Flash of Genius - Windshield Wiper Wipeout

I love a great car girl movie and with much anticipation am looking forward to a movie night with the girls to go see this new movie - Flash of Genius!  It is based on the true story of college professor and part-time inventor Robert Kearns's (Greg Kinnear) long battle with the U.S. automobile industry, "Flash of Genius" tells the tale of one man whose fight to receive recognition for his ingenuity would come at a heavy price.  But this determined engineer refused to be silenced, and he took on the corporate titans in a battle that nobody thought he could win.

The Kearns were a typical 1960s Detroit family, trying to live their version of the American Dream.  Local university professor Bob married teacher Phyllis (Lauren Graham) and, by their mid-thirties, had six kids who brought them a hectic but satisfying Midwestern existence.  When Bob invents a device that would eventually be used by every car in the world, the Kearns think they have struck gold.  But their aspirations are dashed after the auto giants who embraced Bob's creation unceremoniously shunned the man who invented it.

Ignored, threatened, and then buried in years of litigation, Bob is haunted by what was done to his family and their future.  He becomes a man obsessed with justice and the conviction that his life's work -- or for that matter, anyone's work -- be acknowledged by those who stood to benefit.  And while paying the toll for refusing to compromise his dignity, this everyday David will try the unthinkable: to bring Goliath to his knees.

Opens tomorrow, Friday October 3rd, 2008, in theaters!

http://www.flashofgenius.net/


Jody DeVere
CEO/President
www.askpatty.com
www.carblabber.com

Ignored, threatened, and then buried in years of litigation, Bob is haunted by what was done to his family and their future.  He becomes a man obsessed with justice and the conviction that his life's work -- or for that matter, anyone's work -- be acknowledged by those who stood to benefit.  And while paying the toll for refusing to compromise his dignity, this everyday David will try the unthinkable: to bring Goliath to his knees.

Opens tomorrow, Friday October 3rd, 2008, in theaters!

http://www.flashofgenius.net/


Jody DeVere
CEO/President
www.askpatty.com
www.carblabber.com

Comments

[Mirabella]

If you want more inspirational stories about independent inventors, check out www.inventionzoo.com, the site dedicated to celebrating independent inventors and their inventions. There you can see clever products with short bios on their respective inventors.

[Jody DeVere]

Mary Anderson invented the windshield wiper, a patent was issued to her for this product that make 80% of your driving decisions. Did you know that?

While Mary was a passenger on a streetcar in New York, she noticed that the street car driver had to periodically stop and wipe the windows. On some occasions the driver would open the windows so that he/she could see where to drive. When these drivers were subject to inclement weather such as snowstorms, they would stop the vehicle to wipe the snow off of the windshield and windows. Then she realized that automobiles had the same problem.

So, she created a device for cleaning the windshield from inside of the car, a lever, that would swing an arm over the windshield to provide visibility to the driver. The first windshield wipers to be invented were rubber blades attached to an arm. A lever was also installed in the cars for movement of the wipers. The blades would swing across the windshield attached to a spring-loaded arm. The spring-loaded arm would cause the blades to swing across the windshield and then return to the original position.

Mary noticed this and invented the windshield wipers in 1903 and a patent was issued in 1905. By 1916, the windshield wipers were a standard feature on all American cars.

On those rainy days, we always find that the windshield wipers so important. Most drivers don't even think about their wiper blades. How would we manage without them on those stormy and rainy days?