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.
6 comments:
I just love your Kwik Chek II. I took it on vacation and the kids and I played "hang man" while driving in the car. It was so nice to have a convenient game. Everyhting is compact and easy to keep track of! We played on one side of the paddle and kept score on the other.
Great! I love to hear stories and adventures that Kwik Chek has. I took them to Mexico with me and had all kinds of fun playing games with the kids at a school. One side of the paddle was used to write responses and the other to keep score! We also took them on the plane and passed them out to parents with kids- by the end of the flight everyone was communicating with the paddles-even the flight attendant got in on the action. Fun fun fun...If you can think of new and engaging games to play using the Kwik Chek Paddle and want to get them into our next booklet, drop me a line and let's get you involved. You never know- your idea counld be worth millionS!!!
Thanks that was a great read.
I really wish you two would post more articles as the ones you have so far are brilliant.
You could always join my writing team over at www.LoveInventions.com, we’re trying to amass a team of experts into one place to create an online inventor club.
If you’re interested let me know. If not then I plead with you to write some more articles for this site!!
My schedule is pretty full right now, as this is the high sell season and I am traveling quite a bit.
We did just get into a test with COSTCO- very exciting- and will be in for this Back to School in late July. I will also visit www.LoveInventions.com and check out what the writing group is doing. There is nothing like the energy and creativity of inventors and I like the idea of an online Inventors Club!
Rather interesting blog you've got here. Thanx for it. I like such themes and everything connected to them. I would like to read more on that blog soon.
Truly yours
Jeph Normic
I need to get back to blogging-thank you for the reminder. I have been sidetracked by kids, grand kids, and finding creative ways to work in this economy...I find these times tend to have us all focusing on survival, which in turn gets those creative juices flowing.I have several new ideas in the works, a revised business plan and a new marketing plan almost finished. I feel a bit like the fisherman who, when they can't go to sea, stay home and mend their nets. I have actually been helping more inventors these days too-part of my give back. The book-The Right Sisters is also due to be released in May so that will free up more time for blogging, newsletters and reconnecting with the inventor world. A good reminder to revisit LoveInventions.com
Thank you for your post and feel free to contact me via e-mail julia@kleenslate.com if I can help in any way.
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