The Father and Child of Invention

Invent with Dad. It's safest for everyone that way.

While Glenn Martin — he of the Martin JetPack — was getting a cup of tea, he almost burned his house down. As a teen, he was building a kayak in his electrician father's workshop in the basement and when he left, he left on a welding torch.

He should have been working with pop like Theresa Smith, who only wanted a more convenient spice measurer, but still knew safety first. She called father William, a retired aerospace engineer, and together they incorporated as the home-based Dynamic Designs.

Martin might also have given a wassup shout to the Davies (assuming he had also invented something that would take him into the future). Son Paul talked daddy Brian out of retirement and into joining him in the invention of a machine to help people bio-diesel their car or home heating. The result, nothing yet blown up.

One final warning, it's not just the child you shouldn't leave completely alone. Robert Kearns, father of the intermittent windshield wiper and son Dennis, could not be stayed from his obsession. He invented alone and seemed to live his life solo there as well. And, while it might make for an interesting film — Flash of Genius, starring Greg Kinnear is scheduled to open US-wide Oct. 17 — it doesn't seem to have made for a very happy life.

It's got to be father and child, not one or the other.