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The patent for the windshield wiper was filed in 1903 by Mary Anderson. This was a manually operated lever with a rubber blade. Most people initially rejected the idea because the felt the swinging arms would distract drivers! However, they were made standard on most vehicles by 1916.1<\/sup><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Leonardo da Vinci\u00a0 Born in 1452, Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s greatest obstacle was time. He was born much too early for his inventions to work. He developed ideas and sketches for a flying machine, an armored car, a machine gun, diving suit, robot, helicopter, and many more.2<\/sup> It is reported\u00a0that on his deathbed he said \u201cI have offended God and mankind because my work didn\u2019t reach the quality it should have.\u201d<\/p>\n James Dyson describes his journey to success: exactly 5,126 attempts to make the first bagless vacuum cleaner were failures-some catastrophic disappointments, some minor defects. It took 15 years and prototype 5,127 was the success … “Failure is painful, but it spurs on improvement like nothing else.\u201d Dyson Ltd. now has around 3,500 employees and in 2016 had sales of $3.12 Billion. James Dyson, personally, is now worth $5.7 billion.3<\/sup><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Thomas Edison\u00a0 \u201cI have not failed. I\u2019ve just found 10,000 ways that won\u2019t work\u201d<\/p>\n Thomas Edison at 22 years old, in 1869, moved to New York City where he first developed the Universal Stock Printer which he sold for $40,000. Edison was not the inventor of the first light bulb nor was he the first person to attempt to improve on the design. What he did accomplish was the incandescent light bulb that was able to be easily manufactured and sold to the masses. Edison would establish Edison Illuminating Company which ultimately became General Electric.4<\/sup><\/p>\n Dr. Constantin Fahlberg, the inventor of the first artificial sweetener saccharine, was working in his lab and forgot about dinner until late one night. He ran to dinner forgetting to wash his hands. He ate bread that was very sweet, thinking nothing of it. Having wiped his hands off with a napkin, when he wiped his mouth he found his napkin was sweeter than the bread! After drinking from his glass, which he had previously touched, and drank sweet water, it occurred to him that he was the source of the sweetness. Dr. Fahlberg returned to his lab and tasted the contents of every beaker and evaporating dish in the lab where he found the solution of saccharine.5<\/sup><\/p>\n Lonnie Johnson<\/span>\u00a0 Growing up Lonnie Johnson\u2019s father taught them to build their own toys due to the family\u2019s low-income background. So, at the age of 13, Johnson attached a lawnmower engine to a go-kart he built from junkyard scraps and raced it along the highway until the police pulled him over. He developed the initiative to become an inventor and he nearly burned the house down when his attempt at making rocket fuel exploded in his mother\u2019s kitchen! Johnson would eventually graduate from Tuskegee University with a Master\u2019s Degree in Nuclear Engineering, join the US Air Force, and later join NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. One of his personal projects was an environmentally friendly heat pump that did not use Freon. In 1982, he tested his prototype in the bathroom where he blasted a powerful stream of water into his bathtub. By 1989, he had modified this invention and sold the \u201cSuper Soaker\u201d to the Larami Corporation. The Super Soaker topped $200 Million in sales in 1991.6<\/sup><\/p>\n Hedy Lamarr, born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, was an Austrian-American actress. She escaped Austria prior to WWII and would become \u201cone of the most gorgeous and exotic of Hollywood\u2019s leading ladies.\u201d During the height of her acting career, she and composer George Antheil developed a patent for a \u201cSecret Communications\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 System\u201d which was a device that changed radio frequencies, known as frequency hopping, to keep enemies from decoding messages. However, due to her success as a Hollywood actress, her invention was not taken seriously and ignored until much later. Her work on frequency hopping would eventually be used by the military during the Cuban Missile Crisis and is being used in modern cell phones. In 1997, she and Antheil would receive the Electronic Frontier Foundation Award and Lamarr would be the first female to receive the BULBIE Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award, considered the \u201cOscars\u201d of inventing.7&8<\/sup><\/p>\n Elon Musk<\/span>\u00a0 “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”<\/p>\n Elon Musk is best known for his recent success with SpaceX and Tesla. However, both of these had rocky beginnings. With SpaceX the first 3 launches of their Falcon 1 Rocket resulted in failure, some of them spectacularly. The Tesla Model S was reported bursting into flames following accidents in 2013.9<\/sup><\/p>\n Here are 3 videos of the Falcon and the 3 failures, and one video about the Tesla Model S fires.<\/p>\n Falcon 1 Flight 1<\/a>;\u00a0\u00a01 Flight 2<\/a>;\u00a0\u00a0Falcon 1 Flight 3<\/a>; and Tesla Model S Fires.<\/a><\/p>\n Patsy Sherman\u00a0 Patsy Sherman was working in the 3M lab to develop a rubber material that would not deteriorate from contact with jet fuel. One day, an assistant spilled some of the substance onto their new shoes, but soap, alcohol, and other solvents would not remove this chemical. Sherman noticed this and had the idea for a polymer that could repel water and oil from fabrics. In 1956, Scotchgard Protector was introduced!10<\/sup><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Play-Doh\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Noah McVicker of The Kutol Soap Company created \u201cKutol Wall Cleaner\u201d to remove coal dust from walls. After WWII, coal heaters became obsolete. Noah\u2019s nephew Joe McVicker learned his sister-in-law, Kay Zufall, and artists were using it as a children\u2019s toy and for modeling. Zufall suggested the name \u201cPlay-Doh.\u201d Dr. Tien Liu was hired as the \u201cPlay-Doh Expert\u201d and is credited with creating the current formula.11<\/sup><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Don’t despair if your current idea\/invention fails – you’re in good company! Stop in, check out the exhibit, and get inspired!<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Resources:<\/strong><\/p>\n [1] \u201cMary Anderson: Inventor of Windshield Wipers,\u201d Famous Women Inventors, accessed February 23, 2018, http:\/\/www.women-inventors.com\/Mary-Anderson.asp.<\/p>\n [2] Asian T, \u201cLeonardo da Vinci\u2019s \u2018Failed Inventions\u2019,\u201d Prezi, accessed February 23, 2018, https:\/\/prezi.com\/uadbu3yuzcim\/leonardo-da-vincis-failed-inventions\/.<\/p>\n [3] \u201cThese Famous Idea People Failed Their Way Forward,\u201d Davison Inventing, accessed February 23, 2018, http:\/\/www.davison.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/27\/these-famous-idea-people-failed-their-way-forward\/.<\/p>\n [4] A&E Television Networks, \u201cThomas Edison Biography,\u201d The Biography.com Website, accessed February 23, 2018, https:\/\/www.biography.com\/people\/thomas-edison-9284349.<\/p>\n [5] \u201cThe Inventor of Saccharine,\u201d Today in Science History, accessed February 23, 2018, https:\/\/todayinsci.com\/F\/Fahlberg_Constantin\/FahlbergConstantin-Saccharin.htm.<\/p>\n [6]A&E Television Networks, \u201cLonnie G. Johnson Biography,\u201d The Biography.com Website, accessed February 23, 2018, https:\/\/www.biography.com\/people\/lonnie-g-johnson-17112946.<\/p>\n [7] A&E Television Networks, \u201cHedy Lamarr Biography,\u201d The Biography.com Website, accessed February 23, 2018, https:\/\/www.biography.com\/people\/hedy-lamarr-9542252.<\/p>\n [8] Melinda Wenner, \u201cHedy Lamarr: Not just a pretty face,\u201d Scientific American, accessed February 23, 2018, https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/hedy-lamarr-not-just-a-pr\/.<\/p>\n [9] Sally French, \u201cThe many failures of Elon Musk, captured in one giant infographic,\u201d MarketWatch, accessed February 23, 2018, https:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/story\/the-many-failures-of-elon-musk-captured-in-one-giant-infographic-2017-05-24.<\/p>\n [10] \u201cFascinating facts about the invention of Scotchgard by Patsy Sherman and Sam Smit in 1956,\u201d The Great Idea Finder, accessed February 23, 2018, http:\/\/www.ideafinder.com\/history\/inventions\/scotchgard.htm.<\/p>\n [11] Ashley Bowman, \u201cTop 5 Awesome Play-Doh Facts,\u201d watchmojo, accessed February 23, 2018, https:\/\/www.watchmojo.com\/video\/id\/18331\/.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Guest Blogger: James C. Cox Overcoming Failures and Obstacles to be Successful Inventing new things is rarely successful on the first attempt. Persevering through these failures, learning from accidents, and developing ideas is a key step to ultimate success in any field. Below are ten anecdotes about people who had to overcome obstacles and failures.Continue reading “New Exhibit! Overcoming Obstacles & Failures!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":7078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14],"tags":[],"syndication":[35],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7061"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7061"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7111,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7061\/revisions\/7111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7061"},{"taxonomy":"syndication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/syndication?post=7061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>Mary Anderson<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a>James Dyson<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a>Constantin Fahlberg<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a>Heddy Lamarr<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n