EDUCATION

Inventure Place Spurs Activities Encouraging Creativity And Innovation • Akron center houses Inventors Hall of Fame, interactive science museum, and outreach programs to schools and industry

Programs are off to a running start at Inventure Place. The new center opened last month in Ak­

ron, Ohio, with the mission of becom­ing a national resource center "to in­spire creativity and invention," in the words of center President Richard G. Nichols (C&EN, July 31, page 7).

Three days of opening ceremonies spotlighted four Inventure Place activi­ties that seek to implement that mission: the National Inventors Hall of Fame, an interactive science museum, and ambi­tious outreach programs aimed both at schools and at industry.

The $38 million center is expected to attract more than 350,000 visitors per

year. It contains 77,000 sq ft divided into two parts: the Hall of Fame, with five tiers of multimedia exhibits, and the Inven­tor's Workshop, with 33 interactive hands-on exhibits. Dominating the futur­istic-looking facility is a "Great WalT with a soaring stainless steel "sail" arching to the top of the Hall of Fame. Visitors take an elevator to the fifth tier and explore as they descend each level, gaining insight into the inventive process and the inven­tors while viewing videos, photographs, text, models, and other artifacts.

The Hall of Fame was established in 1973 by the National Council of Patent Law Associations (now the National Council of Intellectual Property Law As­sociations) and the U.S. Patent & Trade­mark Office (PTO). Over the years, HaU of Fame exhibits were housed in in­creasingly unsuitable space in PTO's foyer in Washington, D.C., notes Rich­ard Maulsby, PTO director of public af­fairs. Efforts intensified to find a more appropriate setting.

In September 1987, Akron won the right to host the Hall of Fame over bids

from Philadelphia and Newark, N.J., Maulsby explains. "There was a tremen­dous grassroots effort out there, a tre­mendous amount of community enthu­siasm, and a lot of money raised" in a national campaign.

In 1990, he adds, the Hall of Fame moved annual inductions of new mem­bers to University of Akron facilities. And Inventure Place officials began to organize outreach activities to schools and businesses.

Hall of Fame members are selected by a committee of representatives from 40 U.S. scientific and technical organiza­tions, including the American Chemical Society. Criteria include whether a nom­inee's invention is covered by a U.S. patent, its contribution to the nation's welfare, and the extent to which it pro­motes the progress of science and useful arts.

With the seven inductees last month, there are now 120 members. More than a quarter of them have been honored for chemically related work.

Five of the inductees this year also

A student (left) creates a laser show by moving mirrors and gadgets at a hands-on exhibit in the Inventor's Workshop, and visitors to

the National Inventors Hall of Fame (right) view an exhibit.

AUGUST 21,1995 C&EN 4l

Chemists build living periodic table

Albert Einstein look-alikes carry a fabric panel representing element 99, einstei­nium, to help construct what the organizers call the world's largest periodic ta­ble at the soccer stadium of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. Teachers, students, and researchers participating in the ChemEd '95 Conference earlier this month combined 110 8-foot-square panels to form the 72-foot long and 144-foot wide table—spurred on by a monologue from a stand-in for table inventor Dmi­tri I. Mendeleev. Attended by more than 800 secondary school and college chem­istry teachers from the U.S., Germany, Mexico, Japan, Lesotho, Australia, and other countries, the biennial conference included some 270 demonstrations and workshops, as well as a 6.02-km run around campus—reflecting the number of atoms or molecules in a mole.

Richard Seltzer

EDUCATION

made chemically related inventions. Stephanie L. Kwolek, 72, did pioneering research at DuPont on p-aramid fibers that led to development of Kevlar. In­ventions by Waldo L. Semon, 96, at BF Goodrich included thermoplastic poly-urethane, a process for producing plasti-cized polyvinyl chloride, and a process for making synthetic rubber.

John C. Sheehan, a Massachusetts In­stitute of Technology professor who died in 1992, was honored for the total synthesis of penicillin. And chemists Jo­seph H. Burckhalter, 82, and Robert J. Seiwald, 70, were honored for synthesiz­ing fluorescein isothiocyanate, the first practical antibody-labeling agent, now widely used for diagnosis of infectious diseases.

The second part of Inventure Place, the Inventor's Workshop, contains inter­active exhibits to provide both adults and children "the opportunity to create a new invention or improve on one," al­lowing open-ended formulation and testing with no "right" answers. Kwolek tells C&EN that she was "fascinated by the interest children showed in the ex­hibits. They were not only learning, but having a good time."

And she was gratified by children lin­ing up to seek her autograph. "They had a lot of interest in Kevlar," she notes. In­deed, she stresses, "Inventors and scien­tists should be honored like sports he­roes or music stars are. And I would like to see children who do well in school getting greater recognition, too." She ex­pects Inventure Place to help advance these efforts.

In fact, Inventure Place's outreach programs to schools and workplaces to promote creativity are well under way, points out Executive Director Stephen Brand. Camp Invention, a summer day camp program enabling first to fifth graders to "play" science as they would play a sport, has a hands-on curriculum designed by Inventure Place and has been franchised out. It has expanded from two sessions in Akron in 1990 to 60 sites in 16 states. And a camp for sixth to eighth graders, Camp Ingenuity, is being tested in the Akron area this summer.

Another outreach program—Inven­tors: The Next Generation—seeks to mo­tivate minority students to choose ca­reers in science, technology, and engi­neering. A videotape has just been completed, funded by the GE Founda­tion, as part of a pilot program targeted at Cleveland inner-city middle schools.

42 AUGUST 21, 1995 C&EN

The tape features young minority scien­tist role models who do research or come up with inventions. The idea, Brand tells C&EN, is "to overcome the students' stereotype of scientists."

Moreover, since 1990, BF Goodrich and Inventure Place have sponsored the BF Goodrich Collegiate Inventors Pro­gram, a national competition awarding cash prizes for excellence in research, discoveries, and invention. Five students were awarded prizes during the center's opening festivities.

In the area of outreach to industry, Brand says Inventure Place will assem­ble a team by the end of the month to plan a program to assist inventors in obtaining patents and to help link them to major corporations and small busi­nesses through a database. The center also will organize and market corpo­rate training courses in creative think­ing and problem solving and supply services to businesses from a Resource Center for Creativity.

Indeed, during the opening ceremo­nies, Inventure Place held a forum called "Exploring the Creative Mind" that was oriented toward the workplace. Four­teen Hall of Fame members examined motivations, cognitive styles, and work environments that foster creativity.

Results of a mail survey of Hall of Fame members on the same topics were presented at the forum by Martha L. Picariello, a research consultant at Harvard University. The survey found that Hall of Fame members differ from the general population in their cognitive style: They try to solve problems by re­defining them, whereas most people work within the given parameters. Members also are markedly more intrin­sically motivated (by the challenge and enjoyment of their work) and less extrin-sically motivated (by compensation and recognition by other people). And most conducive to their creativity is a stimu­lating work environment, including sup­port from their work group, freedom to pursue ideas, and support from the overall organization.

Another finding is the crucial differ­ence between creativity and innova­tion. "Much less pivotal to an inven­tor's success," Picariello notes, "was the one moment in time—the 'Eure­ka!'—than the many months and often years of hard work that went into the process to bring their creative idea to its innovation potential. I can't stress enough the importance of having that tireless motivation."

Richard Seltzer