If you have an invention or a great idea – please do read this advice before you tell everybody about it! Make sure you protect your idea. Rule Number One from the Dyson Inventors page is DON'T TELL ANYONE ABOUT YOUR IDEA BEFORE YOU FILE THE PATENT APPLICATION. Don’t say you weren’t warned!!
For Inventors • For Under 10s • General Inventions • Inventions & Their Inventors • Green Innovations
Ask the Inventors
http://www.asktheinventors.com/
Free advice on invention run by the creators of Ghostline, a brilliant and simple invention by two American women who have now devoted themselves to nurturing other new inventors. Be inspired!
British Female Inventor of the Year
http://www.gwiin.info/index.php
If you are female and have an invention up your sleeve then this competition may be just what you need to spur you on. They also run a competition for female inventors aged 5 to 18 and feature some of their ideas.
Dyson Site
http://www.dyson.com/invent/default.asp
Advice on patents and copyright from probably the UK’s most famous current inventor – learn from the master!
Institute of Patentees and Inventors
http://www.invent.org.uk/
UK information for inventors, with a wealth of advice about protecting your ideas and a links page which will take you to copyright, patenting, patent agents, business based sites and much more.
Inventors Handbook
http://www.nesta.org.uk/howtoapply/inventorshandbook/
From the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA), a great place to start if you have an idea for an invention or you have a bright idea you’d like to turn into a business opportunity.
UK Patent Office Advice to Inventors
http://www.patent.gov.uk/patent/howtoapply/
Advice from the horse’s mouth, so to speak!
Useful Links List
http://www.patent.freeserve.co.uk/serious.html
Links to help UK inventors.
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Child Inventors
http://inventors.about.com/msub11hp.htm
If you really want to be inspired then visit this site and be amazed with the stories of children who are already inventors.
Young Inventors
http://inventors.about.com/
Links from About.com to content all about kid’s innovation including how to encourage it and lesson plans for teachers.
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general inventions
Afrian-American Inventors
http://www.african-american-inventors.com/african-american-inventors/
As an assembly piece for October, this page has a great story about a boy who imagines that there were no black people in the world. The boy can’t complete even the simplest of tasks without vital equipment and tools which are no longer because they have been invented by black inventors. A truly thought-provoking piece.
Black Inventor Online Museum
http://www.blackinventor.com/
If you want to add to your knowledge of black scientists there's some extra info here on black inventors not found in other sites, and some that are of course.
How Stuff Works
http://www.howstuffworks.com/index.htm
This site looks off-puttingly busy to the untrained eye, but take the animated tour offered to new visitors, and you'll soon see its potential. Simple animation explains complicated things really clearly.
Inventor Site
http://inventors.about.com/
This USA-based site has lots of inventors to inspire you! With links to all sorts of entrepreneurial info as well as hundreds of inventors and inventions.
Wacky Patent of the Month
http://colitz.com/site/wacky.htm
Peruse some of the nuttiest inventions ever recorded by patent offices.
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A selection of familiar inventions that you probably take for granted all started somewhere, in the mind of an inventor who noticed a need!
About Inventors
http://inventors.about.com/library/bl/bl12.htm
A comprehensive list of inventions and their inventors.
TELEPHONE
The Path To The Telephone
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/albell/homepage.html
Using AGB’s own pictures from his notebook, this site takes you through the stages of his most famous invention.
TELEVISION
Biography of John Logie Baird 1
http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/FINE/juhde/hills961.htm
Comprehensive page on the great man’s early life, and how he beat the big companies trying to invent television with little money and few resources.
Biography of John Logie Baird 2
http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/FINE/juhde/baird962.htm
Continuation of this brilliant man’s life and works, including colour television, all the more interesting for being written by his son, Malcolm Baird.
Baird’s Noctovision
http://www.atsf.co.uk/ilight/tech/noctovision.html
Baird’s use of Infra red and Ultraviolet light.
RADIO
Crystal Radio for Beginners
http://www.midnightscience.com/howxtal.html
The science of radio clearly explained, bit by bit.
How Radio Works
http://www.howstuffworks.com/radio.htm
Follow the pages of information to see how radio waves do their thing. There is lots more information available about all the other uses for radio waves, and links at the end to radio history and so on.
Loomis
http://members.aol.com/jeff560/loomis.html
Did a dentist called Mahon Loomis invent radio signaling two years before Marconi was even born?
Popov
http://webstationone.com/fecha/popov.htm
Was this Russian scientist truly the father of radio?
Who Invented Radio?
http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_whoradio.html
Account of the Tesla / Marconi competition to get the invention patented. The lesson to be learnt here is not to let your laboratory burn down!
VIDEO
How Tape Recorders Work
http://www.howstuffworks.com/cassette.htm
From How Stuff Works, the basics of magnetic tape recording.
Video Related Inventions
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blvideo.htm
From the About site, video technology explored. The first video recorder was sold in 1956, by Ampex Corporation for a massive $50,000!
FRIDGE
A Brief History of Cold
http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/st_simons/cr0003.htm
The Rev Ed Hird canters through the history of cooling, and explores the life of James Harrison, credited with being the inventor of a workable cooling system, and the saviour of Australia.
Technical Cold
http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/
For a much more technical look at how cold came about in your home. You’ll need a bit of physics to really appreciate this one.
IRONING BOARD
Sarah Boone
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blboone.htm
Back in 1892, African American Sarah Boone showed the principal that improving on an existing invention is inventing too. If it ain’t broke – make it better anyway!
DISHWASHER
Josephine Cochran
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1476.htm
Josephine Cochran is now famous for her invention of the dishwashing machine. When she realised no-one else was inventing this useful machine she proclaimed ‘I’ll do it myself!’
Factmonster
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0768070.html
Josephine Cochran and many other ingenious women on this long list.
SUPERMARKET BARCODE
Barcode Links
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbar_code.htm
Barcode info from About, featuring links about the invention at the bottom of the page.
ZIPPER
The History of the Zipper
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa082497.htm
The name ‘zipper’ was invented long after the gadget itself.
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Centre for Alternative Technology
http://www.cat.org.uk/indexnf.tmpl
Visit the Inform part of the site to see how this community uses green technology to generate their own power. Better still – visit the Centre itself in Wales!
Green Pages
http://www.eco-web.com/
The research and development pages of this green directory lists hundreds of research and development sites from all over the world, in alphabetical order.
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