What product that makes unpacking fun was invented by sealing two shower curtains together by two engineers who intended it as wallpaper?
"Chavannes sealed two shower curtains together, creating a smattering of air bubbles, which they originally tried to sell as wallpaper. When the product turned out to be unsuccessful as wallpaper, the team marketed it as greenhouse insulation. Although Bubble Wrap was branded by Sealed Air Corporation (founded by Fielding and Chavannes) in 1960, it was not until a year later that its use in protective usage was discovered. As a packaging material, Bubble Wrap's first client was IBM, which used the product to protect the IBM 1401 computer during shipment. Fielding and Chavannes were inducted into the New Jersey Inventors"
"Bubble wrap Bubble wrap is a pliable transparent plastic material used for packing fragile items. Regularly spaced, protruding air-filled hemispheres (bubbles) provide cushioning for fragile items. ""Bubble wrap"" is a generic trademark owned by Sealed Air Corporation. In 1957 two inventors named Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes were attempting to create a three-dimensional plastic wallpaper. Although the idea was a failure, they found that what they did make could be used as packing material. Sealed Air Corp. was co-founded by Alfred Fielding in 1960. The term is used generically for similar products, such as bubble pack, bubble paper, air bubble"
"iBubble wrap, which will not be able to be popped. Bubble wrap Bubble wrap is a pliable transparent plastic material used for packing fragile items. Regularly spaced, protruding air-filled hemispheres (bubbles) provide cushioning for fragile items. ""Bubble wrap"" is a generic trademark owned by Sealed Air Corporation. In 1957 two inventors named Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes were attempting to create a three-dimensional plastic wallpaper. Although the idea was a failure, they found that what they did make could be used as packing material. Sealed Air Corp. was co-founded by Alfred Fielding in 1960. The term is used generically for"
"Sealed Air Sealed Air Corporation is a packaging company known for its brands: Cryovac food packaging and Bubble Wrap cushioning packaging. Sealed Air Corporation has two divisions: Food Care & Product Care. It sold off its stake in Diversey Care in 2017. Ted Doheny is the CEO of the Charlotte, North Carolina-headquartered Sealed Air. In 1957, Alfred W. Fielding and Marc Chavannes attempted to invent plastic wallpaper with a paper backing. While the wallpaper failed, Fielding and Chavannes later realized that what they had come up with could be used for packing material. Sealed Air was founded in 1960 based"
"Disney, Hello Kitty, Marvel, Nickelodeon, Warner Bros. and Lucasfilm. Tervis Tumbler Tervis Tumbler Company is an American manufacturer of double-walled, insulated tumblers. The double-wall insulation is made by inserting a liner inside an outer shell, creating a layer of air between them. The two liners are then permanently fused together. The insulation reduces condensation and keeps beverages hotter or colder longer than non-insulated cups and glasses. The original technology was developed by two engineers, Frank Cotter and G. Howlett Davis, in Detroit, Michigan in 1946. Their design involves a permanently sealed double-walled tumbler. Cotter and Davis combined the last three"
"the 1960s onwards. It can also be very difficult to remove, especially when several coats of paint have been applied. Ingrain wallpaper Ingrain (or wood-chip) wallpaper is a decorating material. It consists of two layers of paper with wood fibre in between; different kinds of ingrain wallpaper are distinguished by the size and form of the fibre pieces. Ingrain wallpaper was invented by German pharmacist Hugo Erfurt in 1864; marketed by the company his grandfather founded, it was first used as a decoration for shop windows, but began seeing use as a wallpaper from the 1920s on as well. Ingrain"
"wadding was rough against the skin and crumbled into balls when exposed to moisture. In 1946, Marion Donovan used a shower curtain from her bathroom to create the ""Boater"", a plastic cover to be donned outside a diaper. First sold in 1949 at Saks Fifth Avenue's flagship store in New York City, patents were later issued in 1951 to Donovan, who later sold the rights to the waterproof diaper for $1 million. Donovan also designed a paper disposable diaper, but was unsuccessful in marketing it. In 1947, Scottish housewife Valerie Hunter Gordon started developing and making Paddi, a 2-part system"
"Ingrain wallpaper Ingrain (or wood-chip) wallpaper is a decorating material. It consists of two layers of paper with wood fibre in between; different kinds of ingrain wallpaper are distinguished by the size and form of the fibre pieces. Ingrain wallpaper was invented by German pharmacist Hugo Erfurt in 1864; marketed by the company his grandfather founded, it was first used as a decoration for shop windows, but began seeing use as a wallpaper from the 1920s on as well. Ingrain wallpaper is the most commonly used type of wallpaper in Germany. It was also commonplace in the United Kingdom from"
"is revealed during the game and via the real-world promotional website. According to the Aperture Science website, Cave Johnson founded the company in 1943 for the sole purpose of making shower curtains for the U.S. military. However, after becoming mentally unstable from ""moon rock poisoning"" in 1978, Johnson created a three-tier research and development plan to make his organization successful. The first two tiers, the Counter-Heimlich Maneuver (a maneuver designed to ensure choking) and the Take-A-Wish Foundation (a program to give the wishes of terminally ill children to adults in need of dreams), were commercial failures and led to an"
"washable wallcovering and appealed to the Victorians because of its sanitary properties as well as its durability and ornate effects. Originally made on a linen backing, it was however, quite rigid. Because of this, an employee called Thomas John Palmer invented a similar product which, being made from wood pulp and cotton, was lighter and more flexible. This was to become Anaglypta (from the Greek words ""Ana"" (raised) and ""Glypta"" [Cameo]). Seeing this as a threat to Lincrusta, Walton decided not to develop it; Palmer patented the product, parted from Walton, moved to Lancaster. There he began production of Anaglypta"
"blowout preventer was invented by Granville Sloan Knox in 1946 who received a patent on September 9, 1952. 1946 Tupperware Tupperware is airtight plastic containers used for the preparation, storage, containment, and serving of perishable food in the kitchen and home. Tupperware was invented in 1946 by American chemist Earl Silas Tupper who devised a method of purifying black polyethylene slag, a waste product produced in oil refinement, into a molded substance that was flexible, tough, non-porous, non-greasy and translucent. Available in many colors, the plastic containers with ""burp seal"" did not become a commercial success until Brownie Wise, a"
"Wallpaper steamer A wallpaper steamer is an electrical device which boils water continuously in order to produce steam. This steam is then allowed to pass through a narrow bore tube to a face plate. This face plate is then held against a wallpapered wall. The steam passes through the paper, saturates the backing paper and partially dissolves the desiccated wallpaper paste. This then allows the wallpaper to be pulled from, or scraped off the wall. The wallpaper steamer was invented by Peter Ravenscroft Wilkins from Blackwell, Worcestershire, England. Its European patent was filed 19 November 1987. The basic form of"
"during the Great Depression as inspiration of sorts for his career. He recently produced ""When The World Breaks"", a documentary on parallels between the Great Depression and today's poor economic climate. Nicholas McKay (inventor) Nicholas McKay, Sr. (December 8, 1920 – November 15, 2014) was an American inventor and entrepreneur. His most well-known (and first commercial) product was the Lint Pic-Up, the world's first lint roller. McKay had the idea after needing masking tape, a paper roll and some wire to clean his suit before chaperoning his son's high school dance in 1956. He and his late wife Helen formed"
"popular household items across the Western world. Manufacturers in the USA included Sears; designers included Andy Warhol. Wallpaper has gone in and out of fashion since about 1930, but the overall trend has been for wallpaper-type patterned wallcoverings to lose ground to plain painted walls. In the early 21st century, wallpaper evolved into a lighting feature, enhancing the mood and the ambience through lights and crystals. Meystyle, a London-based company, invented LED incorporated wallpaper. The development of digital printing allows designers to break the mould and combine new technology and art to bring wallpaper to a new level of popularity."
"and was eager to diversify. In 1908 he bought Spangler's patent, and he soon had a small staff toiling in the corner of his leather shop, turning out six suction sweepers a day. William Hoover made further improvements to the vacuum cleaner that resembled a bagpipe attached to a cake box, a novel look that was very functional. Sluggish sales of the Hoover vacuum cleaner were given a kick by Hoover’s ten-day, free home trial. Hoover came up with the idea of door-to-door salesmen who gave home demonstrations of the new vacuum cleaners. Hoover's success means that most people today"
"its option under the agreement to increase its ownership to 20%, the maximum allowed under the joint venture agreement. Glad Wrap was invented in Australia by Union Carbide's research chemist, Douglas Lyons Ford, in the early 1960s, working in Union Carbide Australia's Rhodes plant in Sydney. The film was made from polyethylene with a stickifier added, produced as a continuous tube by the blown-film method, the tube then slit to make flat material that was put on rolls, and recently released in a newly designed ""Easy Cut Dispenser"". It was first introduced to the American market in 1963 in competition"
"the marriage, he left Marechal's shop, and opened his own box-making and packing workshop in Paris. Outside the shop a sign hung reading ""Securely packs the most fragile objects. Specializing in packing fashions."" Four years later in 1858, Vuitton introduced his revolutionary stackable and waterproof rectangular shaped trunks to a market that only had rounded tops. This demand spurred his expansion into a larger workshop outside of Paris.The original pattern of the shellac embedded canvas was named Damier. He designed the current ""monogram"" pattern because to copy a monogram was illegal. He also designed to great disbelief the world's first"
"and a local laundering company that has since also closed. In 1944, Alexander Leaderman, a decorated U.S. Army officer, purchased the company after returning home from WWII and renamed it Rockland Industries. The new company introduced the concept of lining curtains with a specially treated fabric to prevent them from being damaged by sunlight and moisture, much the way linings protect clothing fabric. In 1963, Rockland patented and introduced Roc-lon Rain-No-Stain, the first brand name curtain lining ever produced. The product featured insulation properties, oil and water-borne stain repellency, as well as a UV inhibitor for protection against fading. Roc-lon"
"changed that. Between 1907 and 1935, Belber registered up to 80 patents in the US for various technical product innovations. Some of the exclusive and patented Belber devices included the ""Belber Safe Lock"" enabling an easy opening and closing of the trunk, the ""Belber Curtain Follower"" (attached to the back of the trunk and holding firmly in place the garments by a rod inserted into a graduated ratchet), and multiple Drawer Locking Devices. Belber advertised in nationally circulated magazines, touting its luggage as ""as modern as tomorrow."" The Belber brothers were all about showing America that a bag was all"
"Sweeper on June 2, 1908. Crucially, in addition to suction from an electric fan that blew the dirt and dust into a soap box and one of his wife's pillow cases, Spangler's design utilized a rotating brush to loosen debris. Unable to produce the design himself due to lack of funding, he sold the patent in 1908 to local leather goods manufacturer William Henry Hoover (1849-1932), who had Spangler's machine redesigned with a steel casing, casters, and attachments, founding the company that in 1922 was renamed the Hoover Company. Their first vacuum was the 1908 Model O, which sold for"
"plastic shower curtain or door. Showering is common in Western culture due to the efficiency of using it compared with a bathtub. Its use in hygiene is, therefore, common practice. A shower uses less water on average than a bath: for a shower compared with for a bath. The original showers were neither indoor structures nor man-made but were common natural formations: waterfalls. The falling water rinsed the bathers completely clean and was more efficient than bathing in a traditional basin, which required manual transport of both fresh and waste water. Ancient people began to reproduce these natural phenomena by"
"successful one-piece pedestal water closet. However, Twyford's Unitas was greatly celebrated during the 1880s as one of the best one-piece pedestal water closets, especially because it was made of entirely one piece of earthenware and Twyford made certain that there were ""pleasant to the eye"" designs painted on the exterior and in the interior of the more expensive models. In 1886, Twyford released a second stylist version of the Unitas called the ""Florentine"", which was put in the catalogue later that year. In 1884, Twyford applied for the first patent for a ceramic baffle or ""fan"" that would aid the"
"Hall of Fame in 1993. Sealed Air celebrated Bubble Wrap's 50th birthday in January 2010. The ""Annual Bubble Wrap Competition For Young Inventors"" was hosted by Sealed Air from 2006 to 2008, in which children were encouraged to design products made out of bubble wrap that had uses outside of the packaging industry. Inventions included a ""Bubble Wrap Car Door Cover"", a ""Bubble Wrap Cushy Wheelchair"", and ""Transformable Bubble Wrap Kite"". Popping Bubble Wrap is sometimes used as stress-relief, and Sealed Air's corporate offices have ""stress relief boxes"" that are filled with Bubble Wrap for the employees to pop. Bubble"
"behind Colorforms is the ability to adhere and reposition abstract and geometric color form shapes on random surfaces to create art. Both recent art students, the couple discovered the idea when they acquired several rolls of flexible paper-thin colored vinyl used to manufacture plastic pocketbooks, and found that it would stick to the glossy paint in their bathroom and allow them to reposition it at will without affecting either surface. Simply cutting shapes out of the material and sticking them to the wall turned out to be amusing enough that they left extra vinyl with a pair of scissors for"
"built a small rotary paddle distributor into that open end. Each of the paddles on the rotary distributor was set at a different angle. Then, Joseph and his son filled the cigar box with chaff and operated the small distributor with power from the drive wheel of a sewing machine. The test was successful. The chaff was thrown in a wide pattern. After several other tests, Oppenheim became convinced that he had an idea that could be designed into manure unloaders. When Kramer’s machine shop was destroyed by fire and his business failed, Oppenheim obtained Kramer’s patent in exchange for"
"steamer consists of a reservoir of water, an electric heating element, and a hose to direct the steam at the wallpaper. The steam dissolves the wallpaper paste, allowing the wallpaper to be peeled off. However, care must be taken to prevent damage to the drywall underneath. Sometimes steaming can lead to the crumbling of underlying drywall or plaster, leaving an uneven surface to be repaired. Wallpaper Wallpaper is a material used in interior decoration to decorate the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers"
"they were able to get themselves free. Soon Tom spoke with a representative at Velcro and spoke about his idea. The representative gave him some sample material, and with the help of a friend that was a seamstress, had a bed sheet made out of the material. After many attempts at finding a way to stick a person to the sheet, Tom and his brother came up with the idea of using Anchor Pads and Velcro Cuffs. The Velcro Cuffs could be hooked onto the Anchor Pads, and the Anchor Pads would stick to the sheets. The anchor pads can"
"producing floorcare products, Hoover was also an iconic domestic appliance brand in Europe, particularly well known for its washing machines and tumble dryers in the UK and Ireland, and also had significant sales in many parts of Europe. Today, the Hoover Europe brand, as part of the portfolio of brands owned by Candy Group, remains a major player in the European white goods and floor care sectors in a number of countries. The first upright vacuum cleaner was invented in June 1908 by Canton, Ohio department store janitor and occasional inventor James Murray Spangler (1848–1915). Spangler was an asthmatic, and"
"inventor of the wet wipes. Julius worked in the cosmetics industry and in 1957, adjusted a soap portioning machine, putting it in a loft in Manhattan. Julius trademarked the name Wet-Nap in 1958, a name for the product that is still being used. After fine tuning his newfangled hand-cleaning aid together with a mechanic, he unveiled his invention at the 1960 National Restaurant Show in Chicago and in 1963 started selling Wet-Nap products to Colonel Sanders for use in his KFC restaurant. Wet wipes are produced as air-laid paper; the fibres are carried and formed to the structure of paper"
"reverse wastefulness of the disposable world. Dissolving dresses and bottles which melted in hot water formed part of the Wonderland exhibition. Catalytic Clothing seeks to explore how clothing and textiles can be used as a catalytic surface to purify air, using nanotechnology applied through the laundry process to anyone's existing wardrobe of clothes. It is the brainchild of Helen and scientist Tony Ryan. Catalytic Clothing was announced joint winner of the Sustainability category at the Condé Nast Traveller Innovation & Design Awards 2012. Helen's new work explores the chemistry of glass and flame, and is a joint collaboration between the"
"Nicholas McKay (inventor) Nicholas McKay, Sr. (December 8, 1920 – November 15, 2014) was an American inventor and entrepreneur. His most well-known (and first commercial) product was the Lint Pic-Up, the world's first lint roller. McKay had the idea after needing masking tape, a paper roll and some wire to clean his suit before chaperoning his son's high school dance in 1956. He and his late wife Helen formed Helmac the next day. Helmac is a household products company that eventually held 92% of the American market in 1996. McKay credits his humble upbringing on a family farm in Ohio"
"folding carton and is founder of Boxfoldia. However, an American process is developed by accident prior to this. 1921: A British patent for windscreen wipers is registered by Mills Munitions. Several other patents take place for windscreen wipers around the world. 1922: Birmingham rubber manufacturer Dunlop invents a tyre with steel rods and a canvas casing that lasts three times longer than any other tyre, this is a milestone in tyre manufacture. The following year their tyres help Henry Segrave win a Grand Prix title in a Sunbeam racing car, and are then used on a Bentley to help win"
"concept of showing the value of an everyday object which is taken for granted. A further competition was run for a designer for the ""Big 4"", which was won by Kingston University fashion design graduate Hannah Gourlay. Her design covered the framework with a material which inflated and deflated in a manner to simulate breathing. The material itself came from Dartex Coatings, and is more commonly used to cover NHS bed mattresses. Electric fans drew air into the ""Big 4"" and were then turned off, which allowed the tension in the fabric to push the air back out again. Prior"