What do cornflakes, flyswatters, and sunglasses have in common? Let's take a closer look:In the 19th century, breakfast cereal was invented as part of a health reform movement, and Grape Nuts was an early concoction. In an effort to help one of his patients who had broken her false teeth and couldn’t eat Grape Nuts, Dr. W.K. Kellogg made crisp flakes of ground corn. The doctor called the cereal corn flakes.*
Irritated by buzzing flies, Frank H. Rose made a fly-smashing device in 1905 by attaching a square of wire screen to the end of a yard stick. Rose realized he needed to put holes in the screen because a fly can sense the pressure of a solid object like a rolled up newspaper moving its way.*
Smoke tinted glasses were first used in ancient China by judges who wanted to conceal their eye expressions. In the 1930s, aviators’ were troubled by solar glare while flying. The solution was the invention of the sunglasses—smoke tinted glasses.*
Three problems! Three solutions!
Inventors are people who seek solutions when faced with a frustrating problem.
When I was teaching, I could never find the block style eraser when I needed it. I got tired of using my finger or hand to erase small mistakes on the white board, so I invented an attachable eraser for the dry erase marker.
Once the erasers hit the market, I got a call from Hollywood. "You're going to be a millionaire," the person said. "We've had a drastic decline in powder puff sales.” For 20 years directors had been taping powder puffs to the end of the markers. That was their solution to the problem. That’s how inventions come to be and some of us take our inventions all the way to production. Now, Kleen Slate erasers are widely used in schools, hospitals, businesses and apparently Hollywood.
What frustrates you? Does your mind immediately think of ways to solve problems? Are your solutions new inventions?
Post a comment and let us know.
*from The Kid Who Invented the Popsicle: and Other Extraordinary Stories Behind Everyday Things by Don L. Wulffson.
