
Lonnie Johnson: The father of the Super Soaker - mebassett
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37062579
======
n00b101
Fascinating interview! I had just learned about Lonnie Johnson yesterday!

I was reading up on the Lingo programming language[1] and found out that it
was invented by a Jamaican computer scientist named John H. Thompson [2],
which led me to learn about Lonnie Johnson.

> "After I had settled into my new job and home, I set to work making the
> parts of the plastic water gun on a little lathe and milling machine in the
> basement."

It would be super interesting to find out which lathe and milling machines he
had used. It sounds like they might have been Sherline machines. [4] I wonder
how easy it would be today to 3D print a SuperSoaker prototype given the
difficulties due to overhangs in the geometry of SuperSoaker parts (e.g. tube,
barrel). Something tells me that manually fabricating it on a small lathe/mill
like Lonnie Johnson did would be much faster for prototyping than 3D printing,
even today ... but I could be wrong.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingo_(programming_language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingo_\(programming_language\))
[2] [http://www.black-inventor.com/John-Thompson.asp](http://www.black-
inventor.com/John-Thompson.asp) [3] [http://www.black-inventor.com/Lonnie-G-
Johnson.asp](http://www.black-inventor.com/Lonnie-G-Johnson.asp) [4]
[http://sherline.com/](http://sherline.com/)

~~~
derefr
Come to think of it, is there a 3D-printing process that involves a rotating
lathe for some parts, when you know you need part of the object to be a tube?

~~~
farva
Wouldn't that be a CNC lathe?

------
massysett
As a black man there is no way I can give my kid any toy that looks even
remotely like a gun.

That a black guy invented this thing makes this even more ironic.

~~~
zanek
That's being a bit ridiculous . I get it that the news/cable stations plaster
every cop shooting of a "black" person all over TV anytime it happens but I
think it's not as bad as you're acting. We're at multi-decade lows of crime. I
think everyone is hyper-sensitive with the news cycle.

I would tell my son if there was a realistic looking gun not to play around
with it outside, but that's regardless of his color. I say that as a "black"
man

~~~
macintux
I really wish people would stop telling black people how to feel about the way
that police react to black people.

------
weaksauce
I always loved the supersoaker growing up. Glad to see that he didn't get
screwed out of his royalties like a lot of inventors/creators did.

------
jemfinch
What happened to real Super Soaker guns, like the 50, the 100, or even the
300? When I search for "super soaker" on Amazon I see only a few Nerf branded
guns that look like cheap knockoffs.

~~~
qbrass
Hasbro bought Larami then rebranded them as Nerf guns.

~~~
avn2109
Wait they threw away the Super Soaker branding on purpose? This is madness.

~~~
yincrash
They still use the branding but as "Nerf Super Soaker". Also, the guns look
totally different than what Larami toys looked like.

[http://nerf.hasbro.com/en-us/toys-games/nerf:super-
soaker](http://nerf.hasbro.com/en-us/toys-games/nerf:super-soaker)

~~~
elsurudo
I don't know if it's just my shoddy memory, or maybe it's hard to tell from
the pictures, but those look a lot "cheaper" than the classic Super Soakers I
remember.

~~~
murbard2
You're not crazy

[http://www.isoaker.com/Info/2013/01/20130107-when-and-how-
di...](http://www.isoaker.com/Info/2013/01/20130107-when-and-how-did-super-
soaker-get-nerfed.html)

This is incredible... I can't find a single decent air pressure water gun on
Amazon.

~~~
elsurudo
Shame. Oh man, the 2000 looks like the one I used to play with.

------
Rolpa
"I had no idea what to say to him. In the end, I said, 'Well… you know… I
think we should have more of that.'"

I love it.

------
fastball
I had no idea that the inventor of the Super Soaker designed real weapons
systems as well.

In retrospect, it makes a lot of sense.

------
selimthegrim
Johnson gave a talk at my department about the J-TEC. He really was quite
polished and answered some tough questions we had.

------
S_A_P
I remember a 60 minutes or 20/20 type story about him a while back. He was
running the R&D lab. I would like to know more about the battery he developed-
has that been commercialized?

~~~
phonon
[http://www.johnsonbatterytech.com/our-
technology/](http://www.johnsonbatterytech.com/our-technology/)

------
js2
A couple prior HN discussions on him from when he's previously been in the
news:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6702535](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6702535)
(Super Soaker creator awarded $72.9M from Hasbro)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1785189](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1785189)
(Super-Soaker inventor may have solar-powered fuel cell breakthrough)

------
davidhariri
Awesome article. What a legend!

------
andrewflnr

      > I went on to design the N-Strike range of Nerf dart guns...
    

Maybe having a guy like this design them is why they're so awesome. Those
things are accurate at a surprisingly long range, in a package the size of
your palm. I was quite impressed with the one I used.

------
yakk0
as a kid my favorite Super Soaker was the one that had a backpack as the
reservoir. It was threaded just like a garden hose, so I would hook the gun up
to the hose instead.

------
flippyhead
This guy is my new hero.

