The Youngsters of Invention : What New With Kids Today? Good, Old-Fashioned Ingenuity
A skateboard with a wallet underneath for kids without pockets and a warning device that prevents cars from starting if seat belts haven’t been fastened exemplified the ingenuity of county students who turned out Saturday to match their inventiveness against one another.
About 500 Irvine, Laguna Beach and Tustin elementary and middle school students and their parents converged on Irvine Valley College to inspect one another’s creations during the eighth annual Astounding Inventions of the Future competition.
Fifth-grader Stephanie Smith won the top prize for her “blinky belt,” which gives a flashing warning and prevents a car from starting unless seat belts are engaged. Smith won a $200 savings bond from the contest’s sponsors, Rockwell International and Motorola Corp. A total of $4,700 in savings bonds were awarded to 18 winners in five different divisions.
“We awarded it the grand prize because of its ingenuity and the uniqueness of it,” said Barry Brummett, one of the judges. “It’s a big safety piece.”
Brummett was also impressed by third-grader Jeremy Gilbertson’s “walletboard,” which won top prize in his division. The wallet, attached to the underside of a skateboard, was designed for children without pockets in their clothing.
“I’d like to see the people we hire have these same creative juices,” said Brummett, owner and founder of Restaurants of the Future, which creates designs and products for restaurants.
Third-grader Brittany Rolfe drew attention and an honorable mention for her “frog catcher,” a device that uses a fly as bait and a trigger for a green net that entraps the frog. “I really like frogs, and I don’t like catching them because they’re so hard to catch,” she said.
Brittany said her favorite entry was a dog-washer. The invention consisted of a bottle of soap and brush attached to a hose.
Margaret Chang, a sixth-grader, found the inspiration for her division-winning adjustable ladder when she fell off a ladder at home while trying to pluck a peach from a tree. “If there is a hole or a bump in the ground, the legs can adjust,” she said.
Throughout the day, children squirmed through a crowd of spellbound onlookers while others clambered atop adults’ shoulders to watch the “mad chemists,” an Irvine Valley College professor and technician who boiled green liquids, made rainbows from dry ice and froze flowers.
‘I liked the mad chemists. They heated up the cans and put them in ice water and pow! the cans shrunk,” said Thomas Michon, a second-grader, as he played with a blue glob of “slime” he picked up at the demonstration. Michon was a division winner for an alarm that beeps to alert parents that they have forgotten to attach belts on infant car seats.
“I got the idea when my brother told my mom she had forgotten to put his seat belt on,” he said.
Other inventions included a perforated soda can ring that tears apart easily and won’t harm wildlife, as animals can be strangled by sturdy plastic soda carriers. Its inventor boasted in an accompanying report that his invention is “fast, it’s easy and vital to the preservation of the environment. In this day and age, the environment is pretty much in our hands, and I hope my invention will encourage most people to make a difference.”
The inspiration for sixth-grader Yukiko Nagayama’s see-through, rotating refrigerator came when she “got yelled at to stop holding open the door and looking in the refrigerator,” she said. “It saves energy, and you don’t have to open the door to see in.”
Other inventions included a rain watchdog, which automatically turns off sprinklers when it begins to rain, a pair of glow-in-the-dark glasses for people who misplace their spectacles and a self-cleaning carpet for allergy sufferers that filters away dust.
