Invetors: future tense.

Calling all future inventors! I was lucky enough to sit in on a brainstorming session at Mrs. Mary Lou’s K-2 mixed classroom on Friday. Lets take a look at some of the results. (Some images protected pending patent registration.)

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Sometimes I have this nervous tick that makes me throw my hands up in the air, and when it happens the only thing that can help me is to hear everybody in the room scream really loudly followed by an abrupt silence. Sometimes it happens more than once in a row, just to make sure everybody’s paying attention.

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Some of our co-workers at the session needed special creativity aids, like this adaptation on the popular “thinking cap”: the thinking-bonnet.

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Once we’d gotten the creative juices flowing with some group ideation, we each went to work on our own concept designs.

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Many of the participants in the group insisted that privacy and concentration was paramount to their individual creativity. Some insisted that no photos be taken before the final presentation.

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Quick! Hide your ideas! Patent thieves might be using satellite cameras to peek through the windows!!

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Final Presentation

A classic riff on the “dish-washing Robot” motif. “This is a Robot to do dishes for my mom.”

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An innovative way of dealing with the old “monsters under the bed” problem: a bedroom-dwelling monster-exterminating robot! MOMO protects you while you sleep, should any “undesirables” decide to visit the under-bed regions of the room.

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Eli wonders what if a huge, automated, techni-color koosh-ball with mops on the ends could clean your floor for you? I’d buy one.
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Grant has designed next year’s Bionacle (R) Robot to complement his personal collection. Nicely detailed… are those back-painted polycarbonate shoulder-blades? Sweet.
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Caleb designed the ultimate shopping machine: it prints its own money, and buys whatever you want for you! Not only do you get whatever you want, whenever you want it… but you don’t even have to stop construction on your latest lego fortress to go to the store! Just keep an eye out for the Feds.
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Nate wants a factory in his bedroom that cranks out StarWars toys all day long. Who doesn’t??

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Sage took a more aesthetically oriented approach: a glowing multi-colored rocket-ship. Why do space vessels always have to be gray, black, and white?

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The lawyers are definitely looking hard at th is one for intellectual property protection, so we won’t go into the details. Just note that it’s huge, gorgeous, and looks something akin to Paul Klee meets Arshile Gorky (both heros of mine) in a paint-to-the-death match.

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Beautiful design for an outdoor garden and pool. Look out Frank Lloyd Wright!
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Mmmmmm, somebody invented some cookies!

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What you see laid out before you is the original concept art for the worlds’ first “robot getting married.” You saw it here first, folks!

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Max was insistent that no one be told what his invention was until they’d guessed it for themselves. I think he has in mind to patent it very soon, so I’d better not publish the details here: lets just say it’s an “elcanoib retaw-rednu” spelled backwards, k?

All in all we had a fantastic session, and I can’t wait to see some of these ideas hit the market someday.