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Found 35 Stories
Line drawing of inner workings of a lamp with a perpetual wick.
Blog

Ingenious Devices

Fountains, perpetual oil lamps, and other inventions from the Islamic “Golden Age”

Hyperboloid model made of cardboard, wood, thread, wire, and thread spools
Blog

From Innovators to Curators, Making Do is Nothing New

A teleworking curator looks at the ways in which those who created and used objects took advantage of what they found available.

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.

The cover of the book, with the title, “Does America Need More Innovators?” in white letters against a dark royal blue background. 3 rectangular “thought bubble” outlines in yellow (upper left), red (center), and white (lower right) overlap beneath the title, and 3 triangular arrows, like a fast forward button, are superimposed across the upper and middle bubbles. “Edited by” is within the yellow bubble and the editors’ names are within the red bubble.
Lemelson Center Books

Does America Need More Innovators?

From the Lemelson Center book series with MIT Press—a critical exploration of today's global imperative to innovate, by champions, critics, and reformers of innovation.

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 sign reads CD STEM Fair Teacher Seminar, Grab Bag Inventing, Session 1: 8:30am, Session 2: 10:00am. Black letters on white background.
Blog

Grab Bag Inventing at the DC STEM Fair

This workshop offered Washington, DC-area teachers the opportunity to learn how to adapt a simple, inventive, skill-building activity for their students.

A pink square on the left and a green square on the right with a black arrow connecting the boxes and pointing from left to right.
Blog

Then and Now

An outwardly seamless shift in Spark!Lab from one set of activities to another.

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.

The author has set out the tools and instructions needed to repair his son’s bike on the garage floor in front of the bike
Blog

Maintain It

Things break. That’s why maintenance should go hand in hand with innovation.

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.

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.

Fish toys invented by Jerome Lemelson
Invention Stories

Jerome Lemelson: Toying with Invention

One of the most interesting things about Jerome Lemelson’s toy patents is the way in which they parallel interests that he was pursuing in other fields.

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