This is a great story from the Denver Post about a Kindergardner using the engineering design process to solve a problem:

Ruby Lucken didn't like different foods touching on her plate. Two years ago, when she was 6, her parents got rid of their plastic-divider kid plates in a purge of kitchen cabinets.

Ruby, a pint-sized inventor who loves to tinker, used some modeling clay to create a curved wall on her plate, and then wondered if a different material would suction better.

Her parents lent her some seed money, and she tested prototypes until she found something that met her approval — it suctioned so well that it lifted the plate.

So then she worked with an engineer to create some easy pull-off tabs, and last summer she started selling her invention — called the Food Cubby — at local farmers markets.

To her family’s surprise, this simple solution is also good for people with special needs or older people who need help at mealtime. The semi-circle cubbies suction onto your plate, but they do more than just keep foods separate. The cubbies create a “wall” to help push food onto a fork or spoon.