolled, including a graduating class of two. Ideaventions is one of the only schools in the state to receive a School of Distinction award from Cognia Accreditation (2023). Its elite robotics program, Team Daedalus, won the national Advanced Vertical Robotics competition each of the past two years, and was the runner-up in 2022. And two teams made aquatic drones for the SeaPerch International competition, where both made it to the top 1% of international finalists.

Ideavention Academy's awards. Photo by Lincoln Patience

“Our goal’s not to win, win, win,” said Crowder. “Our goal is to learn, learn, learn.”

In the engineering workroom, Crowder’s own Lego creation sits on a workbench, along with a box of the soon-to-be-catapulted pumpkins. “We start teaching power tools in fourth grade,” he says. By seventh grade, the kids are making their own electric guitars and amps. Some of the guitars hang on the wall next to model airplanes and rockets.

One year, the middle schoolers made a knee wall, complete with drywall, insulation, and electricity. “The pièce de résistance was that they plugged in a lamp and it worked,” Crowder said.

The kids start their day with a 30-minute walk through the nearby woods. Occasionally, they find things; animal vertebrae lined the far wall of the first- and second-grade classroom, along with a microscope and slides. For extracurriculars, Ideaventions offers 79 clubs, everything from dance, acting, and prop making to Battlebots, rocketry, and Model UN. Biology professor Sarah Ciupek, who teaches neuroscience to the more advanced seniors, gives knitting lessons on the side.

“We don’t want it to feel like a rat race,” says Crowder. “We want it to feel like the right fit for them.”

Junior Thomas Halliday has certainly found the right place. This past year, he and his professor traveled to Normandy as one of 15 teams selected for a George Washington University program. Halliday researched the family history of a local soldier buried at the American cemetery there, reading diary entries from the war and discussing them with classmates. He also looked up information on JSTOR and Ancestry and contacted the soldier’s living relatives.

“It didn’t really feel like work to me,” said Halliday, the wonder of the trip still evident in his voice. At the National Archives, “I got to hold actual documents,” including the soldier’s after-action report. Halliday also delivered a eulogy at the soldier’s Normandy grave, and is preparing to give his historical presentation in front of a local retirement home on Veteran’s Day.

“Every time I study WWII, I gain more respect and understanding for what happened,” Halliday said. He is thinking about studying International Relations in college.

Tuition is steep—$31,000 a year for high school students, and the school’s admissions rate is less than 35% (attendees must have an IQ of 130 or higher). And the school lacks personnel to help with learning disabilities. But graduates of the academy earn nearly $400,000 in National Merit Scholarships, on average. And students have gone on to attend schools such as Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, and Amherst. One student majored in computer science at the University of Washington.

“It’s invigorating as a teacher to watch them learn,” Crowder said. “We inspire each other.”

Elizabeth Crowder shows off a model plane the students made. One student's rocket reached a height of 840 feet. "I do think we have to notify the FAA," Crowder said. Photo credit: Lincoln Patience