March is Women’s History Month. To celebrate, every Friday we’re going to take a look at at female inventor whose work has had a lasting impact on our lives.

By revolutionizing the infant care industry, inventor of the disposable diaper, Marion Donovan, is the woman destined to become the patron saint of moms and caretakers everywhere. Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1917, Marion O’Brien grew up in atmosphere of creativity and machinery. After her mother died when she was seven, Donovan spent most of her free time in the factory run by her uncle and father who were both inventors.  This time in her family’s factory instilled her with a curiosity for how things worked.   Later, she moved east to attend Rosemont College in the suburbs of Philadelphia where she earned her degree in English Literature in 1939.  After graduation she became an Assistant Beauty Editor for Vogue Magazine in New York.  She soon met and married James Donovan, a leather importer and within a few years Donovan resigned from her position, had children and relocated to Westport, Connecticut.

It was motherhood that gave Donovan the inspiration to rekindle her childhood innovative instincts.  While raising her children, Donovan faced, like all mothers, the exhausting habit of constantly changing soiled cloth diapers, which at that time also meant soiled sheets and clothing.  She developed her first prototype of the diaper cover in 1946 after sitting down at her sewing machine with several shower curtains.  Her result was the first waterproof diaper that wicked moisture away from the baby and didn’t cause a rash. She called this the “Boater” because it helped babies “stay afloat”. Her final product was made of nylon and held together with snaps in stead of the previously used safety pins.

After her invention of the first diaper cover, it took Donovan nearly ten years to gather interest for her product until Victor Mills, the creator of Pampers, capitalized on her idea.  It was during this time that she went back to school to earn a degree in Architecture from Yale in 1958, where she was one of only three women in her graduating class.  In total, Donovan was granted over 20 patents for her other inventions in addition to the  4 for the diaper cover and on November 4, 1998, at the age of 81, Marion Donovan passed away at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York.

Sources:
MIT: Inventor of the Week
Wikipedia: Marion Donovan
Cal Poly Pomona: Marion Donovan
MetroActive: The Bottom Line



You asked, we listened.

Beginning tomorrow, our weekly product evaluation meeting will be livestreamed for the world to see.

Tune in at 7pm ET for an inside look at how we decide what products to put through the Quirky process… all in glorious high definition!

What: Live Eval

Where: Quirky’s Ustream Channel

When: Tomorrow (3/22), 7pm ET

Footnote is moving into production!  Our retailers are confident in the product.  Take a look at it in the Upcoming Section and help us determine the price, by playing the Pricing Game.

Congratulations to Jack T. and all of the 1,450 community members that helped influence the product!

Quirky inventor, Mark Goldman, stopped by the office to discuss his product, the carrying device for bicycles, which is currently under development.

You’ve always got a light with Strike, a pocket sized replacement for your matchbook. Combining smart design with function, Strike is essential for both storing and lighting matches. Its top dial twists open to dispense one match at a time, while its unique strike material-coated barrel allows you to light one as you’re removing it. Need a quick surface to light other matches you have on hand? Strike’s textured bottom will ignite strike-anywhere matches, while its included removable sticky strike pads will light the rest.

Thomas Hyland came up with the idea for Strike while meditating on how to simplify and modernize the classic matchbox. The Quirky Design Staff and 1535 influencers helped bring Strike to the Upcoming section, where you can see it for yourself today.

Features:
– Holds around 45 matches
– Dispenses one match at a time
– Emergency strike area on the bottom
– Bottom swings open for refilling matches
– Includes a pack of sticky strike pads

Materials:
Brushed Stainless Steel

Dimensions:
60mm H x 40mm W x 20mm D

Price, qty and features subject to change during production process

Top of the Monday to ya!  Here are the results of last Tuesday’s special brainstorm with inventor Mark Goldman’s presence and Wednesday’s brainstorm (click images to enlarge):

Product 253: Bike Bracket

Product 282 – Hanging Plates

Product 283 - Plug Pull

Check out these brainstorms presented in their entirety:

Video streaming by Ustream

That’s the recap.  We’ll be tackling two more products on Wednesday.  This week’s topics are:

-Hot Glue Gun

-The Fan

If you’re new to brainstorms, allow us to explain. Every week, QDS blows a few product ideas wide open to kick off the design process. You can take part in that. Here’s how:

1. Topics are posted above. In your wildest dreams, what would be the perfect way to make that product? What should it do, and what problems should it prevent? It’s a brainstorm, so anything goes.

2. Visit the Quirky Brainstorm Channel at 6pm ET on Wed. Log in on Ustream and throw ideas at us in the live chat.

3. Can’t join the live brainstorm? Be sure to add your comments here before Wed at 6pm, and we’ll have them in mind.

See ya’ll there!

Ben and Dan Volpov run a tire and wheel company in Vancouver, Canada.  Dan is the operation manager of the stores, and Ben is the marketing director. One day, when Dan was going to a party at a friend’s house, he had to borrow his parents’ folding chairs. The problem was, these folding chairs, like many folding chairs, are too bulky and heavy to easily transport, they never stand up straight, and they always scratch the floor. After that party he realized that he wanted to come up with a better solution, so he went to his brother and the two of them developed this idea. They created a flat-folding chair that can easily be stored so that it can be brought out when it is needed.  Quirky was really intrigued by this idea and we are going to move forward with it to see if with the right materials they can make a folding chair that completely folds flat.

Jess Nixon grew up in a very small town in northern Florida, and she is now a skin therapist in New York City.  After attending the Quirky party last month, she was inspired by the positive, creative energy while people were collaborating and she wanted to be a part of the action.  She began brainstorming by asking herself what are staple items that can be improved upon.  She felt that the umbrella was a natural choice as it is so common and widely used. Plus, she remembered working in a busy salon where the clients would come in on rainy days and inevitably drip a wake of water runoff as they made their way through their appointment.  That is how Jess came up with the umbrella bag that can be pulled out to store an umbrella after it has gotten drenched in the rain, and then is stored in the handle. Quirky would like to explore this idea further by experimenting with how they can add it on to existing umbrellas.

Bob Wan Kim is an entrepreneur who grew up in La Jolla, CA. When visiting Hong Dae, which is “the hippest college town in Korea”, he noticed every girl had charms hanging from her phone.  He found that a lot of women love the charms that go on phones, but they would have to buy bulky iPhone cases just to have a charm that can hang from their phone. He came up with this iPhone lanyard clip that can stick right onto the iPhone so that no one has to buy a case just to add a charm or a lanyard that goes around his or her wrist. Quirky thought this was definitely worth looking into and exploring its possibilities.

Ed LovVorn is an artist from Villa Rica, Georgia. In his spare time, he likes to watch YouTube videos to work on his own do-it-yourself projects. Originally, Ed set out to make a robotic toy, but stumbled upon a DIY video featuring a man showcasing the battery saving product he had created. Ed was amazed at how complex the product was, and realized that the electronic parts that he created for his toy could also be used to revive batteries. Ed explains his product as “clearing the clogged pipes of a battery” and Quirky is very interested in seeing how we can take this idea and configure the electronic parts to get the most out of a consumer’s battery.

March is Women’s History Month. To celebrate, every Friday we’re going to take a look at a female inventor whose work has had a lasting impact on our lives.

Bette Nesmith Graham

Not all great inventions are patented by chemists and engineers. Sometimes, the perfect solution to a problem can be found in the most unlikely place. For Bette Nesmith Graham, the inventor of liquid paper, that place was her artist’s studio.

Born in Dallas, TX in 1924, Graham started her young life with a strong desire to become a painter. However, once she and her husband were divorced following his return from WWII, she found herself the single mother of her young son, and took a job as a secretary at Texas Bank & Trust to make ends meet. Though a talented typist, Graham discovered that the new IBM electric typewriters made it impossible to remove mistakes with an eraser, due to the carbon-film ribbons they used. Frustrated at having to retype entire pages due to a single mistake, she realized that the same solution she used as a painter could be applied to her typing: rather than erase a mistake, why couldn’t she just paint over it?

Working out of her kitchen with only her wits and a blender, Graham experimented with tempera paint until she found a tone and consistency that matched her stationary. By 1951 she had begun using her solution at her job, and found it worked so well that even her boss didn’t notice the corrections. Soon, requests for her miraculous concoction started flooding in from other secretaries, and Graham began to sell her product under the name Mistake Out in 1956, mixing and bottling it out of her home with the help of her son Michael (later the guitarist for the band The Monkees). However, despite spending long nights filling orders, the gross profits she made were minimal.

A variety of Graham’s products on display at the Women’s Museum in Dallas, TX.

Graham’s big break came when she was fired from her post at Texas Bank & Trust (there are some mistakes that even liquid paper can’t correct). She spent the next few years refining the formula to her invention, and by 1958 she had applied for both a patent and trademark, rebranding the product as “Liquid Paper.” Ten years later, her multi-million dollar operation was pumping out over 1 million bottles each year, and the company’s rapid growth continued until it was sold by Graham to Gilette for $47.5 million, six months before her death in 1980.

The moral of the story? Inspiration (and a river of cool millions) can really come from anywhere, so be sure to keep your mind, eyes and ears wide open!

Sources:
Wikipedia
MIT website
Famous Women Inventors
About.com

Put a cork to your bottles rolling around in the fridge with the simple, but elegant, Vine.  If you’re out of space to store your bottle vertically it can now be placed stylishly on its side by simply sliding Vine over the neck of your favorite bottle.  When Vine is not in use they are easily stackable and stored.  Let the good times roll–not your bottles!

Inventor Marc Rumaner has limited space in his fridge and often had to place his wine bottles horizontally in his fridge.  When he opened the fridge again he would find that his bottle had rolled to the other side.  Loving wine, we found this to be a problem too so with the help of Quirky designers and 2537 influencers Vine is here to save the day.  Stop what you’re doing and visit the Upcoming section right now!

Features:
-Easily slides and secures onto bottle necks
-Fits standard 750ml bottles and larger

Materials:
-Silicone

Dimensions:
-76mm x 13mm x 76mm

Price, qty and features subject to change during production process