Inventors Science

Did you know anyone can become an inventor? Being an inventor is all about solving problems in your everyday life. Inventing means you come up with lots of ideas using your creativity. Follow along in this activity to learn the steps to solve a problem and to improve the world around you!

Have you ever heard of a bed that dumps you out if you try to hit snooze on your alarm clock? The “early rising machine” was one of John Muir’s many inventions. He loved to use his innovation and creativity to come up with new technology. If you could invent anything you want, what would you make?

It's another day at the Swift Academy when Tom starts finding little troll-like figures around campus. And he's not the only one. Much to the amusement and curiosity of students, these dolls are appearing all over the school. But even after they're collected by faculty, a second wave mysteriously appears - except these replacements record audio and play it back for surrounding listeners. Before everyone knows it, secrets and gossip are revealed across campus, and suddenly the figures aren't nearly as fun as they used to be.

Antoine Lavoisier reinvented chemistry, overthrowing the long-established principles of alchemy and inventing an entirely new terminology, one still in use by chemists. Madison Smartt Bell’s enthralling narrative comes across like a race to the finish line, as the very circumstances that enabled Lavoisier to secure his reputation as the father of modern chemistry—a considerable fortune and social connections with the likes of Benjamin Franklin—also caused his glory to be cut short by the French Revolution.

Can you imagine having to sit still for 30 minutes just to have your picture taken? Or having to send film away to be developed? Technology has come a long way since then! Listen to learn about photography inventions like flashbulbs, Kodak and Polaroid cameras, and more!

If you like tinkering with widgets, wing nuts, gadgets, and gauges, you’ve picked up the right book. In Build It, you’ll invent a trash grabber, a newspaper fort, a coin sorter, and other amazing contraptions. When it comes to inventing, your imagination has no limits!

Do you have a need for speed? Does power make your heart pound? In Zoom It, you’ll invent a gas-powered boat, a catapult, an electric car, and many other amazing moving contraptions. When it comes to inventing, your imagination has no limits!

You can control the power of energy with your own two hands. In Harness It, you’ll invent a penny battery, a solar cooker, a trip wire, and many other energy harnessing contraptions. When it comes to inventing, your imagination has no limits!

Discover the extraordinary stories behind everyday things! Did you know that the ice cream sundae was invented because of a law forbidding the sale of ice cream on Sundays? Or that the first motorcycle was really just a tricycle with a motor? Would you believe that Mickey Mouse started out as a rabbit? Arranged in alphabetical order, this fascinating book is packed with the stories behind these and over 100 more inventions.

Here's a biographical profile of Charles F. Kettering, a man who always sought solutions to great problems. A philosopher, engineer, master salesman, scientist and genius inventor, Kettering, Delco's founder and major shareholder of GM, gave us many things: electric automobile starters, electric headlights, Freon, automatic transmissions, incubators for premature babies, premium gasoline, car generators, electric cash registers, and much more.

Writing is very important to all of us! But did you know that people in the past did not have the same kind of writing instrument that we use today? Instead of using plastic or metals to create pens, people in the past used feathers to create pens! This story gives a brief history of what people used to write with and how they eventually developed the feather pen! Not only will you have a history of writing, but you will also learn how to create your very own feather pen!

What would be the opposite of a Black Hole, a gravity source so powerful that not even light can escape it? The opposite would be a negative gravity source so powerful that nothing can even touch it! Dr. Applebreath has been developing energy weapons and defenses for decades built on this concept. JJ’s President’s Suit is a lightweight business suit that employs this principle to render the wearer invulnerable to small arms fire by absorbing the incoming energy of approaching projectiles and reflecting them back with equal momentum. Farley’s Anti-Gravity Ballroom enabling dancers to ...

In the 1920s cotton buyer Earle Dickson worked for Johnson & Johnson and had a klutzy wife who often cut herself. The son of a doctor, Earle set out to create an easier way for her to bandage her injuries. Band-Aids were born, but Earle's bosses at the pharmaceutical giant weren't convinced, and it wasn't until the Boy Scouts of America tested Earle's prototype that this ubiquitous household staple was made available to the public.

Founding Father Benjamin Franklin came from humble beginnings to take his place in the annals of history as one of the most celebrated Americans ever to stand on the world stage. The Boston apprentice who ran away because of his brother's ill-treatment found his destiny in Philadelphia, where he became a printer, a scientist, an author, an inventor, a politician, and a citizen of the world. His inventions and his philosophies had the same ultimate goal - to make the world a better place - and Franklin achieved that goal.

In science fiction, invisibility cloaks let their users vanish from sight and sneak around unnoticed. How could one of these stealthy pieces of clothing work? Scientists have some ideas, which involve bending light. Discover the science and technology behind what it would take to make a real-life invisibility cloak!

Obsessive, brilliant, and tortured, Nikola Tesla was lauded for his invention of the alternating current (AC) and other significant contributions to science. His claim that “harnessing the forces of nature was the only worthwhile scientific endeavor" both impressed and enraged the scientific community. Eventually his peers could no longer dismiss his eccentricities and began to view him as a crackpot - a potentially dangerous one.

In the World War II era, Geoffrey Pyke was described as one of the world's great minds - to rank alongside Einstein. Pyke was an inventor, adventurer, polymath, and unlikely hero of both world wars. He earned a fortune on the stock market, founded an influential pre-school, wrote a bestseller, and came up with the idea for the US and Canadian Special Forces. Henry Hemming is the first reporter to sift through this extraordinary new information and finally tell Pyke's astonishing story in full: his brilliance, his flaws, and his life of adventures, ideas, and secrets.

This book dives into all that and more! Whether you’re a future scientist, inventor, or just love learning fascinating facts, Think Like a Genius takes you on a fun and fact-filled adventure. This book isn’t just about giving answers—it’s about making science, nature, and inventions come alive with fun explanations, amazing trivia, and real-world examples. Perfect for ages 8-12, Think Like a Genius is filled with surprising and easy-to-understand explanations, so kids will walk away knowing some truly epic facts about the world.

Have you ever wondered just how a glow stick works? Or what about those glow-in-the-dark stars you stick on your ceiling keep on shining? In her first book, author and teacher Anita Sitarski answers these questions and more giving listeners the inside scoop on everything that glows. Fireflies, bacteria, squid, jelly fish—what do all of these things have in common? They glow! It seems like one of mother nature’s mysteries, but many curious scientists have begun to shine light on this beautiful phenomenon.

Patents don’t have to be a dry and boring subject, and inventors, investors, and business people may (and should) enjoy using them to their advantage. However, to empower the general public to use the patent system to its fullest extent, the need remains for a book that introduces important patent concepts in a humanly understandable fashion, with down-to-earth, practical advice and, more importantly, which is not boring, as many patent books unavoidably are to listeners who are not patent practitioners.