Lonnie Johnson, the rocket scientist and Super Soaker inventor

To celebrate Black History Month, Engadget is running a series of profiles honoring African-American pioneers in the world of science and technology. Today we take a look at the life and work of Lonnie Johnson.

Lonnie Johnson shouldn't be fairly a family title, however a lot of his well-known creations, like the Super Soaker, are. To actually admire Johnson's achievements, we should always begin at the starting. Ever since he was a toddler in Mobile, Alabama, he needed to be a maker and a creator. In 1968, at Williamson High School, then an all-black faculty, Johnson designed a 4-foot tall, distant-managed robotic, which he labored on for over a yr and constructed utilizing scrap metallic. He referred to as it "Linex," and it received him the foremost prize at a science honest that 12 months. Johnson recollects being the solely minority scholar in the competitors, which was hosted by the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa -- a spot recognized for making an attempt to dam black college students from enrolling. "The solely factor anyone from the college stated to us throughout the complete competitors was, 'Goodbye,' and, 'Y'all drive protected now,'" he advised Biography.comin an interview. Eventually, Johnson earned the nickname "The Professor," a moniker that years later would appear ever so becoming.

After graduating from Williamson High School, Johnson attended Tuskegee University in his residence state of Alabama, incomes a bachelor's diploma in mechanical engineering and a grasp's in nuclear engineering in 1973 and 1975, respectively. He then determined to comply with in the footsteps of his father, a World War II veteran, and joined the US Air Force, the place he was assigned to the Strategic Air Command and labored on the improvement of the department's stealth bomber program. In 1979, Johnson started his profession at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. There, he turned concerned with a number of ventures as a programs engineer, together with the Galileo mission to Jupiter and the Mars Observer venture. He was additionally a part of the Cassini mission to Saturn, serving to design the robotic probe that traveled greater than 900 million miles to our ringed neighbor.

Johnson by no means let the naysayers get the higher of him. He was advised to not aspire to something past being a easy technician. But he clearly went on to be a lot, way more. He attributes his success partly to the nice African-American inventor George Washington Carver, whose story of perseverance Johnson admired and used as motivation. It actually paid off. Even whereas working for the Air Force and NASA, Johnson used no matter spare time he needed to tinker with aspect initiatives of his personal. It was this manner that the concept for the now-well-known Super Soaker happened.

The squirt gun, which was initially often called the "Power Drencher," was born after Johnson tried to create a water-primarily based, eco-pleasant warmth pump that did not require any Freon. After making some jet pumps for it, he said to Popular Mechanics, "B by accident shot a stream of water throughout a toilet the place B was doing the experiment and thought to myself, 'This would make a fantastic gun.'" Johnson added that the first model of the gun had the pressurized water and air inside a Plexiglas physique, however after ironing out a variety of iterations, he then determined to place the bottle on the high -- a function that may find yourself making its technique to the retail model.

"B unintentionally shot a stream of water throughout a toilet the place B was doing the experiment and thought to myself, 'This would make an awesome gun.'"

The business model of the Super Soaker wasn't some unintentional success, nevertheless; it was years in the making. Johnson was pushed by religion in his invention to depart his job at the Air Force and NASA to start out his personal engineering firm, Johnson Research and Development. Shortly after, the Atlanta-primarily based firm licensed its Super Soaker invention to Larami Corporation, the firm that finally introduced the toy to market in 1989. In an interview with The New York Times, Johnson recalled what it was like assembly with Larami Corporation to point out them an early, working prototype of the Super Soaker, which he was carrying in a pink Samsonite suitcase.

It was a "basic scenario" for an inventor, he stated. "B had purchased a milling machine and made all of the components myself out of PVC pipe and Plexiglas." Still, what fearful him most was that his concept could be underestimated due to who he was, noting that almost all of his profession as an engineer he was positioned in environments the place he was the solely individual of coloration.

Naturally -- as a result of what child does not wish to have a water gun? -- the Super Soaker took the world by storm and grew to become an instantaneous hit. More than 25 years because it initially hit the client market, it is estimated the Super Soaker has earned greater than $S billion in gross sales. Not lengthy after the launch, Larami Corporation was bought by Hasbro, which took the Super Soaker into an entire new world -- in spite of everything, Hasbro was, and nonetheless is, one in every of the greatest toy producers in the world. Unfortunately, the relationship between Hasbro and Johnson did not play out easily; in a while, each events would get entangled in a licensing battle that resulted in the Super Soaker inventor receiving a whopping $73 million in royalties.

While the Super Soaker is, certainly, Johnson's most recognizable badge of honor, it is undoubtedly not his just one. Along with the widespread toy, he is additionally chargeable for inventing reminiscence-protected circuitry for the Galileo mission, which he says is correct up there with the Super Soaker in terms of his favourite creations. Most just lately, Johnson invented the aptly named Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Converter, an enhanced heating system that may effectively flip photo voltaic vitality into electrical energy. In different phrases, Johnson, who at present holds over eighty patents (plus 20 extra which can be pending), nonetheless has a significant ardour for inventing -- these days he is much less about toys, although, and extra about discovering methods to make the world more efficient.