Yesterday I had the extreme pleasure once again, as I do every year, to talk about my career as an entrepreneur, independent businessman, inventor and specifically a creator of toys and games at a local school's Career Day. Through stories about Fireball Island, VacMan, TMX Elmo, Baby Go Boom, Tumble Time Tigger, and our Talking Electronic Microscope, I was able to share with those students my enthusiasm and passion for the process of invention.

            

Fireball Island was inspired by a 3D, distortion printed, vacuum-formed map that I envisioned as a great new type of game board surface, and it was. VacMan was inspired by a photo in a book on pneumatic structures, showing an example of a vacuumatic arch that was soft like a giant beanbag until the air was evacuated, and then could be formed into an arch on which a person could sit.

            

Tumble Time Tigger started life as a doll, and the original cartwheeling doll started life as a question: "Can we make a motorized cartwheeling doll?" It turned out, after many months of work, that we could indeed.

            

At the end of my presentation the 8th graders swarmed over VacMan, pumping, stretching, and marveling at a little bit of magic they had never seen before. A group of girls took up playing with TMX Elmo, giggling, laughing, and having a wonderful time. Good toys excite and delight. It is too bad they have such a short life in the stores.

            

My fellow presenter that morning, the CEO of a local maker of municipal equipment, told me that TMX Elmo should be reintroduced every decade or so. He considered it a timeless toy that would never go out of style - that kids would still love that toy fifty years from now. From his mouth to God’s ears.

 

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