It’s reasonable to believe that the vast majority of toys for kids were made by people with strong backgrounds in marketing, advertising, or even the creative industries. But Lonnie G. Johnson, the creator of the Super Soaker, may have one of the most outstanding resumes in the field of toy creations. Johnson was a former engineer for the US Air Force and NASA.
Over the course of his illustrious career, which has lasted more than 40 years, he has worked on projects as diverse as the Stealth Bomber Program and the Jet Propulsion Lab, where he assisted in developing the nuclear power source for the Galileo mission to Jupiter.
The Super Soaker water gun, one of Johnson’s most recognised inventions, is now unquestionably one of the most well-known images of summertime fun that the world has ever known despite all of these highly specialised and scientific endeavours.
An instantly identifiable and consistently popular toy is the Super Soaker. The Super Soaker sold more than $200 million worth of merchandise in 1991 alone, and it has since maintained a position among the top 20 toys in the world in terms of sales.
Even so, Lonnie G. Johnson’s success was in no way guaranteed or even likely, despite the astronomical popularity of his exceptionally exquisite creation.
The Early Inventions Of Lonnie Johnson
On October 6, 1949, Lonnie George Johnson was born in a segregated Alabama and endured challenges from the start as an African American. Nevertheless, despite the circumstances of his environment, Johnson was able to develop his early analytical mind because to the encouragement of his parents. Johnson describes his early, happy memories of his father’s lessons in a 2016 piece for the BBC:
“It started with my dad. He gave me my first lesson in electricity, explaining that it takes two wires for electric current to flow – one for the electrons to go in, the other for them to come out. And he showed me how to repair irons and lamps and things like that.”
Once this spark was lit, Lonnie Johnson could not be stopped.
Lonnie destroyed his sister’s baby doll in order to discover what caused the eyes to close, according to his mother. Johnson once came dangerously close to burning down his house when he tried to make rocket fuel in one of his mother’s saucepans and it blew up on the stove.
His peers referred to him as “The Professor” because of his passion for engineering. One of the young “Professor’s” first inventions was a go-kart with a small scrap metal motor attached to it. The basic racecar only required a few running starts and steering wheel pushes to get it going on its own.
Johnson and his buddies were having a good time cruising the Alabama streets of their neighbourhood when the cops intervened. After all, the little go-kart was scarcely street legal despite its spectacular nature.
Johnson’s inquisitive intellect could blossom during the 1960s, which turned out to be a wise choice. In order to create his next significant work, Lonnie Johnson drew inspiration from well-known shows like Lost in Space and the Space Race as well as the nation’s growing preoccupation with an automated future. Compared to the junkyard engine he had previously built, this took a little more time and effort to complete.
Johnson entered his personal robot at the 1968 Junior Engineering Technical Society Fair at the University of Alabama after spending a full year developing it. Johnson’s entry, while already an impressive feat, gained even more significance because it was the only one from a high school with only black students.
The three and a half foot tall robot, known as Linux, had movable shoulders, elbows, and wrists, as well as the capacity to move and rotate on a set of wheels. Johnson won first prize in the fair as a result, and after graduating, he was given a mathematics and U.S. Airforce scholarship to attend Tuskegee University where he worked on stealth bombers.
“Despite the atrocities committed against my race, including detaining us as slaves, forbidding us from receiving an education, and subjecting us to ongoing prejudice and condemnation, we achieve anyway, to a very considerable extent. We only need to be aware of our potential.
Life As A NASA Engineer
Lonnie Johnson finally ended up at NASA after graduating from college. Johnson’s journey to the top space exploration organisation in the world is made all the more astounding by the fact that he was selected to work on the Galileo project, a position that is unquestionably desired for any engineer.
Sending an unmanned spacecraft to examine Jupiter and its numerous moons was part of the Galileo mission. Johnson’s main duties involved connecting the spacecraft’s nuclear power supply as well as powering the science equipment, computer, and power management system. True to Johnson’s nature, he still found time to innovate despite all of these crucial responsibilities.
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Becoming The Inventor Of The Super Soaker
Lonnie Johnson began testing a novel kind of refrigeration system in 1982 that would use water rather than CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), which harm the ozone layer. This prompted him to attach a motorised nozzle to the bathroom sink faucet where he was conducting some of his experiments.
The nozzle assisted in projecting a strong spray of water across the sink, and this seemingly unimportant incident planted the initial thought in Lonnie Johnson’s mind that an extremely potent water gun may be entertaining and successful.
He described the incident to Popular Mechanics, saying, “I unintentionally blasted a stream of water across a restroom where I was completing the experiment.” I then reflected, “This would make a terrific rifle,”
Lonnie Johnson’s Later Success And Life Today
When the Super Soaker debuted in 1990, its potential for future success was already apparent.
The toy, which was initially advertised as the Power Drencher, debuted on store shelves without any advertising or television commercials and nevertheless did pretty well in sales.
The Power Drencher was renamed the Super Soaker the following year, in 1991. Now that television advertisements were in its favour, sales of the water cannon skyrocketed.
Super Soaker helped Lonnie G. Johnson’s already renowned career soar by selling 20 million copies in just its first summer of release. Year after year, the Super Soaker would get better and better, but Johnson was also starting to create different Nerf gun models. Due to the fact that these toys could be sold all year round, they generated even greater royalty payments.
Lonnie Johnson has a net worth of over $360 million dollars, but he is not content to spend it all on expensive cars and private planes. Instead, the inventor invested his fortune in starting his own laboratory for scientific research in Atlanta, Georgia.
There, 30 people work for him on a variety of projects, including the creation of an all-ceramic battery that can store three times as much energy as its lithium-ion predecessor and a converter for solar power plants.
