Patent Attorney and Founder
Hi everyone, I’m J.D. Houvener, and I’m your host of the Bold Today Show, where you, the inventor, entrepreneur, or business owner, get your daily dose of inspiration to make the world a better place.
Alright, we’re talking about 4th of July week. I’m sure a lot of you are vacationing or have big plans for the Independence Day celebration coming up tomorrow. This week, we’re excited to share our focus on patents on fireworks – those things that light up the sky and amaze everyone each year, building up that excitement, having all those memories built in. What goes into fireworks and taking a historical view, looking way back at the evolution of where they came from to help inspire you to think about what’s that next big thing, maybe you’re working on it right now and getting that whole ideation part set up, thinking about just getting creative with core elements structures.
So, we’re going to tell the story about the beginning of fireworks this week. We’ll explore looking into more developed fireworks as we get into the 1800s and 20th centuries, looking at modern fireworks, how they’re constructed, some really fun ideas that people are using, some wild creations too going on right now, and then what’s next for fireworks, what’s on the horizon.
Alright, this first section is looking a bit historical, as we did a couple of weeks ago when we looked at the soccer ball in a similar fashion. Believe it or not, the ancient Chinese were the first documented to look at doing fireworks around 400 to 200 BC. Alchemists, those that were just in the field of coming up with different potions and working with different substances, natural herbal remedies for medicinal purposes – these are the types of folks that actually came up with controlled explosions.
So, it was purely just a fire that was going, and at the time, they would throw in different elements, whether it be seeds or pieces of natural elements that have been ground up or combined otherwise and rocks trying to find different ailments that would burn differently, and they definitely did. So, it was just simply a way to have paper or any other burnable, combustible product put into the fire. This was oftentimes used for royalty, those in the higher order of the Chinese parliament at the time. This is the way they would celebrate, they would use different ways of burning materials in these types of celebratory events. That was really the earliest form of fireworks – just being able to burn something and have it take on a different explosion or during a different shape of fire, other than, you know, of course, as we know today, fireworks that go aerial. This simply was just a standard fire, but with different elements being thrown into the fire so that the fire would either grow or shrink or kind of transfer the way it would consume those products.
So, in your everyday invention, entrepreneur thinking about a different way of doing the next thing, think of the origins of the firework. Think about how they had to come up with elements from nature, how they had to kind of think way out of the box to try to come up with a solution that would please their superiors, or in this case, your consumers. So, what a consumer is looking for in your industry. I’ll ask you just to think this week about being very creative, celebrate, try to bring about an entirely different way of doing what people have always done and see where things go. Thank you for tuning in for this version of the Bold Today Show. I’m your host J.D. Houvener. Have a great day, everyone, and happy 4th of July.