Black History Month: Super Inventor

--> Super Inventor

Lonnie Johnson with a Super Soaker

Lonnie Johnson-The man who invented the Super Soaker® also worked for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and served in the United States Air Force. The idea for the Super Soaker® came to Johnson while testing an idea for a different type of cooling system for refrigerators (Tucker, 2003). As of 2002, Mr. Johnson held 60 patents, and had formed his own company, Johnson Research and Development (Modern, 2002). In addition to Mr. Johnson’s inventions, he also worked on the NASA Galileo and Cassini missions (Johnson, 2004).

For more information about Mr. Johnson, check out the articles below or visit his website, (http://johnsonrd.com/ie/).

To see all of the current Super Soaker® products, go to Hasbro’s website.   

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Sources:
Johnson Research & Development. (2004). Lonnie G. Johnson Profile. Retrieved from: http://johnsonrd.com/ie/lj/ljprofile.html

Modern Black Inventors. (2002, February 2). Jet. 107:7. P. 16.

Tucker, L. (2003, September 22). Ready, Set, Squirt! Science World. 60:2. pp. 18-20.