This blog / writer aim to buttress the message on allowing
children room to exercise their curiosity and grow their imagination.
This post presents three inspiring stories, across the world,
some well known others obscure, but all involve people whose childhood marked
the start of their stories of their inventiveness. This writer is certain you
have your own stories to share, too. So let me add the stories of Richard
Turere (Kenya), Paul MacCready (America) and Soichiro Honda
(Japan) to the catalogue.
Richard Turere – Inventor, Lion lights
Richard Turere, a young Maasai man who lives in the
wilderness of the Kenya savanna, on the south edge of the Nairobi National Park and
helped his dad with the family livestock keeping. Turere, a TED (Technology,
Entertainment, Design)
presenter who
illustrates the positive influence that problem-solving can have on a group of
people – in this case, the African Masai community. Earlier this year, Turere,
who is 13, traveled from Kenya to Long Beach, Southern California, United States
to take to the TED2013 stage as one of "The Young,
The Wise, The Undiscovered" featured at this year’s annual conference.
"We had a very big problem with lions," says
Turere who began herding his family’s cattle when he was 9. "They used to
come almost every day and kill two cows per day. It was a really big problem,
and I am responsible for my dad’s cows, so I had to find a way of solving this
problem."
Frustrated by the lions’ ongoing threat to his
family’s livelihood, Turere began to experiment with a few tools on the farm
and his most valuable asset, his ability to think critically. "I have
always tried to solve problems," says Turere. "I tried fire [because]
I thought lions were scared of fire. I was actually helping the lions to see
through the cowshed. I used a scarecrow. The lions came the first day and saw
the scarecrow and they came the second day and saw the scarecrow. [Eventually],
they did not care anymore. I walked around the cowshed one day [with a
flashlight] and they didn’t come, so I discovered the [effectiveness] of a
moving light."
From there, Turere fitted a series of flashing light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs onto poles around the
livestock enclosure, facing outward. The lights were wired to a box with
switches and to an old car battery powered by a solar panel. They were designed
to flicker on and off, tricking the lions into believing that someone was
walking around with a flashlight. "I used to hate lions, but now because
my invention is saving my father’s cows and lambs, I don’t think I hate lions
anymore," says Turere. "We can live with them without any conflict. My
neighbours used the lights, and they are used all over Kenya now in 75 homes.
They are also using them to keep elephants away from the farms at night."
Turere’s invention, which he designed and built
entirely on his own, won him a scholarship to Brookhouse and caught the
attention of TED during a talent search in Nairobi. And while the young cattle
herder has had to get used to center-stage public speaking, he has become
comfortable telling his story. Since his story hit the TED stage, Turere has
become somewhat of a teen celebrity, profiled on international media including CNN
and National Geographic and other high-profile news services around the world. "My
friends are happy for me, and my family is proud of me," he notes.
Richard Turere has shared Lion Lights with others in
his Masai community, saving the lives of countless cows and lions and
protecting his neighbours’ sources of income. Paula Kahumbu, Executive Director
of the Kenya Land Conservation Trust who was one of the first to discover
Turere’s talents, told CNN, "One thing that’s unique about Richard is that
if you give him a problem, he’ll keep working at it until he can fix it. He’s
not afraid of being unable to do something and I think this is why he is such a
good innovator: Because he’s not worried that it might not work, he’s
going to try and do it anyway."
Paul MacCready – Inventor, Gossamer Condor; human-powered
airplane
Paul MacCready was born to well-to-do
parents in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. From an early age, he was an
enthusiastic builder of model airplanes and gliders. Throughout his teens he
won competitions and set records with flying models of his own design.
MacCready began flying in his teens, and
received formal flight training in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Although
he did not begin building a human-powered airplane until he was 51 years old,
Paul MacCready had been involved with flight for most of his life. As a boy
growing up in New Haven, Connecticut, he was fascinated with butterflies and
moths, and his interests soon included model airplanes, too. MacCready did not
just build standard aircraft. "For some reason I got interested in a
variety of things," he says. "Ornithopters, autogyros, helicopters,
indoor models, outdoor models. Nobody seemed to be quite as motivated for the
new and strange as I was."
After the war, he earned a physics degree at Yale
University and a doctorate in aeronautical engineering from California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena. At the same time, he took up soaring, that
is, flying sailplanes or gliders as they are often called. He won U.S. soaring
championships in 1948, 1948 and 1953, and represented the U.S. in international
competition on four occasions. In 1956, he became the first American to win the
world championship. He was the inventor of the MacCready Speed Ring, used by
glider pilots the world over to select optimum flight speed.
MacCready founded his first company, Meteorology
Research, Inc., in 1951, to pursue weather modification and atmospheric
research. In 1971 he founded AeroVironment, Inc., in Monrovia, California. The
company consults on environmental issues and wind power. It also designs
remote-controlled electric planes, as toys and as reconnaissance tools for the
Department of Defense.
A debt MacCready incurred
helping a relative in business difficulties inspired him to pursue the prize
offered by British millionaire Henry Kremer and the Royal Aeronautical Society
to the designer who could create a human-powered flying machine. For 18 years,
the prize had gone unclaimed. MacCready's Gossamer Condor made history in 1977,
when it flew a figure-eight course over a distance of 1.15 miles and became the
first human-powered vehicle to achieve sustained, maneuverable flight.
Kremer offered another prize of 100,000 British
pounds for the first human-powered crossing of the English Channel. In 1979,
the Condor's successor, the Gossamer Albatross, flew across the Channel, and
won the second Kremer Prize. MacCready's Bionic Bat won a third Kremer Prize
for human-powered air speed. The bat (short for battery) uses human power not
only to power the aircraft directly, but to continually recharge a battery,
which stores power for continued flight.
In addition to these, MacCready created the
Gossamer Penguin, the world's first successful totally solar-powered airplane,
and the Solar Challenger. Unlike MacCready's previous creations, the Solar
Challenger was not designed to win a competition, but to awaken the public to
the possibilities of solar energy. In 1981, the Challenger flew from Paris,
France to Canterbury, England, a distance of 163 miles, rising to an altitude
of 11,000 feet.
In 1985, the Smithsonian
Institute commissioned MacCready to build a life-size, flying replica of the
pterodactyl, a prehistoric flying reptile with a 36-foot wingspan. This
remote-controlled flying model can be seen in the IMAX film On the Wing.
MacCready did not limit himself to the development
of unique aircraft. His interest in environmentally sound technology led him to
develop innovative surface vehicles as well. In 1987, he built the
solar-powered Sunraycer, to compete in a race across Australia. In 1990, a
collaboration with General Motors resulted in the Impact, an electric car that
could accelerate from zero to 60 mph in eight seconds.
Paul MacCready's
contributions to flight technology were recognized formally in 1991, when he
was inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame, but MacCready and his
collaborators at AeroVironment had not yet exhausted their ingenuity. In 1995
their remote-controlled, solar-powered Pathfinder reached an altitude of 50,500
feet. Whatever shape the air and surface vehicles of the future may take, it is
certain they will be marked by the singular genius of Paul MacCready.
Soichiro Honda – Engineer and Industrialist
Soichiro
Honda, born on November 17, 1906 in the small Japanese village of Tenryƫ, Shizuoka a small village under Mount Fuji
near Hamamatsu,
had always dreamed about the incredible vehicles, cars.
Even as a toddler Honda had been thrilled by the first car
that was ever seen in his village and often used to say in later life that he
could never forget the smell of oil it gave off. Soichiro once borrowed one of
his father's bicycles to see a demonstration of an airplane made by pilot Art
Smith, which cemented his love for machinery and invention.
He spent his
early childhood helping his father, Gihei, a blacksmith, with his bicycle
repair business. At the time his mother, Mika, was a weaver. Honda was not
interested in traditional education, his school handed grade reports to the
children, but required that it will be returned stamped with the family seal,
to make sure that a parent had seen it. Soichiro created a stamp to forge his
family seal out of an used rubber bicycle pedal cover. The fraud was soon
discovered when Honda started to make forged stamps for other children. Honda
did not realize that the stamp had to be mirror-imaged. His family name æŹ ç° was
symmetrical when written vertically, so it did not cause a problem, but some of
other children's family names were not.
Honda left school at age 15 to seek work as an auto mechanic
in Tokyo. His first job was hardly auspicious: For a year he cared for the
infant baby of his boss's family. With the child in tow, he often wandered the
garage, watching the mechanics and making suggestions. As Honda tinkered with
engines in between diaper changes and bottle feedings, it became obvious that
his strength was not in child care but rebuilding engines.
He was so good at it that he starting building engines for
racing. He soon attempted a full-time stint as a professional race-car driver,
but a crash suffered in a race nearly killed him and sent him back to work as a
mechanic. A second crash soon after, in which he drove off a bridge with
several geishas in the car (everyone survived), put a stop to a nightlife that,
like his race-car driving, had veered out of control.
A newly focused and newly wedded Honda began working for a
succession of mechanics in the mid-1930s, a period in which he focused largely
on refining piston action to build a higher performance engine. When he formed
his own company in 1937, Japanese militancy was at its height, and in 1938, Honda's
company was forced to switch to building engines for the Imperial Navy's boats
and planes. After Allied bombing leveled his factory near the end of the war,
Honda showed that his mechanical genius extended to pursuits other than cars.
For more than a year, he made a living brewing alcohol with a homemade still.
In 1948, he returned to his true love by starting a new
company: Honda Motor Co. This time, he took on a partner, Takeo Fujisawa, to
handle the back-office operations that Honda found so crushingly dull. They
soon came up with the batabata, a motorized bicycle named after the sound the
engine made. The motorcycle, which more established Japanese automobile
companies like Toyota and Nissan had never introduced on a large scale, became
a huge hit across Japan.
Honda's most popular model, the Dream, could soon be spotted
all over the Japanese islands. But Honda, already becoming legendary for
spending long hours in the shop with engineers, had something bigger in mind:
building a car that would leave Toyota's and Nissan's models in the dust.
Honda did not stop dreaming about making cars though.
He then started to manufacture metal piston rings that moved up and down in a
car’s engine and converted energy in gas into force that helps turn the car. At
first, Honda thought that making piston rings was easy, but he was proven
wrong. His first tries were unsuccessful, for the rings were easily breakable.
He went back to school to study metallurgy and to learn how to work with metal.
Soichiro tried many times before he perfected the rings in 1940. He sold them
to Toyota, one of the first car companies of Japan.
During World War II, Honda was asked to make propellers
for airplanes. After the war was over, the Japanese could not afford cars
because they lost in the war. Honda was daunted, but he was still able to make
a living through repairing old vehicles. Gas for cars was very costly after the
war, so Soichiro rode the train every day. He loathed traveling on the crowded
train, but riding his bicycle was too slow. So, Honda combined the bicycle’s
structure and the car’s motor to create a mini low-cost motorcycle. This
interested and impressed local businessman Takeo Fujisawa, who built a
motorcycle factory. Honda and Fujisawa then teamed up and established the Honda
Motor Company. Soichiro continued to improve motorcycle motors to make them
more powerful and get more gasoline mileage for the same price.
Honda was very precise about his motorcycles. He
wanted them to be perfect, so when he yelled at his associates, or workers, he
was nicknamed "Mr. Thunder." Although he shouted at his workers, he
treated them fairly and included them in new ideas. He would even let them keep
the money they made with their new invention. Honda then began to dominate
America’s motorcycle industry with his brand new Super Cub motorcycles in 1959.
When Soichiro Honda went back to the car industry, he
started shipping middle-sized cars. Tadashi Kume helped prevent the terrible
mistake of having air-cooled engines rather than water-cooled engines. He
convinced Honda to change his decision and Soichiro was glad. In 1972, the
Honda Civic arrived in the U.S. It was a very "green" car and helped
the environment. During that time, gas went up dramatically in price. People liked
the Civic for getting double the mileage than American cars. Sales were good.
To Honda,
the former motorcycle mechanic who eventually racked up 150 patents, all
success came down to individual motivation. The man who built Honda Motor Co.
(HMC) into one of the world's most innovative auto companies and spearheaded
the Japanese challenge to America's Big Three carmakers in the 1970s and 1980,
once told a reporter: "Each individual should work for himself. People
will not sacrifice themselves for the company. They come to work at the company
to enjoy themselves."
At the age
of sixty-six, Soichiro Honda retired and left the younger associates in charge
of company. He was still a director of the company and enjoyed his retirement
NB: Richard Turere is starting out in his life’s journey and
this blog wishes him good success.
Again this blog is emphasizing the message: LET CHILDREN,
PLAY, AND LEARN FROM WHAT IS AROUND THEM. GUIDE THEIR CURIOSITIES, AND CHANNEL
THEIR ENERGIES. AS A PARENT / GUARDIAN, IF YOU RUN OUT OF IDEAS, GET HELP. ALL
THESE SHOULD NOT STOP THE CHILD GETTING A FORMAL EDUCATION.
LET OUR CHILDREN DISCOVER
THE JOY OF DISCOVERING THINGS. . .
- Knowledge@Wharton http://kwhs.wharton.upenn.edu/2013/06/the-power-of-ideas-thinkers-doers-and-roaring-innovation/
- TED Talk: Richard Turere: My Invention that Made Peace with the Lions http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_turere_a_peace_treaty_with_the_lions.html
- Paul MacCready Biography. http://web.mit.edu/invent/www/ima/maccready_bio.html
- Business Week "Soichiro Honda: Uniquely Driven"
By Mike J. Brewster
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/aug2004/nf20040817_3267_db078.htm
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