Drawing on the Bright Side of the Brain : ‘Inventions of the Future’ Fair Lets Area Students Show Their Stuff

In the future, people’s feet will no longer smell.

At least, that was the fervent hope of Debbie Thompson, who wondered aloud about the feasibility of a mechanical foot deodorizer.

“Excuuuuuuse me!” said Thompson’s husband, David, who understood that his wife was thinking of none other than him.

All of this had nothing to do with “Astounding Inventions of the Future,” the gala invention fair held Saturday afternoon at Irvine Valley College.

But one important lesson learned by the 1,500 science buffs on hand was that linear thinking and sound logic often lead to random flashes of inspired--if irrelevant--ideas.

The fair, sponsored in part by the Irvine Valley College Foundation, brought together the brainiest elementary school students from three districts--Irvine Unified, Laguna Beach Unified and Tustin Unified.

Contestants--ranging from kindergartners to seventh-graders--were asked to build something original and practical, and $5,000 in savings bonds were distributed among the winners.

Eight-year-old Danny Kasalek was less interested in snaring that prize money than he was in ridding his home of rotten odors. Kasalek’s unique invention was a “hockey glove deodorizer,” an ingenious device for aerating those dank, sour-smelling mitts he often brings home from hockey practice.

(The Kasalek discovery, of course, was the inspiration for Thompson to think of other pungent extremities that could do with a bit of freshening.)

In several classrooms and labs throughout the college, the full flower of young imaginations was on display, and each budding Edison stood beside his or her creation, blossoming with pride.

Only here could you see the amazing Voice-Activated Dog Door and the revolutionary Guinea Pig Rocker (pig not included).

Only here could you see the Combination Pencil-Screwdriver, the Bunk Bed Crib, the Velcro Necktie or the Braille Bucks (the currency for blind people invented by Alex Knox, a sixth-grader at Eastshore School in Irvine, which won the grand prize).

Also, only here could you see an Albert Einstein imitator who looked and sounded more like an Arte Johnson imitator. Still, the kids thought he was veddy interesting.

To the delight of parents and teachers, many inventions were as lovingly presented as they were prepared, with accompanying pictures and text describing the moment of eureka.

Such was the case with 11-year-old Diana La Riva’s Peanut Butter Squeeze Tube, which featured a full narrative about the young inventor’s thought process--a narrative as charming as anything in the notebooks of Newton or Pasteur.

“Today I went to Vons,” she wrote, “and looked on Aisle 1 with the peanut butter. All I saw was peanut butter in jars. I also saw peanut butter mixed with jelly, but I didn’t see any peanut butter squeeze bottles. I asked a clerk named Rob if he had ever seen peanut butter in a squeeze bottle. He said, ‘Not that I have ever seen.’ Then I went back to Aisle 1, just to make sure I didn’t miss it if it was there.”

Many of the students were timid about their inventions, reluctant to brag. But not 9-year-old Johnny Bodylski, who confessed to being overwhelmingly proud of his electronic earthquake sensor, which sets off lights and a buzzer when jostled.

Johnny said the soil of his mind was fertile because his father often teaches him things at night, when he comes home from work, and his mother likes to help him brainstorm.

As a crowd gathered around the prototype Bodylski Earthquake Sensor, the young man was asked if he’s working on anything that might actually prevent earthquakes.

“No,” he said, stroking his chin thoughtfully, “but I do have some ideas for stopping asteroids.”