Kids of Invention
Three young inventors whose ideas won them praise and honor in Orange County are going Hollywood.
About 9 a.m. today, Jay Leno’s limousine is expected to arrive at the homes of fifth-graders Alan Foreman and Keerthi Prabhala and fourth-grader Lindee Fruh to carry them to NBC’s Burbank studios.
The three Irvine residents have been invited to appear as guests on “The Tonight Show” to demonstrate their wacky but creative inventions: a Popcorn Problem Preventer, a Bright Night Light Lure and EZ Park, a must-have for Southern California motorists who get stressed out looking for spaces in parking lots.
The show airs at 11:30 tonight.
“The limo ride is going to be the most fun,” said Alan, 10, who made the light-up lure for night fishing out of a Tic Tac box and a disposable flashlight. “I want to watch TV, talk on the phone [in the limo].”
The parents of the three inventors will accompany them on the ride to the studio. Their brothers and sisters will go after school to watch the 5 p.m. taping. And aunts, uncles, grandparents and great-grandparents, who live in Texas, Alabama, Minnesota and Oregon, will be sure to watch.
“The Tonight Show” doesn’t air in India, but Keerthi’s father, Venkata Prabhala, has been sending e-mail to relatives there since he learned Thursday that his son would be on television with Leno.
All three kids’ whatchamacallits were top winners at Astounding Inventions, a show-off-your-coolest-creation fair held in January at Irvine Valley College.
About 275 elementary and junior high students in Orange County competed. Alan and Lindee each won $100 savings bonds. Keerthi, the grand prize winner, won a $200 savings bond.
Keerthi, 11, said his parents allowed him stay up late Friday to watch “The Tonight Show” for the first time.
Leno “really jokes and makes you laugh a lot,” he said.
Lindee’s parents recorded the program for her to see, but at 9 years of age, she said it wasn’t her kind of show.
Alan said he has never watched Leno.
Although all three inventors say the thought of speaking before an audience makes them a little nervous, their parents are confident they’ll do just fine.
Keerthi’s EZ Park concept would allow motorists entering a parking lot to tell which parking stalls are open by looking on a grid. In a model of his invention, he used a plastic money tray from a Monopoly game for the parking stalls, which are occupied by Hot Wheels.
“It would sure save time,” Keerthi said. “The light sensors tell you right away which spaces to go to in a busy parking structure or parking lot.
“For me, if I’m going to Toys R Us, I can get in there quick and have more time to shop,” he said.
Lindee’s invention gives moviegoers a place to put their popcorn. She cut a hole in a popcorn tub and attached a drinking cup to its bottom, which fits into the built-in drink holders in theater seats. She also built a filter in the cup that separates unpopped kernels from the popped corn.
“I was at the movies, [and] my Daddy said, ‘I wish you could invent something to hold popcorn,’ ” she said. “So I did.”
