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Found 20 Stories
Now What? game graphic
DO Try This at Home!

Spark!Lab's Now What? Invention Game

Unexpected problems often call for inventive solutions.

Montage of book covers published in the Lemelson Center Studies series
Lemelson Center Books

Lemelson Center Studies in Invention and Innovation

Books in the interdisciplinary Lemelson Center Studies in Invention and Innovation series explore the history of invention and innovation and the work of inventors and the technologies they create.

Detail of Handprints on Hubble book cover, showing astronaut Kathy Sullivan looking out the window of the space shuttle.
Lemelson Center Books

Handprints on Hubble: An Astronaut's Story of Invention

In the newest book in the Lemelson Center series with MIT Press, the first American woman to walk in space recounts her experiences as part of the team that launched, rescued, repaired, and maintained the Hubble Space Telescope.

An older woman and a very young boy work together on a hands-on activity
Blog

What Does It Take to Make a Spark!Lab?

Looking at your world through the lens of invention.

A grouping of different colored #D-printed plastic pieces that form a prosthetic hand with 2 articulated fingers. The fingers are green plastic with orange wishbone-shaped pieces connecting the joints. The hand is connected to an electronic control box.
Blog

Reinventing the Prosthetic Hand Activity

Using lessons learned to make pivotal tweaks.

Color cover of Popular Neckanics Gagazine, Christmas 1947, with the tagline, “Written so you can’t understand it.” Shows 3 oval-shaped “electronic robot-steered cars,” each with a couple kissing (“necking”) in the passenger seats, traveling down a road.
Blog

Hugo Gernsback's Unconventional Inventions

Hugo Gernsback, the “Father of Science Fiction” was an editor, publisher, author, scientist—and inventor of fantastical necessities.

A boy about 11 years old manipulates a robotic hand that he built in SparkLab. He is grasping a bottle with the oversized hand.
Blog

What Does Success Look Like in Spark!Lab?

People do such impressive things in our exhibition every day—here are some anecdotes and impressions from a Facilitator.

4 detailed ink drawings on facing pages of a gridded notebook. Left: 3 drawings are labeled Old Style Intermittent Kiln, Fort Warren Mortar Mill, and Steam Mortar Mill Used at Fort Taylor by Brevet-major J. Sanders. Right: Hoffmans Annular Kiln.
Blog

Communicating with Sketches

Sketching is an essential part of the invention process.

Blog

When Things Go Wrong

Resilience, resilience, resilience

A TechShop staff member demonstrates a new tool.
Spark!Lab

A Spark!Lab for Grownups

Recently, I got to visit TechShop in nearby Arlington, VA. What I realized following our visit is that TechShop is basically the grownup version of Spark!Lab.

Sketch of regulator for jacket driving pump by William A. Bicknell, October 24, 1894. Worthington Pump and Machinery Corporation Records (AC0916-0000003)
Invention Stories

Pumped Up

A collection survey led me to the discovery of previously unknown drafting notebooks (1892-1898). Learn more about these notebooks, what they contain, and their owner.

Spark!Lab

Inventing to Fuel the Inventive Thinking of Spark!Lab Visitors

Follow along as our new Interpretive Exhibit Coordinator goes through the invention process to solve a problem in Spark!Lab.

Invention Stories

Traveling in Time with James Smithson

If James Smithson could have traveled in time to our day, what would he make of the Institution?

Fresh Paper inventor Kavita Shukla
Invention Stories

Try It: Fresh Paper

A young woman's concern for food waste lead to a remarkable invention.

A stylized drawing of a compact fluorescent light bulb surrounded by a solid orange circle with a green border
Invention Stories

Going Solo: Reconsidering the Role of the Lone Inventor

Everyone knows the legend of the Silicon Valley inventor, creating amazing things while tinkering in the garage. But not everyone is a believer.

Lemelson Center Books

The Spirit of Invention

The Spirit of Invention: The Story of the Thinkers, Creators, and Dreamers Who Formed Our Nation (2009) by Julie M. Fenster tells the stories of both heralded and unknown inventors from all eras and walks of life.

Lemelson Center Research

Documenting Invention: Interviewing Inventors

An exploration of best practices for oral and video history

MIND database logo for non-Smithsonian archival materials
Archives

Franklin Institute Committee on Science and Arts Records, 1824-1900

Inventor Name Franklin Institute Committee on Science and Arts

The three Smithsonian staffers who creatively rescued a lost cell phone.
Blog

Creative Problem Solving at Work

A visitor's "lost" cell phone leads to inventive problem solving at the Lemelson Center.

Spark!Lab

Roll Out the Old . . . Bring in the Sound!

As we ready Spark!Lab for its next theme, Things that Make Sound, I interviewed Interpretive Exhibits Coordinator Tim Pula about the process of developing new activities.

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