Take a look at these 10 kids that invented or engineered something to help us have better quality of life: Abbey Fleck was only eight years old when inspiration struck. She and her dad had just finished cooking bacon, only to discover that there weren’t any paper towels to soak up the fat. Much to Fleck’s mother’s dismay, the pair improvised and used the classified section of a newspaper instead. Suddenly, Fleck had an idea: “Why not hang the bacon up while it cooks?” Not only would this render paper towels unnecessary, but it would also make the bacon healthier. 11-year-old Richie Stachowski went on a trip to Hawaii with his family. “I was surfing with my dad. When we dove under, there were so many beautiful things to see. I wished we could talk underwater,” said Stachowski. After finding out that there were no inventions for this kind of sub-aquatic communication, Stachowski started researching underwater acoustics and trying out prototypes in the family pool and the public pool too, he got the pool management staff interested and they let him tinker away. Eventually, he came up with the Water Talkie – a conical device with a blow valve and plastic membrane that enables swimmers to talk with one another underwater from as far as 15 feet away. In 1930, at age 16, George Nissen came up with an idea that would revolutionize acrobatics: the trampoline. After seeing trapeze artists finish their routines by dropping into a safety net below, Nissen thought it would be even more exciting if they could somehow keep bouncing around – so he turned his parents’ garage into a workshop and got cracking. His invention consisted of a metal frame with canvas stretched over it, which he christened the “bouncing rig.” 10-year-old Massachusetts native Kathryn “KK” Gregory was playing in the snow when her wrists began to hurt from the cold. Determined to find a way to keep her hands and forearms warm and dry during the winter, she invented Wristies – fuzzy “sleeves” that can be worn beneath coats and mittens. After testing them out on her Girl Scout troop, Gregory and her mother worked hard to get the invention off the ground. Hart Main’s business started out with a joke. In 2010, the 13-year-old made fun of the girlie-scented candles his sister was selling at a school fundraiser and kidded that she ought to try more manly scents. However, his parents overheard him and encouraged Main to pursue the idea himself. So it was that Main used $100 he had earned from his newspaper route and gave it a go. He purchased scents and wax online and decided to make his ManCan candles in recycled soup cans, choosing aromas like Coffee, New Mitt, Bacon and Fresh Cut Grass. On a winter’s night in 1905, the temperature in San Francisco had fallen to a record low, by chance freezing a concoction that 11-year-old Frank Epperson had left out on the porch. As the story goes, Epperson mixed soda water powder and water in a glass and then left the stirring stick in the mixture. After a night out in the cold, the mixture had frozen solid – and the accidental inventor had created the world’s first Popsicle. In 2006, Sarah Buckel had just finished the eighth grade when she dreamed up the idea for magnetic locker wallpaper. Like her peers, Buckel loved to decorate her school locker – but dreaded scraping it clean at the end of the year. When her father became chief operating officer at MagnaCard, Buckel asked him to make magnetic wallpaper for her. He thought it was a great idea – and just what the company needed. “We were a neat little company with boring products,” he said. When he heard his daughter’s idea, he knew he’d struck gold. Buckel helped choose patterns and age-appropriate accessories that contributed to the product’s success. The magnetic locker decorations were sold at Target, Rite Aid and Staples, and within one year, Sarah Buckel’s invention had made $1 million in sales. While stuck indoors one rainy afternoon, six-year-old Kelly Reinhart’s parents challenged their daughter and her siblings to draw a picture of an invention. The prize for coming up with the best idea was getting a prototype made. Inspired by cowboy gun holsters, Reinhart drew a thigh pack that would allow kids to carry their video games around. Reinhart and her parents made improvements to the design and obtained a patent in 1998. They started out selling the packs at flea markets and trade shows, but interest grew, and pretty soon they had an investor for their company T-Pak International. Reinhart’s father even became his daughter’s full-time employee. While he was 15 years old, Chester Greenwood’s ears got painfully cold one day when he was ice skating in his hometown of Farmington, Maine. Although he tried wrapping a scarf around his head, it simply didn’t do the trick – so he set out to find a better solution to the problem. Greenwood made a wire frame and asked his grandmother to sew beaver skin pads to it, creating the world’s first earmuffs. AND FINALLY: At age 11, Cassidy Goldstein encountered a problem that has vexed creative kids for generations: her crayons were broken and the pieces were too small to hold onto. Still, undeterred, she searched through her arts and crafts supplies until she found a plastic tube designed to keep roses fresh during shipping. Goldstein inserted a crayon piece into the tube and unwittingly created her first prototype. Yes, you just read it. All kids. All millionaires. Because they saw a problem and wanted to figure out a way to fix it. The reason they are different than most of us? They really believed they could fix their problem and they did it. The information used for this blog came from this site: https://www.greatbusinessschools.org/10-great-inventions-dreamt-up-by-children/
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Mrs. TaylorI love science! Everything about the world is interesting and never boring. I love to study plants, animals, insects, and people. My favorite subjects are my students who are the most unique organisms on the planet! Categories |