Do you have imagination? Do you like to solve problems? Can you? If so, you could be the next great inventor. “But I’m just a kid，” you might say! Don’t worry about a little thing like age. For example, one famous inventor — Benjamin Franklin — got his start when he was only 12. At that young age, he created paddles for his hands to help him swim faster. Finally his creation led to what we know is called flippers!

So you don’t have to be an adult to be an inventor. One thing you do need, though, is something that kids have plenty of: curiosity and imagination. Kids are known for looking at things in new and unique ways.

So what should you do if you have what is a great idea for an invention? Talk to a friend or family member about it. Get input from others about your idea. Then ask them to help you create a working model — called a prototype (原型) — of your idea.

Once you have a prototype, you can test it. Sometimes your idea turns out to be not as great as you thought. At other times, though, you realize it is a good idea and your prototype can help you figure out how to make it even better.

If your idea is really a good one, an adult can help you contact companies that might be interested in it. You will also want an adult’s help to get a patent (专利权) for your idea, so that it is protected and can’t be stolen by someone else. If you need some inspiration, consider these kids and their inventions：

Jeanie Low invented the Kiddie Stool when she was just 11. It’s a folding stool that fits under the kitchen sink. Kids can unfold it and use it to reach the sink all by themselves.

At the age of 15, Louis Braille invented the system named after him that allows the blind to read.

Chelsea Lanmon received a patent when she was just 8 for the “pocket diaper”， a new type of diaper that includes a pocket for holding baby wipes and powder.

James Dyson is the inventor of the cyclone(气旋) Dyson vacuum cleaner that completely transformed the way vacuum cleaners are designed. Traditional vacuum cleaners would suck up air and dust using a fan and then the dust was filtered by the pores(气孔) in the bag. The dust stayed in the bag and the air escaped. The problem with that design was that the pores in the bag very quickly get blocked with the dust, the air couldn’t escape and so the sucking power and cleaning efficiency drops.

Dyson’s cyclone technology doesn’t use any bags at all. Air is sucked into a plastic cone-shaped object. The dust is separated from the air thanks to centrifugal forces(离心力). The dust falls to the bottom and is collected in a tray and pure air escapes. No blocking, no loss of suction and no smells.

It took him 15 years of his life and over 5,000 prototypes working in his garage to come up with a working model! Completing the design of the cyclone cleaner was just the start of Dyson’s incredible story. You would think that the manufacturers of traditional cleaners would have been eager to do a deal with Dyson in order to license his superior product. — Wrong!

From their short-sighted perspective, they didn’t want to pay Dyson licensing fees for his invention because that would reduce their net profit. In their opinion, they could just carry on with their inferior product and continue making their massive profits. They refused to do business with Dyson, certain that his invention would go away without their investment.

Most people would have just given up there. Not Dyson. He made the decision to start his own manufacturing company and to beat them at their own game. In 1993, he set up a factory in the UK to produce the Dyson Dual Cyclone and then started advertising it directly to the British public using TV ads with the slogan “Say goodbye to the bag”. It was a huge success and went on to outsell cleaners made by the very same manufacturers that had rejected him. Sweet revenge.

Scientists are developing unmanned planes—called drones—what can collect weather information from the atmosphere.

Weather experts say their weather forecasts would be more accurate if they had information from many parts of the atmosphere. They already place satellites, drones and balloons at different altitudes (高度). And they use radar (雷达) and collect information from equipment on towers. But that information only helps experts predict weather conditions for the next few days. It does not help predict changes in the next few hours. This is very important where sudden, violent storms happen.

So scientists at Oklahoma State University are developing new drones to collect information from more parts of the Earth’s atmosphere. This will help forecasters improve predictions about local weather conditions.

Jamey Jacob is an aerospace engineer and a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Oklahoma State University. He and other scientists at the university are developing small drones that do not cost a lot of money but can fly for hours, collecting information from many atmospheric levels.” Oklahoma is a really good example, because even though we’re already a very weather-dynamic (动态天气的) state, Oklahoma only has two balloon launches a day—one at dawn and one at dusk—from a single location in the state, and that’s where all the weather forecasting information comes from. So that data is really sparse, and it’s difficult for weather experts to get a very good idea about how that weather is changing from these very limited number of data points.”

Phillip Chilson, a professor of meteorology (气象的) at Oklahoma State University, says the drone program should give researchers a low-cost way of understanding storms better, and improve computer-based forecasting. The drone can measure atmospheric conditions, send live video to forecasters, and help search for people hurt in storms. “Our real goal is to try to develop systems. I don’t want to say they will replace weather balloons but there may be that possibility. Researchers still have a lot of work to do before the drones are ready. That includes making sure the drones know how to stay away from other planes.”