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Game Changers exhibition

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Found 42 Stories
Cover of the book Moneyball, showing a closeup of a baseball player’s hand holding a baseball.
Blog

Sports Analytics Before Moneyball

Long before the book Moneyball hit bestseller lists in 2003, sports analytics had emerged as a quirky pastime practiced by operations researchers, freelance sports journalists, and internet hobbyists.

Vans blue and white checked skateboarding shoe with a dark blue suede toe and eyestay, white leather sidestripe, and the trademark deep tan, waffle pattern soles.
Blog

The Invention of the Iconic Vans Skateboarding Shoe

How the van Doren Brothers, through ingenuity and collaboration, took their company “off the wall.”

Dick Fosbury in mid-jump
Blog

The Fosbury Flop—A Game-Changing Technique

Dick Fosbury revolutionized high jumping by introducing a game changing technique.

Informal pose of Tahira Reid Smith, arms folded
Blog

Game Changers Inventor Spotlight: Tahira Reid Smith

Engineering professor Dr. Tahira Reid Smith has been inventive since childhood and is best known for her automated double-Dutch jump rope machine.

Composite image with skater Nikolai Panin tracing figures on the ice and diagrams of different ice figures
Blog

How Skating Acquired and Lost Its “Figure”

Thanks to invention and innovation, the history of figure skating is truly head-spinning.

Andy Granatelli and his brother Vincent standing behind two race cars
Blog

The Supercharged, Super Fast, Novi Engine

Race car owner and driver, innovator, and entrepreneur Andy Granatelli was as supercharged as the Novi itself.

Society for the History of Technology logo
Blog

Game Changers Team Presents Its Research at SHOT

The Game Changers curatorial team presents their research at the annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology, 8–11 October 2020.

Howard Head skiing downslope
Blog

Sports Innovator Howard Head

The engineer behind Head skis and Prince tennis rackets revolutionized both sports.

Exterior of Houston Astrodome stadium
Blog

Inventing and Reinventing Stadiums

Over the past 120 years, new inventions have kept fans coming to stadiums.

Branch Rickey holding his chin and looking at a blackboard with lists of players’ names
Blog

Branch Rickey, Baseball Innovator

By introducing several innovations, baseball executive Branch Rickey transformed America’s national pastime.

Newsprint ad for the “Snow Surfer,” retailing at $5.77. Text reads, in part, “Enjy the fun of skiing, tobogganing, and sledding all rolled into one with this exciting new sport.”
Blog

Sherman Poppen’s Snurfer

A look at the slippery slope of commercializing an invention.

Computer-generated drawing of a swimmer in a LZR suit in the water, legs and arms extended.
Blog

The Impact of Invention on Sport

A look at the Speedo LZR Racer, an invention that made too big of a splash.

A graffiti artist is bent over, holding a spray paint can, finishing his colorful artwork that looks like a green slime monster with sharp teeth and bloodshot, bugged-out eyes, with its tongue flapping in the wind. The monster holds a skateboard reading, “Gums and Tongue.”
Blog

Innoskate London

The Smithsonian and skateboarding? In England? Sick.

High jumper Dick Fosbury goes over the bar head first with his back to the bar.
Blog

Testing Exhibition Ideas about Sport and Invention

Innovation can take different forms when applied to the topic of sports, so we asked visitors what was most important to them.

Black-and-white head-and-shoulders photo of Robert Cade, wearing a jacket and tie. He holds a large can up to the camera. The can is labeled, “Stokely Van Camp’s Finest Gatorade for Active People.”
Blog

Sporting Invention: Applying the IPOP Framework

The Sporting Invention exhibition team is using the IPOP framework to test which Ideas, People, Objects, and Physical experiences might resonate with visitors.

9 figures from US Patent 50,359, awarded to John Wesley Hyatt, Jr., in 1865. Figures 1 through 7 and 9 are circular, detailing different parts of the composition of the ball. Figure 8 shows the plug that runs through the core of the ball.
Blog

Imitation Ivory and the Power of Play

How nineteenth-century Americans' love of billiards paved the way for synthetic plastics . . .

Red maple leaf design from the Canadian flag.
Blog

O Canada! Inventors from Across the Border

Inspired by visitor stories submitted to our Places of Invention map about Canadian inventors and inventions

USA gymnastics leotard worn by Dominque Dawes in 1996 Olympics
Blog

The Summer Olympics Starring Scientists and Engineers

The unsung heroes behind the 2016 Summer Olympics are the scientists and engineers whose inventions and innovations help these athletes strive toward the Olympic motto of “Faster, Higher, Stronger.”

Graphic logo for Innoskate 2016
Lemelson Center Research

Innoskate

Innoskate explores skate culture’s creative spirit and history of innovation.

Tennis racket used by Althea Gibson
Blog

Exploring Sports and Innovation at the Lemelson Center

“It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” This often paraphrased quote inspired me to think about the “how” in terms of sports and innovation.

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