Welcome to Invention Tips

Becky Schroeder

When kid inventor Becky Schroeder was ten years old, she was doing her homework in the car, waiting for her mom. As it grew darker she wished that there was a way for her paper to light up so that she could see what she was doing more easily. That's when she got her idea for the Glo-sheet.

The next day she began experimenting with paper and phosphorescent paint until she had invented a type of paper that can glow in the dark. In 1974, at the age of 12, Becky Schroeder became the youngest of all famous women inventors to receive a U.S. patent.

The 10 Most Famous Inventions

The Light Bulb
Although we think of Thomas Edison as the inventor of the light bulb, the light bulb didn't begin or end with his contribution. The first patent for a light bulb was obtained by Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans. In 1879, Thomas Edison purchased the patent and improved on the light bulb with his invention of a carbon filament. That filament lasted for 40 hours, but by the time Edison was done he had a filament that could last for 1200 hours. Later improvements in the light bulb gave us bulbs that don't go black and the tungsten filament.

The Printing Press
The printing press is credited with changing all of Western civilization after being invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th Century. By making the Bible more widely available, this invention weakened the central authority of the state sponsored churches and led to the Reformation. Not many people realize that this famous invention was most likely invented several centuries earlier in China. Probably because Eastern languages contain significantly more characters than Western languages, the impact of movable type was not as great in China.

The Computer
Many invention ideas have contributed to the modern computer. As early as the 17th Century, scientists were building machines that could do basic mathematical equations. Today's computers can do everything from sending us to the moon to beating us at chess. Computers and computerized appliances have moved from being science fiction to being a necessity of modern life. They continue to be improved on and made more useful.

The Bicycle
Bicycles remain the most energy efficient mode of transportation available. There are currently over a billion bicycles at use in the world as children's toys, exercise equipment and means of travel. The technology that went into early bicycles was used as the basis for later innovations in the automobile and the airplane. Women's use of the bicycle in the late 19th Century led to the popularity of bloomers, the overall greater mobility of women and the women's movement.

The Airplane
In the 19th Century, most people would have considered it impossible that something heavier than air could fly. Yet every day, large groups of people fly in heavy airplanes for lengths of time up to fifteen hours. Like most new inventions, the airplane is the culmination of the work of many different inventors and inventions. Sir George Cayley between 1799 and 1809 is credited with being the first to have the idea to hold the wings still and to use propellers for thrusters. The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, were the first inventors to build a working airplane in 1903.


The Telephone
It still isn't completely clear whether Elisha Gray or Alexander Graham Bell invented the first telephone. The two inventors applied for patents on the same day. They fought legally over the patent, but Bell ultimately won out. His invention was inspired by his love of music and financed by his father-in-law who was interested in breaking the monopoly held by the telegraph company. Bell's famous first words over his first successful telephone were to his assistant. He said, "Watson...come here...I want to see you."


The Automobile
The automobile is a culmination of thousands of ideas and patents beginning with rudimentary plans by Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton. Before the modern gasoline engine was made common, steam engines and electric engines were experimented with. It wasn't until 1885 that the first practical automobile was invented by Karl Benz. The French were the first to manufacture a complete motor vehicle with engine and chassis, but it wasn't until Henry Ford streamlined the car manufacturing process in 1913 that car ownership became affordable for many people.

The Steam Engine
The steam engine was the most important invention idea of the industrial revolution. By mechanically producing energy out of steam, it effectively replaced traditional water and muscle power.

Ruth Wakefield

After Ruth Wakefield graduated from a Household Arts school in 1924, she and her husband bought a tourist lodge named the Toll House Inn, where Ruth cooked meals for the guests.

In 1930, Ruth was mixing a batch of cookies when she discovered that she was out of baker's chocolate. She substituted broken pieces of Nestle's semi-sweet chocolate, expecting it to melt and absorb into the dough to create chocolate cookies. When she removed the pan from the oven, Ruth realized that she had accidentally invented “chocolate chip cookies.”

The treat became extremely popular locally and gained national renown after the recipe was published in a Boston newspaper. Ruth Wakefield's invention soon became the most popular variety of cookie in America, a distinction it still holds today.

Rachel Zimmerman

In the mid-1980s a twelve-year old Canadian female inventor developed an invention that greatly helped people who have difficulties communicating.

For a school science fair project, Rachel Zimmerman created a software program called Blissymbols that allows those with severe physical disabilities, like cerebral palsy, to communicate. Her invention gained worldwide exposure and won several prestigious awards, including the silver medal at the World Exhibition of Achievement of Young Inventors.

Zimmerman went on to study physics in college and now works on tailoring NASA innovations to fit the needs of people with disabilities.

Young women inventors like Zimmerman prove that age is not a prerequisite for innovation.

Dr. Patricia Bath

A noted opthamologist and famous African American inventor, Dr. Patricia Bath pioneered the 1985 development of a specialized tool and procedure for the removal of cataracts. Her Laserphaco Probe and procedure improved cataract surgery by using lasers to vaporize cateracts painlessly. Previously, cataract surgery had been a difficult manual process involving a mechanical grinder.

Dr. Bath's lifelong dedication to the treatment and prevention of visual impairments has made it possible to restore the sight of many people suffering from cataracts. Because of her unwavering "Fight for the Right to Sight", Dr. Bath remains one of the most important and most famous African American inventors.

Bette Nesmith Graham

Bette Nesmith Graham, mother of Monkees star Michael Nesmith, is the woman inventor credited with discovering one of the most widely used office products of the 20th and 21st centuries.

In the early 1950s, Graham and her fellow secretaries at the Texas Bank and Trust were having difficulty correcting mistakes on the new IBM typewriters. They often had to retype entire pages because of one small error. When Graham observed holiday window painters simply brushing over their mistakes with a fresh coat of paint, she mimicked their technique by using a white, water-based tempera paint to cover her typing errors.

“Liquid Paper” was an instant success. By 1967 its sales exceeded one million units per year, making Graham one of the most financially successful female inventors in history.

Inventing a Way to Keep Food Cold and Safe

The number of patents in existence when Charles Kettering invented his refrigerating apparatus was well over one million. In 1932, he received a patent that would forever change how we live. Of course, the idea of protecting food by keeping it cold longer had been around a while. Even ancient cultures devised ways to do it and, on the farm, spring houses were common--separate structures with cold water running through the floor that kept milk and other items from perishing. Ice boxes were also used in England prior to Kettering's patent. And, gas-compressing refrigerators were on the US market in the 1920s. So why is Kettering, a man from Dayton, Ohio, credited with his 'apparatus?'

For one thing, toxic gases were leaking from US products and were even proving fatal in some cases. Kettering was an employee working for Frigidaire Corporation charged with finding a way to make refrigerators safer. His patent actually covers a way to make a commercially successful way to use a new gas called Freon. It quickly became a new standard and--even though it's since been proven to cause damage to the ozone layer--is still widely used today. Kettering is now a famous name in itself and is recognized as an inventor extrordinaire. It turns out Charles was a man with many ideas and is credited with various other new inventions in a variety of fields of study. The famous Sloan-Kettering cancer center is named for Charles Kettering of Dayton, Ohio.

Lonnie Johnson

African American inventor Lonnie Johnson has worked extensively with the U.S. Air Force and NASA on such impressive projects as the Galileo Jupiter probe and the Mars Observer. This famous black inventor has received a nomination for astronaut training and holds more than 40 U.S. patents.

However, Johnson's most well known invention is pure child's play. In 1982, a home experiment involving a heat pump that used water instead of freon led Johnson to invent the Power Drencher, the precursor to the infamous Super Soaker® squirt gun. The powerful squirt gun made Johnson one of the 20th-century's most financially successful black inventors.

Inventor of the Lightbulb

If you can read this, thank Thomas Edison and his patent number 223,898. However, it's true that this famous Thomas Edison invention wasn't totally his own creation. It's actually registered as an improvement to the electric lamp as well as a manufacturing method of the same. Patents can be filed not just for new ideas but for significant improvement to old ones. A British man, Joseph Swan was the original demonstrator of the world's first electric light bulb, and a few men before him patented a light bulb but didn't have the capital to commercialize their ideas. So, Edison purchased the rights to their product. He then work fast and diligently to find ways to make the light burn longer and brighter so it's likelihood of commercial success would be greater. Eventually, in 1880, he perfected a 16-watt incandescent bulb that burned up to 1,500 hours.

By September 4th, the first commercial power station was providing light to a square-mile area of lower Manhattan. It's hard to tell if Edison would be happy today to find out that his patent for improvements to the electric lamp has been improved on again and again. These days, with so much interest in protecting the environment, incandescent bulbs are considered less efficient than recently invented improvements such as fluorescent lights and light emitting diodes (LEDs).

Edison's story of patent number 223,898 offers lessons to today's inventors: your idea doesn't have to be completely new to be worth of a patent but you better be able to back it up with investment capital or it might stay stuck in your garage.

George Washington Carver

Perhaps the most famous of all African American inventors, George Washington Carver was born in Diamond Grove, Missouri, where he was rescued from Confederate kidnappers as an infant.

The young Carver devoted himself completely to his studies, eventually earning a B.S. and M.S. from Iowa Agricultural College (now Iowa State University).

Carver is famous for inventing a method of crop rotation that would transform Southern agricultural practices. The famous African American inventor advised farmers to alternate soil-depleting crops like cotton with soil-enriching varieties such as peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes. Carver's suggestions were instrumental in restoring the greatly depleted Southern soil and helping to revitalize the economy in those regions.

Additionally, Carver developed more than 325 different uses for peanuts – from printer's ink to cooking oil – placing him among the very greatest black inventors in history.

Dr. Mark Dean

By the time he graduated high school, computer whiz and African American inventor Mark Dean had already built his own computer, radio and amplifier. He then studied electrical engineering in college and eventually went on to obtain a Ph.D.

In 1980, Dean began working at IBM, where he was instrumental in the development of the “Personal Computer” (PC), thereby solidifying his place among the most accomplished black inventors. He currently holds three of IBM's original nine PC patents and more than 20 patents overall.

One of his most recent achievements has been leading the team that helped produce the 1-Gigahertz chip, which contains one million transistors.

Valerie Thomas

From 1964 to 1995, African American inventor and scientist Valerie Thomas worked in a variety of capacities for NASA, where she developed real-time computer data systems, conducted large-scale experiments and managed numerous operations, projects and facilities.

While overseeing a project for NASA's image processing systems, Thomas' team spearheaded the development of “Landsat,” the first satellite to send images from space. Later, in 1980, she received a patent for an illusion transmitter, which uses concave mirrors on both ends of the transmission to create the optical illusion of a 3-dimensional image on the receiving end. NASA continues to use this technology and is exploring new applications for it.

Hedy Lammar

Although better known as an actress, Austrian Hedy Lammar (born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler) was also an influential female inventor.

Hoping to help combat the Nazis in World War II, Lamar and co-inventor George Anthiel developed a “Secret Communications System” that manipulated radio frequencies at irregular intervals between transmission and reception. The resulting unbreakable code prevented classified messages from being intercepted. The “spread spectrum” technology that Lammar helped to invent influenced the digital communications boom, forming the technical backbone that makes possible cellular phones, fax machines and other wireless operations.

Despite receiving very little recognition at the time, Lammar recently has been showered with such prestigious accolades as the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Award and the BULBIE™ Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award, making her one of the most decorated women inventors of the past century.

James Edward West

Ninety percent of microphones used today are based on the ingenuity of African American inventor James Edward West.

West and a colleague, Gerhard Sessler, developed the mic (officially known as the Electroacoustic Transducer Electret Microphone) while working for Bell Laboratories. They received a patent for the mic in 1962.

Throughout his 40-year career with Bell Labs, West obtained 47 U.S. patents and more than 200 foreign patents, making him one of the most prolific black inventors in history.