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Are you sitting on a gold mine? Valuable collector’s items from the nursery
by Michael Restin
7 successful products invented by children
25.3.2025
There’s not always an army of product developers behind a good idea. Sometimes it’s the untapped creativity of children and teenagers that brings inventions like these to life.
It’s easy to get annoyed about products or issues you encounter every day. But it’s difficult to come up with a solution yourself. It takes a good idea, inventiveness and sometimes a bit of luck. When everything comes together, inventions that children conjured up in their bedrooms can conquer the world, just like the following examples.
3. A cold Californian night and the first ice lolly
Legend has it that chance was on 11-year-old Frank Epperson’s side when he came up with the «invention» that was to define his life. One cold night in 1905, he apparently forgot he’d left his drink outside with a stirrer in it. The next day, he ate his first ice lolly. Or at least, that’s when he discovered it for the first time. Frank didn’t revisit the idea until 15 years later.
In 1924, he was granted a patent for his method – only to then enter into a legal dispute (site in German) with the confectioner Harry B. Burt, who had also discovered the stick as a stylistic device for his dairy ice cream.
In the meantime, Frank’s Popsicle and Burt’s Good Humor Bar have long since merged into one company. This in turn was devoured by the ravenous giant Unilever. Yummy.
Her creative energy was and is still far from exhausted. Her next invention was the eDrink coffee cup, whose waste heat can be used to charge things like a smartphone. «I like the idea of making the world a better place with the help of technology,» she’s quoted as saying in the inspiring children’s book Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, which also tells her story.
«I remember I swam faster by means of these pallets, but they fatigued my wrists,» Franklin later wrote. And he considered foot propulsion: «I also fitted to the soles of my feet a kind of sandals, but I was not satisfied with them, because I observed that the stroke is partly given by the inside of the feet and the ankles, and not entirely with the soles of the feet.»
He developed his writing system at the age of 11 after learning a military version of dots and syllables and simplifying it. However, it was decades before the idea finally caught on. It wasn’t until 1850, two years before Braille’s death, that his writing system was officially introduced in French schools for the blind.
He went on to have «trampoline» trademarked and turned the act into a sport. He’s still remembered today as the inventor and pioneer of this device. Incidentally, the oldest international trampoline competition is held every two years in Switzerland and is called – of course – the Nissen Cup (site in German).
What’s the next invention that’s going to take us by storm? The next generation of innovative children is already waiting in the wings:
Header image: Michael Restin
Michael Restin
Senior Editor
Michael.Restin@digitecgalaxus.chSimple writer and dad of two who likes to be on the move, wading through everyday family life. Juggling several balls, I'll occasionally drop one. It could be a ball, or a remark. Or both.
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