I have a collection of SuperSoakers. I have managed to keep most of them.
I thought to myself, jeez, it would be really nice to have a high power water gun. It felt really, really good holding a powerful stream in my hand.
When I was at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory back in the early '80s is when I first got the idea. The Super Soaker was based on some engineering principles that I applied. I was actually working on another invention which was a heat pump that would use water as a working fluid instead of Freon.
Sitting still, a person produces about 100 watts of heat. What if you could use that to charge your cell phone?
I didn't want to grow old and find that I didn't do what I could have done, that I didn't put my best foot forward. I didn't want to have any regrets.
When I think back on my childhood and the things that happened to me, there were certain periods of time where I felt like I was being saved for something. I feel like I have a gift, and it would be a sin to waste it.
I decided I could develop a toy and get some revenue from that and then use that revenue to really become an inventor and work on some of the more challenging projects I had in mind.
That's one of the advantages of being an inventor and tinkerer - I have everything I need to make what I need.
Lady Luck is indifferent. She smiles sometimes, and she frowns sometimes.
As an inventor, it's a rite of passage to have an engine. I'd like to have my own engine someday.
I can remember times when we'd be having parties, and people would be dancing and everything and I would be sitting there in the middle doing calculus, just doing my little thing.
There was a time in my life when I was independently wealthy.
Peer review is fine, as long as you're making incremental improvements to a technology.
Especially when you have a lot of technology you're developing as a small company, trying to protect that technology is a real problem.
More and more, other countries are able to manufacture things cheaper, beating us in the marketplace in a lot of ways. So we need to do whatever we can to make sure America's ability to protect its ingenuity is as strong as it can be.
I think America's strength is in innovation.
You sometimes have a very innovative company, and if they come up with one idea, they can come up with many more - if they're successful. If they can't feed themselves, you lose that creativity.
I've invented a new type of engine that converts heat directly into electricity with no moving mechanical parts. It's called the Johnson Thermo-Electrochemical Converter, the JTEC.
Large companies can afford to file patents on every idea they have. Small companies, we have to weigh our options, do the research. We have to decide where to place our bets. We can't just cover everything we do.
It was because of the success of the Super Soaker, I was able to at least get an audience with people to present some of my other ideas.
