"Imagine living in 1900. You would know about the lightbulb and the steamship. You could see fireworks shows and ride in a train. You could use a safety pin, invented in 1849, a cash register, invented in 1883, and a zipper, invented in 1893. But you would have to wait three years to see the Wright Brothers fly their airplane, ten years to listen to a radio broadcast, fifty-one years before you and your family
could watch a black-and-white television, seventy-seven years to use a personal computer, and eighty-nine years to play a video game. Boy, things have changed— thanks to inventions."
Some of the inventors featured in Kids Inventing!
At age 9, Chris Haas put handprints on a basketball so that other kids would know where to put their hands in order to shoot a basket. He and his dad, Michael, a coach, sold the idea of Hands-On Basketball to Sportime, a company that has been selling the colorful basketball for over 10 years. The profits have paid for college for Chris and his brother and sister and allowed Chris and his family to contribute to many charities.
Four Southern California kids formed a team called the Wave Riders when they created Boogie-2-Boogie, a wave-riding board for two. It’s fun but also safe for kids. Attached to the nose is a light that’s controlled by a transmitter held by a parent on shore. If it’s time for the kids to come out of the water, the parent keys the transmitter, which triggers a flashing red light. That alerts the wave-riding duo. The team included (l to r) Kaycee, 10, sisters Amy, 13, and Alyssa Hansen, 10, and Kaycee’s brother Nicholas Johnsen, 12. They were the TOYchallenge 2004 winners. Hasbro, one of the sponsors, made action figures of the team members as prizes.
When Ryan Patterson noticed some hard of hearing kids asking a hearing friend to order a burger for them at a fast food restaurant, he got the idea for The Sign Translator. It's a device that translates American Sign Language into letters. He made it using a golf glove by wiring the glove with sensors and attaching a computer and a wireless relay device to it. When Ryan does sign language, the glove translates his signs into regular letters that appear on a small handheld screen. His invention was featured by TIME magazine as one of the 2002 Best Inventions.
Ariel Krasik-Geiger invented the Calibrated Angle and Depth Scissors. With them it's easy to cut into a piece of paper at a certain depth (one, two, three inches) at a certain angle. He gained Patent No. 6,513,247 for it. Why not check out his patent? (Go to Google, type Google Patents in the search box. In the Google Patents search box, type in the number of his patent: Patent No. 6,513,247.)
