Harry T. Roman's Blog, page 15
April 25, 2017
Thomas Edison – On the Road Again
Between 1914 and 1924, American giants explored the woods and rural byways of America, in then Model T type vehicles. Some say they started the recreational camping craze that persists today.
Their arrival may first have been witnessed as a dusty caravan, jostling along some unpaved country road; or perhaps you and your horse stumbled upon their encampment, under aromatic balsam and fir trees-dinner al fresco tantalizing your nose.
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The vagabonds-Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, John Burroughs, and Harvey Firestone
Thomas Edison usually navigated the entourage in the lead vehicle with his trusty compass. Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone and famed environmentalist and prolific nature author John Burroughs in tow-all at a time when car travel over long distances was fraught with many hardships. Not to worry though, America’s preeminent mechanic, Henry Ford, was at the ready to keep the caravan rolling; and of course they rode on Firestone tires. Mr. Burroughs regaled the gang with his nature stories and keen observations.
It is all nicely told and interpreted at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFOOEShDEpo
Check this one out too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzuVsCfuHRg
It was these trips that got the Edison juices flowing for using native plants as a feedstock for artificial rubber-Tom’s last great research project.
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Fine dining under the balsam and fir tree canopy
In later years, the wives accompanied them on their eclectic sojourns, unstructured on purpose to promote relaxation, discussion and a re-connecting with nature. Ford even designed for their convenience two motorized “chuck wagons” to accompany the vagabond adventures.
The motor car decentralized the railroad, much like cell phones did to hard-wired telephone exchanges and other forms of traditional communications like “watching TV”. These men had changed the world and were exploring how it brought rural America into focus, and accessible. Perhaps it brings back memories and the excitement of the summer camps of your youth! Kind of reminds me of Willie Nelson’s iconic song … ”On the Road Again”. The vagabonds had their own kind of generational music.
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Rise and shine lads!
Thomas Edison said, “The world owes nothing to any man, but every man owes something to the world.”
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Left: Intel-Edison module now available world-wide for developers. Right: The “Tommy” award given by the Edison Innovation Foundation.
April 18, 2017
Thomas Edison Receives an Academy Award
In 1929, Edison was given one of the first honorary Academy Awards for his work in founding the motion picture industry. This celebration marked the approximate 40-year anniversary of the original motion picture achievements of Edison, and his building of the first motion picture studio—the Black Maria.
Movie film magic started at West Orange where many early short films were originally made and commercialized. This later gave way to longer films, generally shot on location and/or in a larger better equipped studio in New York City.
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A 1954 reproduction of the original Black Maria –the world’s first motion picture studio at TENHP.
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The 1931 Edison Academy Award
That honorary academy award now hangs in Edison’s famous library/office at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park (TENHP) in West Orange, NJ. Over forty of the great artists of the time including Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and Sarah Bernhardt signed their names on the award parchment.
With this new film industry, the first Hollywood and major film production companies took root in Fort Lee, New Jersey. In the early 1900s, Universal and 20th Century Fox studios were born in Fort Lee; and prior to WWI, there were 17 movie studios in town, employing many of the people there. By the mid- 1920s, the high cost of heating these studios and sunnier skies beckoned elsewhere, and the Hollywood we know today was born; but Fort Lee was America’s first film town.
Later, famed actors Mickey Rooney [Young Tom Edison, March-1940] and Spencer Tracy [Edison, the Man, May-1940] both portrayed Edison on the big screen.
Thomas Edison said, “If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves …”
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Left: Intel-Edison module now available world-wide for developers. Right: The “Tommy” award given by the Edison Innovation Foundation.
April 10, 2017
Thomas Edison’s Secret Labs: Animated STEM – Adventures for Kids
It’s all rolled together in the show called Thomas Edison’s Secret Lab® with the following story line … ”Unknown to the world, Thomas Edison had a secret lab where he invented a virtual version of himself and a nearly-completed robot to show kids how fun science can be! The secret lab, Edison’s virtual alter ego, and his prototype robot remained hidden until a 12-year-old prodigy cracked the secret coded message that Edison left behind. The young genius and her friends moved into the lab and added a virtual link for kids everywhere to join in their hilarious adventures”. The show has magic from the Big Bang Theory, a touch of Inspector Gadget, and a dash of The Jetsons.
The series combines clever comedic concoction of wild visual experiments and inventions with crazy characters getting caught up in amazing adventures. Meet the cast!
In various articles appearing on this website, we have discussed numerous times the powerful connection between Thomas Edison and the highly popular STEM learning paradigm now so visible in our nation’s middle schools. Several years ago, Genius Brands International in partnership with the Edison Innovation Foundation developed an animated STEM-based comedy adventure series for young students.
Check it out on YouTube
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Thomas Edison said, “My desire is to do everything within my power to free people from drudgery and create the largest measure of happiness and prosperity.”
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Left: Intel-Edison module now available world-wide for developers. Right: The “Tommy” award given by the Edison Innovation Foundation.
March 28, 2017
Intel-® Edison Awards for 2017
On March 24th, 2017, Intel and the Edison Innovation Foundation officially announced the winners of the 2017 “Tommy” award, named in honor of the great inventor, Thomas Edison. The winners are selected because they have used the Intel® Edison multi-function module in ways that epitomize the spirit and creativity of Edison. Here are the honorees.
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Beacon Of Hope
America and Penelope Lopez are known as the “The CyberCode Twins”. As Latina twin sisters born and raised in East Los Angeles, Now, they are on a mission to make communities safer thru wearable tech and mobile apps. Using Intel Edison, they built a device called Beacon of Hope designed to help in the fight against human trafficking. [For more info: Beacon of Hope]
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Openaps/900 Mhz Board
Dana Lewis, Scott Leibrand and Morgan Redfield for their work on the OpenAPS / 900 Mhz board. Keeping diabetic children alive at night. [For more info: WSJ Article – Tech Savvy Family Uses Home Built Diabetes]
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Smart Underwater Artificially Intelligent Camera Technology
Dr. Ryan Kastner and Antonella Wilby, researchers from the University of California, San Diego who built an artificially intelligent camera technology, powered by an Intel Edison module, that could lead to autonomous monitoring systems for tracking endangered species. [For more info: Smart Underwater Imaging Aims to Save Endangered Marine Species]
Congratulations to all!
The Intel® Edison multi-function module is a tiny, SD-card-sized powerhouse designed for building Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable computing products. The Edison module contains a high-speed, dual-core processing unit, integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, low energy, storage and memory, and a broad spectrum of input/output (I/O) options for interfacing with user systems. Because of its small footprint and low power consumption, the Edison module is an ideal choice for projects that need a lot of processing power without being connected to a power supply. All this can lower the barriers to entry for a range of inventors, entrepreneurs, and consumer product designers.
Thomas Edison said, “If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves …”
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Left: Intel-Edison module now available world-wide for developers. Right: The “Tommy” award given by the Edison Innovation Foundation.
March 20, 2017
Intel® Edison 2017 “Tommy” Awards
On March 24th, 2017, Intel and the Edison Innovation Foundation will announce the winners of the “Tommy” award, named in honor of the great inventor, Thomas Edison. The winners are selected because they have used the Intel® Edison multi-function module in ways that epitomize the spirit and creativity of Edison. Last year’s winners can be seen here.
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The First Place Winner of the 2016 awards ceremony was Shubham Banerjee for work in using the microprocessor to build his Braille Printer called “Braigo”
The Intel® Edison multi-function module is a tiny, SD-card-sized powerhouse designed for building Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable computing products. The Edison module contains a high-speed, dual-core processing unit, integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, low energy, storage and memory, and a broad spectrum of input/output (I/O) options for interfacing with user systems. Because of its small footprint and low power consumption, the Edison module is an ideal choice for projects that need a lot of processing power without being connected to a power supply. All this can lower the barriers to entry for a range of inventors, entrepreneurs, and consumer product designers.
Keep an eye out here for the 2017 winners … coming soon!
Thomas Edison said, “Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.”
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Left: Intel-Edison module now available world-wide for developers. Right: The “Tommy” award given by the Edison Innovation Foundation.
March 16, 2017
Thomas Edison, as Green as St. Patrick’s Day
Happy St. Patricks Day
Every year in the town of West Orange, home to the legendary Thomas Edison, lab and home, (National Historical Park), a vintage 1922 Model T automobile, given to Thomas Edison by Henry Ford, is driven in the large St. Patrick Day parade. This year marks the 66th year of that big parade.
During the parade, a park ranger drive the antique ford, chaperoning the superintendent of the park and family.
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The Model T bringing up the rear of the parade
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The rangers celebrate in front of the Model T
Normally, the Model T is housed in the Edison garage, which is sited on the historic home estate known as Glenmont. Here it is accompanied by two early Detroit Electric vehicles that were driven by his wife Mina, a 1914 Model 47 and a 1911 Model L-1.
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Edison’s garage at Glenmont
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Edison nickel-iron storage batteries
What is so unique about this garage is its history as probably the first to have an electric vehicle charging station integrated within.
Thomas Edison was using an overnight charging station here, way back in 1908, when the building was originally built [using his famous Portland cement formulation].
Today, we think it is quite sophisticated to charge our electric cars in our garages. Old Tom was doing it over 100 years ago.
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Original Edison electric vehicle charging station in Glenmont garage batteries
Environmentally, the garage is “as green as St. Patrick’s Day”. The batteries used in the vehicles are the famous Edison nickel-iron storage batteries, built at his nearby West Orange manufacturing complex, and whose rugged battery technology ushered in what we today refer to as alkaline storage cells.
Currently, the vehicles in the Edison garage are undergoing a conservation process to protect them against aging. The garage itself is being renovated with plans to convert it into a STEM education center for use by the many teachers and students who visit the park every year.
Contributions to help the Edison Innovation Foundation and Charles Edison Fund renovate the garage and cars are always appreciated:
DONATE NOW
Thomas Edison said, “I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others… I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”
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Left: Intel-Edison module now available world-wide for developers. Right: The “Tommy” award given by the Edison Innovation Foundation.
March 14, 2017
Edison Style, Diversity and Invention
[image error]Project managers know that a good mix of ideas from people with differing backgrounds and cultures goes a long way toward developing exciting and new inventions. It’s the soft side of team-based inventing, and it works. That, and a low flat organizational structure, promotes people interacting both horizontally and vertically-freely gaining new insights from the work of others, and using those insights in unique, sometimes disruptive ways.
The political world talks a great deal about diversity, but for as long as Edison created his project team concept and implemented his invention factory model for R&D [back in the 1870s/80s], diversity has been a staple of life for he and the many other inventors and entrepreneurs that followed—a kind of built-in humanitarian aspect of the inventive life.
Unfortunately, we don’t often think about inventors as humanitarians and champions of diversity. We callously spin them off as boring geeks and narrow-minded people, mocking them in movies [often forgetting that Edison created the movie industry]. These inventive men and women tend to see the world of ideas as totally neutral.
Just go to any technical conference or gathering of entrepreneurs and witness the huge diversity of men and women sharing ideas, technology, and partnering on new ventures. That, dear readers, is diversity in action; and that is what Edison was all about.
Thomas Edison said, “My desire is to do everything within my power to free people from drudgery and create the largest measure of happiness and prosperity.”
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Left: Intel-Edison module now available world-wide for developers. Right: The “Tommy” award given by the Edison Innovation Foundation.
February 27, 2017
Thomas Edison Makes Lemonade from Lemons
It’s just a heavy piece of concrete, a part of the old Yankee Stadium actually, but visitors to the Thomas Edison National Historical Park marvel at its form and weight, especially at the thick aggregate mix of stones and gravel within.
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Edison Cement in a chunk of Yankee Stadium.
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Yankee Stadium, around 1923.
This is what Edison’s Portland cement makes when properly mixed, a durable concrete that he used to build his factory buildings, garage and potting shed, as well as his concrete homes– and of course Yankee Stadium. About 68,000 barrels of Edison cement went into the construction of Yankee Stadium in 1923.
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An Edison concrete house today.
All this fine cement … resulted from a failed economic attempt to recoup the iron ore within the rock in mountainous western New Jersey, out by Sparta and Ogdensburg. All he was able to literally glean from this $1 million plus investment (which almost bankrupted him) was a “bag of lemons”. But being Edison, and not wont to give up easily, he was determined to make lemonade from it all.
[image error]Realizing the know-how (technology) of rock crushing was a valuable and potentially profitable new business, he switched gears from iron ore to Portland cement and did what he always did when he entered a new industry … he disrupted it. When he was done, the traditional 50-foot kilns used to roast the pre-cement constituents were increased to 200 feet-effectively quadrupling the productivity of a single kiln.
One of Edison’s great rules was never let failure get you down, always learn from it. Can you taste the sweet lemonade he made from rock crushing technology? Look at all the places in our world where cement is used! What an incredible material. All you entrepreneurs, inventors, and world-changers … banish discouragement, and go for it! Make Edison proud.
Thomas Edison said, “Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.”
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Left: Intel-Edison module now available world-wide for developers. Right: The “Tommy” award given by the Edison Innovation Foundation.
February 14, 2017
Thomas Edison Holds a Pitch Contest
Middle school student teams recently showed their ability to be both innovative and articulate as they pitched new product ideas to a panel of judges and competed for top honors in the Edison Innovation Foundation’s new Thomas Edison Pitch Contest. All this happened on a Saturday morning at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park [TENHP] in West Orange, NJ.
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The winners and their teacher mentor pose near the historic desk of famed inventor Thomas Edison on display at TENHP.
Competing teams from Heritage Middle School, Grover Cleveland Middle School, and Glen Rock Middle School put it all on the line to extoll the virtues of their ideas; and then answer tough questions about the viability of their designs. Here is how it all boiled down:
First Place- $1,000 to Heritage for the “Ultimate Air Quality Sensor”
Second Place- $500 to Glen Rock for the “Charging Solution”
Third Place- $250 to Grover Cleveland for the “Motorized Brush Cleaner”
With the award money, the teams can now develop prototypes of their product ideas, and will report on their success by the end of the school year in a written report back to the Foundation. The contest exemplifies how in the STEM-rich business world new ideas are first conceived, funding is obtained for their development [the pitch] and how actual prototypes are built and evaluated.
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The three finalist teams and their teacher mentors enjoying a group photo at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park where the contest finals were held.
From the very desk in the photo above, Thomas Edison launched his famous invention factory concept which later became the foundation for R&D labs worldwide and the STEM process our children study in school today. It was not unusual for Edison to manage 30-40 new product development teams all the time.
Based on the success of this pitch contest, the Foundation plans to significantly increase the size of this contest in the near future.
Thomas Edison was there in spirit to listen to what these young entrepreneurs had to propose. That you can be sure of! He would have hired these talented future leaders.
Thomas Edison said, “I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it.”
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Left: Intel-Edison module now available world-wide for developers. Right: The “Tommy” award given by the Edison Innovation Foundation.
February 6, 2017
Happy Birthday Thomas Edison: February 11th
Have you noticed how big this STEM educational movement sweeping our nation’s schools has become? We hear talk about students using heads and hands to solve practical problems, working in teams, keeping invention notebooks, learning from failure, thinking in multi-dimensional ways and integrating their subject matter. Students also often participate in numerous Maker Faires held in many countries all year long. Here students showcase their creative and entrepreneurial skills, doing exactly what Thomas Edison did when he coalesced interest [and investment potential] in his new technologies and inventions. Some organizations sponsor “Pitch Contests” to allow participants to pitch their projects to a panel of judges with the hope that a venture capital group ultimately will fund the commercialization of the project.
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A recent Maker Faire held in New York City with a popular symbol embodying robotic technology.
The STEM movement derives directly from Edison’s greatest accomplishment— the invention factory/R&D labs. It was the economic disruptive force of its time, remaining vitally important today. He gave us the keys to the industrial revolution of the late 1880s-the code book, the process, for continuous innovation. STEM and Maker Faires are the first step for tomorrow’s innovators to cut their teeth on the transition from new idea to working prototype.
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Students engaged in team-based problem solving and the making of prototypes.
All you teachers out there who lead teams of students through STEM activities and projects, you are acting just like Edison did as he managed 30-40 project teams at a time at his famous West Orange Labs. There his teams developed new products like phonographs, electrical equipment and the entire electric utility system, movie production, electric vehicle storage batteries, major advances in the making and use of concrete and many other technological advances and improvements. Think of your leadership of student teams as managing in-school Maker Faires!
Consider what people in the know have said about TAE’s life’s work:
The technology, inventions and industries that he created still account for $1.6 trillion [about 10%] of annual U.S. economy, and about $8 trillion of the world economy;
Life Magazine [1996] proclaimed him the “Man of the Millennium” i.e. the man of the millennium-1,000 years!;
TIME Magazine featured him on the cover of a special July 2010 history issue-proclaiming him so “relevant” to our world today;
Edison is the human icon for invention and creativity; and he is an inspiration to generations of inventors and entrepreneurs.
This deserves a big Happy Birthday Thomas Edison on February 11, don’t you think!
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Check out these sites for plenty of additional information about Edison:
Facebook.com/ThomasEdison
ThomasEdison.org
Instagram.com/thomasedison1847
Linkedin.com
“Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.”
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Left: Intel-Edison module now available world-wide for developers. Right: The “Tommy” award given by the Edison Innovation Foundation.
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