Pupils’ Inventions Show Patent Ingenuity
Sometimes peanut butter is the mother of invention.
It was peanut butter--and a fertile imagination--that gave rise to the Knifty Knife. A small, wooden utensil, the Knifty Knife is shaped something like a hacksaw, something like a finger stuck surreptitiously into a peanut-butter jar. A little paddle fits snugly against the inside of the jar and allows a determined scraper to extract the last morsel of the contents.
The Knifty Knife, equally effective with smooth or crunchy, was invented by Jared Nishikawa, a sixth-grader at Westwood Elementary School. Jared looked at a spoon, looked at a knife, looked at a jar of peanut butter and said, “Nah.” He knew there had to be a better way.
Jared’s was one of dozens of ingenious devices invented by local elementary-school children, including sixth-grader Michael Gareth Smith of Sepulveda. Their ideas were on display at the Los Angeles Unified School District’s annual Science Fair, held last weekend in downtown Los Angeles.
Like many others at the fair, Jared’s invention will be entered by his school in the national Invent America competition, sponsored by the U.S. Patent Model Foundation.
This year, 40,000 schools nationwide are taking part in Invent America, said Margaret Shepard, a spokeswoman for the private, nonprofit foundation. The program is designed to teach youngsters innovative thinking skills and includes a competition to find the best invention at each grade level.
Battery Paint Roller
Innovative thinking was abundantly evident at the science fair. Inventions ranged from a battery-operated paint roller to several clever but impractical improvisations on the notion of Pampers for pets.
Smith, of Gledhill Elementary School in Sepulveda, displayed his solution to the universal problem of schoolchildren who lean back in their chairs, teetering on two legs on the brink of orthopedic disaster.
So Smith came up with the five-on-the-floor chair. With the help of his father, who is also an inventor, Smith affixed a fifth leg to the back of a standard-issue school chair. The fifth leg keeps the other four on the ground no matter how hard the student attempts to drive the teacher nuts.
“I’m going to try to get it patented,” Smith said.
Smith’s five-legged chair inspired Gledhill schoolmate Tony Escobedo.
Escobedo was trying to design a classroom chair that could be tipped back but would not tip all the way over. He asked Smith if he could adapt Smith’s fifth-leg concept. Smith agreed, with the understanding that Escobedo would owe him “a future monetary consideration” if their prototypes are ever developed commercially.
Fear and loathing of chores was an unfailing source of inspiration for the youngsters. Brandon K. Okita, a first-grader at the Brentwood Magnet Science School, submitted his Easy Catch, a magnetized implement that looks like a sponge mop.
Easy Catch is to cleaning a child’s room what the long hoe is to field work. By attaching magnets to a board where the sponge should be, Okita made an excellent tool for removing Matchbox cars and other metal toys from the floor of his room without bending over or kneeling.
Okita’s older sister, Kristin, also invented a device to save child labor. Her entry was the Tree Net, a mesh device that hangs in a tree and catches leaves before they fall to the ground, simplifying lawn cleanup. Kristin Okita is a fourth-grader at Brentwood Magnet.
The teachers who supervised the young inventors said such projects are opportunities for more than creative expression.
Phyllis Smolen, science teacher at Brentwood Magnet, said inventing is a good way for youngsters to learn the scientific method: They must come up with a hypothesis for solving a particular problem, test it and modify it if it does not work.
Smolen gave extra credit to students who invented toys for the animals she keeps in her classroom, which resulted in a swing for the lizard and a Ferris wheel for the mouse.
Sharon Rubin, who teaches gifted fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders at Westwood Elementary School, said the experience was demanding but rewarding for her students.
“They struggled in the process,” she said. “There was a lot of complaining, but they loved it in the end.”
Cat Scratcher
One of Rubin’s sixth-graders, Taylor Hines, invented a cat scratcher--a cardboard box with two whisk brooms set into the top at cat-back height. Laurel House, a fifth-grader, devised a vest to be worn in an earthquake, equipped with such emergency supplies as water and a battery-operated radio. The vest comes with extra batteries.
Esther Zack, who teaches fourth grade at Paseo del Rey Fundamental Magnet School in Playa del Rey, said inventing teaches students that there is more than one solution to a problem.
It also teaches them how to deal with failure. “They had to see that failure was just part of the process and not to give up,” she said. “They had to go on from there.”
Inventions by Zack’s students included a board game for blind players by Ryan Warner and a vitamin-spiked gum by Brian Wanke.
