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When the owner of a toy company called Wild Planet went to meet with some children to talk about how to improve their toys, she
asked the children to do some inventive thinking. To start, she asked them what different things could be done with a glove. A nine-year-old boy named Shahid Minapara instantly had an idea. “I was thinking about dark,” he said, “and then I thought about light, because it is the opposite of dark. Then I saw the glove. I wanted a light on all five fingers.” Shahid made a drawing of his idea. The toy company loved the idea and a new toy was invented. It was called the Light Hand and it was one of Wild Planet’s best sellers!
Which one of these people is an inventor?
Standards Link: Social Science: Students understand the contributions of individuals in shaping our economy; the role of interdependence of consumers and producers of goods.
Answer: All of them! Inventors come in all shapes and sizes. What they have in common is an interest in solving problems and thinking creatively. Read this list of inventions. Then decide who might have invented each one. Check your answers below.
n 1903, Mary Anderson took a trip to New York City. While touring the city on a streetcar, she saw that the shivering driver had a tough problem. He had to get out of the streetcar every time he needed to wipe off the snow and ice that collected on the windshield. Mary had an idea. She made a quick drawing in her sketchbook. What did Mary invent? Use the code to find out.
In August of 1998, the United Inventors Association of the USA (UIA-USA), the Academy of Applied Science and Inventors’ Digest founded National Inventors Month as a national month-long celebration of ingenuity.
© Vicki Whiting August 2026
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