So as a young, African-American inventor, Johnson certainly wasn’t made to feel welcome, and yet, he won that science fair. This was less than five years after Governor Wallace was at the schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama and said this school isn’t going to be desegregated. These were just people inside robot costumes, but he built an air-powered robot in his teens called “Linex” and won in a science fair at the University of Alabama in 1968. Early on he was inspired by robots he’d seen on TV shows. From a very early age he was a tinkerer he loved taking things apart and putting them back together. But Lonnie certainly had more credentials than most.Ĭhris Barton, author of Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson’s Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions, a biography for young readers: Lonnie Johnson grew up in Mobile, Alabama. Most toy inventors have a bright idea they have that “eureka” moment or they come up with something that they think is marketable or fun. Though it was conceived in 1982 and wouldn’t hit the market until 1990, it was in February 1989 when NASA engineer Lonnie Johnson first met with the toy company Larami to pitch his idea for a revolutionary new water gun.Ĭhris Bensch, vice president of collections at the Strong Museum of Play, home of the National Toy Hall of Fame : I have to say, Lonnie Johnson is probably the most seriously overqualified toy inventor I can think of. This year marks the 30th anniversary of when the Super Soaker story truly began to take shape.

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