13-Year-Old Creates Bubble Muffler

By on January 2, 2007 in Inventions



The Advocate:

Thirteen-year-old Henry Clayton had a problem and some Bubble Wrap, and now he could win thousands of dollars.

Henry, a student at St. Luke’s School in New Canaan, likes to play the drums. His family likes silence. When a school project challenged him to come up with a Bubble Wrap invention, Henry applied it to his drumming dilemma.

He created the Bubble Muffler, which reduces the racket produced by his drum set when he practices, much to the delight of his parents and four siblings.

Henry is one of 10 semifinalists in the first Bubble Wrap Competition for Young Inventors, organized by Sealed Air Corp., which invented Bubble Wrap. The national competition asked students in grades five through eight to design an invention using Bubble Wrap.

In Henry’s invention, Bubble Wrap is taped under the skin of a drum, which reduces its volume when struck. Unlike other makeshift devices used to muffle drum volume, Bubble Wrap doesn’t compromise tone.

Other finalists include a 13-year-old from Arizona whose Easy Check Chore Chart lists tasks alongside bubbles. Users pop a bubble when they complete the task. A 12-year-old in Ohio invented a Bubble Wrap Seed Incubator, a mini greenhouse that incubates seeds evenly spaced inside bubbles.

The three finalists will be announced Jan. 8. They will win trips to New York City, where the final results will be announced on Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day, Jan. 29.

Editor note: This is a follow up to a story we featured on October 1, 2006 announcing the bubble wrap competition.

Photo by Sealed Air Corp..

kids niche teens


Rich Whittle has added 6,226 posts to Business Opportunities Weblog.

Another Idea: How to Start a Invention Consultant Broker Business


  • cassy

    wow! thats a great new invention from a 13 year old kid.good job kid,and keep up the good work be more creative as you are,your a new inventor in your time,good luck.most kids today are more creative and very concern in thier sorounding thats why they are very active now as young as they are.