DIRECTIONS:
- "An invention is something produced for the first time through the use of imagination or ingenious thinking and experimentation."
- Edison was granted 1,093 United States patents, more than any other inventor. The phonograph was his favorite invention; he called it "my baby."
- The first powered flight lasted 57 seconds. It happened on Dec. 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
- John Deere invented the plow.
- The three tallest buildings in the United States are the Sears Tower, the World Trade Center, and the Empire State Building.
- Isaac Merritt Singer invented the sewing machine. His improvements to previous inventions paved the way for the growth of the ready-made clothing industry.
- Ben Franklin invented the lightning rod; the odometer.
- Levi Strauss wanted to make pants for miners and prospectors that would last longer than normal pants did.
Answers to Inventors and Inventions: Scavenger Hunt 2
- Bush wrote a 1945 essay in which he described a worldwide database that is much like the World Wide Web; he called it Memex.
- Walter Morrison invented the Frisbee. It was named for the pie company that made the pie tins that he hurled as a youth.
- No, Ben Franklin didn't invent electricity. However, he did prove that lightning was a stream of electrified air; and he developed many of the terms we associate with electricity today: battery, conductor, condenser, charge, discharge, uncharged, negative, minus, plus, electric shock, and electrician.
- Beulah Henry was often referred to as "Lady Edison" because she held such a large number of patents (49 in all). Her first patent was issued in 1912 for an ice-cream freezer.
- Emile Berliner invented the microphone. He sold his microphone patent for $50,000 to the Bell Telephone Company. The invention was used to improve the telephone, which enabled the company to become one of the world's largest corporations. Bell has since been divided into many smaller companies.
- Many artists and craftsmen could build and repair machines, but Leonardo da Vinci looked beyond that; if he understood how each machine part worked, he felt, he could modify parts to improve the inventions and to invent new machines.
- Students will answer with three of the following questions found in the Inventor's Handbook section of the site: Does your invention offer a unique -- and better -- solution to a real problem? Can it be easily manufactured or integrated into an existing product? Is there a market for the product? How big is the market? Will it grow? What is the competition? Will the product be obsolete by the time the patent is issued? How much will it cost -- and how long will it take -- to bring the invention to market? How will it be sold?"
- Students will answer with two of the following innovations: The wind-braced steel frame and its fireproofing; the elevator; construction design of foundations; the incandescent light; new ways to generate and distribute electricity.
- Philo Farnsworth invented the television. His invention had no sound and the picture was in black and white.
- Menlo Park is where Edison's first lab was located. While at Menlo Park, he invented the phonograph and developed the first practical incandescent electric lamp.
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