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Five Life-Changing Innovations By Children

By Billy Praise
27 May 2018   |   7:00 am
Childhood is often said to be the most important phase of a human being's life because it lays the foundation for we all eventually become. As the world celebrates the innocence of the child's heart today, here are some world-changing inventions that were created by children. Braille After suffering an eye injury when he was…

Childhood is often said to be the most important phase of a human being’s life because it lays the foundation for we all eventually become.

African American student doing math problems on the chalkboard. Photo Bridgeway Academy

As the world celebrates the innocence of the child’s heart today, here are some world-changing inventions that were created by children.

Braille

After suffering an eye injury when he was three years old, Louis Braille became blind in one eye. As time passed, it was discovered that the injury left an infection in the wounded eye which eventually spread to the other eye and made him permanently blind. Growing up, Braille struggled to learn to read by tracing his fingers over raised letters. However, at the age of 12, he learned a method of silent communication that was originally created for the French military. He mastered this language, modified it and created the language known as Braille today.

Braille. Photo: Brussels Museum

Popsicle

This tasty treat was created by 11-year-old Frank Epperson as a happy accident. On a cold winter night in San Francisco, Epperson was stirring a powdered drink mix into a cup of water with a stick on his porch. Getting distracted as kids usually do, he left the mixture outside on the porch and found it frozen solid by morning. For years Epperson continued making frozen lollipops for his friends and it wasn’t until 1924 that he filed for a patent.

Popsicles. Photo: Creative Market

Trampoline

Teenage gymnast George Nissen usually watched gymnasts finish their routines by landing in safety nets close to the ground below. In a bid to make the experience more exciting, the young lad believed it would be more fun if the gymnasts could bounce around endless. With his idea, he turned his parents’ garage into a workshop and, with the help of his coach, created the first “bouncing rig” which had a metal frame with a canvas stretched over it. Over the years, he improved on this design until he eventually created and named the trampoline we all know today.

Trampoline. Photo: Amazon

TPak

One rainy afternoon, Kelly Reinhart’s parents challenged her and her siblings to draw a picture of an invention as a competition. The prize for the winner was a prototype of their invention made in real-life. Kelly, who was six-years-old at the time, had watched a lot of western films and was inspired by cowboy holsters. She drew a thigh pack—later known as TPak—that would enable kids to carry their video games around. This idea changed the family forever as the TPak was a huge hit in the market. They eventually got an investor for their company, TPak International.

TPak. Photo: Pinterest

Earmuffs

Chester Greenwood was ice skating in his hometown at the age of 15, when his ears started to get painfully cold. He tried to get warm by wrapping a scarf around his head but this didn’t help him in any way. Looking for a better solution, he made a wire frame and asked his grandmother to sew beaver skin pads to it which created the world’s first ear muffs. Four years later, he patented his invention, perfected it and eventually manufactured and sold earmuffs to soldiers during the First World War.

Earmuffs. Photo: eBay

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