I would say that engineering has been a very positive experience overall, but usually coming into the situation it would be one of being underestimated. People would actually have low expectations. But I would take advantage of it quite honestly, because I would take my time to underestimate the situation.
— Lonnie Johnson
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.
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.
There was a time in my life when I was independently wealthy.
I don't think there's any project that I started that I ever stopped working on.
That's one of the advantages of being an inventor and tinkerer - I have everything I need to make what I need.
Nobody's going to step in and dump a lot of money and make it easy. Unless you have a lot of money, you have to pay your dues and make a personal sacrifice.
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.
I am a nuclear engineer. I'm working on advanced energy technology. I have a new type of the engine that converts heat into electricity, and I've also developed a new type of battery that's all ceramic, without liquid electrolyte.
Most of my career as an engineer, I was put in environments where I was the only person of color in the room.
I have a collection of SuperSoakers. I have managed to keep most of them.
After I graduated from Tuskegee with a masters in nuclear engineering, the draft was on so I signed up for ROTC. I figured if I had to go into the military, I'd rather go in as an officer.
I received a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, then graduated with a masters in nuclear engineering.
I have never really understood why in this country so many people look down on black people.
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.
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.
Especially when you have a lot of technology you're developing as a small company, trying to protect that technology is a real problem.
I consider myself a general practitioner. I do electronic things. I do toys and water things, mechanical stuff. I'm very, very flexible.
As an inventor, it's a rite of passage to have an engine. I'd like to have my own engine someday.
I love playing around with ideas and turning them into something useful or fun.
Persevere. That's what I always say to people. There's no easy route.
Sitting still, a person produces about 100 watts of heat. What if you could use that to charge your cell phone?
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.
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.
There are maybe three inventions I have that I rank as my top inventions that I'm most proud of. The robot I built in high school, the memory-protected circuitry for the Galileo and the Super Soaker.
I wound up getting offered a job at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory where I invented a power supply mechanism for the Galileo space craft which was in orbit around Jupiter until 2003.
In 1975, I was called to active duty in the Air Force, studying U.S. space launches that used nuclear power. I felt it was a big deal to be involved in such an important project - we were providing technical support for launch recommendations that ultimately went to the president.
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.
I think America's strength is in innovation.
Peer review is fine, as long as you're making incremental improvements to a technology.
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.
Lady Luck is indifferent. She smiles sometimes, and she frowns sometimes.
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.
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.
Being an independent inventor is tough. You develop a product, patent it, then you're looking for someone who will see the benefit from this technology. You assume all the investment and all the risk. It can be a challenge.
The invention that most people know me for is the Super Soaker water gun. I knew the gun worked well, and I knew it would be successful. I did not realize how successful it would be.
I was working on a heat pump that used water as a working fluid, and I made some jet pumps for it. I accidentally shot a stream of water across a bathroom where I was doing the experiment and thought to myself, 'this would make a great gun.'
I got my first patent in 1979 before I left the Air Force. I called it the Digital Distance Measuring Instrument. It used ones and zeros and dots and dashes and a magnifying lens to read binary-encoded information from a scale that was photographically reduced. It used the same kind of technology that's used in CDs and DVDs.
In 1968 when I was in high school I built a four-foot-tall remote control robot with pneumatic cylinders that operated his hands. My robot won first place at a science competition at the University of Alabama where my high school was the only African-American school represented. That was a huge moral victory.
I've always liked to tinker with things.
