Crowe Ellie - Hardcore inventing: the IP[superscript]3 method: invent, protect, promote, and profit

Copyright 2009 by Rob Yonover and Ellie Crowe

Illustrations 2009 by Micah Fry

Cover art 2009 by Kyle Kolker

Introduction 2014 by Rob Yonover

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Rain Saukas

Cover photo credit Thinkstock

Print ISBN: 978-1-62914-426-9

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62914-978-3

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Foreword

by Louis Zamperini

Louis Zamperini, a 1936 Olympian and WWII U.S. Army Air Corps bombardier, survived forty-seven days at sea in an open raft and two years of torture as a prisoner of war. He was an inspirational speaker on life skills and forgiveness and coauthor, with David Rensin, of Devil at My Heels . The major Hollywood film Unbroken , directed by Angelina Jolie and based on the bestselling book by Lauren Hillenbrand, depicts the events of his life. During his ordeals, Lucky Louie invented in order to survive.

I FIRST CROSSED PATHS WITH DR. ROB YONOVER IN 1998. Hed been watching a television broadcast of the Winter Olympics, which were held in Nagano, Japan, and had seen me carrying the Olympic torch through a city in which Id once spent miserable years as a prisoner of war. After listening to a CBS interview with me about my experiences of survival at sea, he located my telephone number and called me.

I saw your interview and heard your story of survivalit was awesome, Rob said. Im an inventor from Hawaii. You know when you were on a life raft lost at sea and they flew over you? Ive invented a long orange streamer that would have given you a tail so they could see you.

To me, that sounded pretty good! Where were you fifty years ago? I replied. Robs inventions would have been a great addition to that life raft bobbing unseen for forty-seven days in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Ive got to say that the strongest emotion in human experience is going down in a plane, knowing youre going to die. A close second is when youre adrift in the open ocean and the rescue planes fly right over you and dont spot you!

Inventing is close to my heart. Even as a rebellious kid I was pretty inventive, though perhaps not in the best ways. My hook-and-toilet-paper invention to obtain coins from pay-phone slots worked well, and my slightly used tobacco made from unraveled cigarette butts and sold in Prince Albert tins was quite popular with unsuspecting pipe smokers! My milk bottle, coated white inside to create the appearance of milk, but actually containing beer, was a definite success with underage drinkers.

As a U.S. Army Air Corps bombardier during WWII, I needed a few inventing miracles when my plane ditched over the Pacific Ocean and I drifted, with two other survivors, 2,000 miles over the course of forty-seven days on a raft. When we eventually found a perfect tropical island, unfortunately occupied by the Japanese enemy, the other prisoners of war and I constantly relied on our inventive minds to survive torture and humiliation.

The RescueStreamer would have really helped me in 1943, as would Robs DeSalinator for making drinking water. The life raft that my two air force buddies and I called home for forty-seven terrible days was woefully inadequate for survival. It lacked the basic necessities of a fishing kit and knife, the designers having strangely elected to give survivors at sea a pair of pliers instead! We improvised by using the pliers to fashion sawlike teeth on one corner of our chromed-brass mirror. Though sharp enough, this knife took ten minutes to saw through a sharks tough belly. Hungry men become quite ingenious. We used an empty flare cartridge as bait. Once a shark had latched on to the cartridge, it instinctively wouldnt let go, and would become part of our food chain instead of vice versa. The sharks liver made a luscious, gooey meal.

One of the things that kept us going at sea was inventing fantasy meals. Id invent a menu and describe the cooking process that Id learned by observing my Italian mother at work in the kitchen. My starving companions would want every detail. If I omitted a detail, theyd pounce. You forgot to grease the skillet! or What about the butter? Dont you need butter in gravy?

After drifting 2,000 miles, our small life raft and its starving occupants eventually reached the shores of enemy-occupied Kwajalein Island. I weighed sixty-seven pounds. In the prisoner-of-war camp there was little food for the prisoners, many of whom looked like skeletons. We invented as many ways as we could to pilfer food. I admired the creativity of the Scots who worked at the enemys warehouse. They specialized in smuggling sugar. Theyd tie off their pant cuffs and fill the legs. Or theyd ask for bigger work boots so they could fill the boots with goodies.

Their most creative inventing took the form of excessive tea drinking. The Scots, to further the war effort, would drink tea all day and then take turns peeing on the enemys rice so by the time it reached its destination it was spoiled. They took great delight in peeing on the cans of oysters addressed to the German chancellor!

I like the basic concept Rob expresses in Hardcore Inventing : Often what you need is already out there in the natural world, plain enough to see for anyone who is paying attention. Nature has always been an abundant source of inspiration to me.

Often the inventing process involves using existing things to create new ones. When I was a troubled youth, I learned to run fast by speeding away from the police. My brother, Pete, found a creative way to use that running skillhe introduced me to track, and this saved me from a life that was going nowhere fast. I became a runner and an Olympic athlete.

Today, I am a grateful survivor: I was forced to invent in order to survive. Robs inventions for survival at sea were fifty years too late for me, but will help save the lives of others. Perhaps if survivors in life rafts are equipped with his inventions, theyll have more time to work on their fantasy dinner menus!

I hope this book helps all inventors succeed in finding and working on something they are passionate about and bringing the gift of their invention to the rest of the world.

Introduction

by Dr. Rob Yonover

GREETINGS, FELLOW INVENTORS AND CREATORS! A LOT has happened in the inventing world since the first edition of Hardcore Inventing debuted in 2009. First of all, I realized that inventing is an incredibly broad term. The principles in Hardcore Inventing apply to all aspects of creativity. Inventing, starting a new business, lifestyle changes, art, crafts, nutrition programs, exercise, and anything else that requires harnessing your mind to attack and solve problems is well served by the IP MethodInvent, Protect, Promote, and Profitthat forms the core of hardcore inventing.