Inventive Minds: Everyone Is Inventive

About Inventive Minds

Inventive Minds is a changing exhibition gallery that introduces Museum visitors to the Lemelson Center’s mission to foster an appreciation for the central role of invention and innovation in the history of the United States. In our ongoing work to document American inventors and increase our understanding of the inventive process, the Lemelson Center works with the Museum's archivists and curators to collect, preserve, and share the historical records of inventors and innovators from all segments of American society. 

Through first-person videos, artifacts, and archival materials, visitors to Inventive Minds learn about the traits that successful inventors share—insatiable curiosity, keen problem-solving skills, tenacity, and flexibility in the face of failure—and explore the creative spirit of American invention.

From July 2015 through August 2016, the gallery featured the stories of diverse historic and contemporary inventors. Click on the links to the right to learn more about Inventive Minds: Everyone Is Inventive.

• Ralph Baer: home video games
• Patricia Bath: laser eye surgery
• Andy Butler: electronic carpenter's level
• Matt Capozzi and Nathan Connolly: accessible snowboard
• Marion O'Brien Donovan: reusable, waterproof diaper cover
• Ashok Gadgil: water purification
• Jerome Lemelson: inventions ranging from medical and industrial technologies to toys
• Van Phillips: prostheses

Ralph Baer

Ralph Baer emigrated from Nazi Germany in 1938 and earned a B.S. in television engineering after World War II. He thought that TV owners should be able to do more than change channels and turn the set on or off—he wanted people to interact with their sets, playing games like ping pong, tennis, and checkers. In 1966 he began experimenting with ways to realize his vision. The video game industry for the home market launched in 1972 when Magnavox debuted the Odyssey game console, based on Baer’s inventions.

Patricia Bath

Enabling the blind to see is the greatest joy of Dr. Patricia Bath, eye surgeon, professor of ophthalmology, inventor of the Laserphaco Probe for the treatment of cataracts, and founder of the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness. An independent thinker, she has been a trailblazer for women and African Americans in the medical profession, being the first to attain many of the highest academic honors and appointments in her field.

It was in 1981 that she first conceived of an invention that would use a laser to remove cataracts, a cloudiness that forms in the lens of an eye, causing blurry or distorted vision, or even blindness. Doctors have treated cataracts with traditional surgery or, more recently, ultrasound, to remove the clouded lens. An artificial lens can then be inserted. But Bath envisioned a way to make the surgery faster, easier, more accurate, and less invasive (with a much smaller incision) by using lasers.

Andy Butler

The “SmartLevel” was the creation of California carpenter and engineer Andy Butler and some Silicon Valley engineers in 1990. An alternative to the familiar bubble-type hand level, the new tool depended on high-tech electronics to digitally display precise angles. SmartLevels found a market among users of who needed exact degree measurements, but Butler and his colleagues were more interested in developing a new idea than amassing a fortune. They sold the SmartLevel line and moved onto new projects. 

Matt Capozzi and Nate Connolly

Matt Capozzi and Nate Connolly were Hampshire College students in 1996. They were also avid snowboarders who were eager to increase access to the sport they loved. They designed a snowboard for people with disabilities from PVC pipe, a camp chair, and glue (see the photo in their invention notebook), but the snowboard and its rider tended to tip over. To increase stability and maneuverability, they added a back bar and a pole. They also made their next prototype stronger and lighter by constructing it from molded carbon fiber.

Marion O'Brien Donovan

Changing her baby’s soaked cloth diaper, clothing, and bed sheets late at night in 1946, Marion O’Brien Donovan knew there had to be a better way to keep infants dry. Soon after, she tore down the bathroom shower curtain, cut out a section, and sat down at her sewing machine, determined to create a diaper cover that would prevent leaks. That first shower-curtain experiment  led to the creation of a reusable diaper cover made from nylon parachute cloth.

Ashok Gadgil

Growing up in Mumbai, India, Ashok Gadgil witnessed firsthand the disease and death caused by contaminated water. As an adult, he put his training as a scientist to work on a solution to this widespread problem. His invention—the UV Waterworks—is a low-cost water purifier that uses ultraviolet light to kill pathogens in the water.

The UV Waterworks produces safe drinking water for about five cents for every 1,000 gallons, requires very little maintenance, and can be powered by a car battery, bicycle generator, wind, or even solar cells.

Jerome Lemelson

Jerome Lemelson shared many traits with other successful American inventors—insatiable curiosity, keen problem-solving skills, tenacity, and flexibility in the face of failure. With more than 600 patents to his name for inventions ranging from medical and industrial technologies to toys, he was one of America’s most prolific and versatile inventors. He and his wife Dorothy were inspired by the power of invention to change the world and established the Lemelson Foundation to promote invention and entrepreneurship and to support the work of the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center.

Many inventors use similar techniques to create something new. Sketching captures raw ideas. Prototypes or models demonstrate and test how the idea works. Patents describe inventions in words and drawings and give inventors exclusive legal rights to make and sell their work for several years. Lemelson used these same techniques to invent new playthings. About 70 of Lemelson’s patents describe toys, including his first patent, issued in 1953, for a new kind of propeller beanie.

Van Phillips

At the age of 21, Van Phillips lost a foot during a waterskiing accident. Impatient with the weight and clumsiness of existing prosthetics, Phillips researched materials, discussed ideas with colleagues, designed a foot to suit his needs, and then started Flex-Foot, Inc. to manufacture the new device. Phillips’ Flex-Foot uses flexible, strong, and lightweight carbon fiber that stores and releases energy each time the wearer shifts weight from foot to foot, propelling him or her forward with less effort.