Welcome to the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame! This Web site is really neat and not only because of its content, but also because of the way you can navigate it. You’ll notice that there is an introduction called Overview. If you click the More button, you’ll be able to finish reading the intro, as well as, find the link to the database. But, all in all, that’s standard navigation, so let’s move on to the nifty stuff!
Notice the three blocks of varying shades of orange? Well, these are more than blocks. They are also navigation tools. They each have different symbols: a magnifying glass, a silhouette of person with a question mark in the middle and the last one has nine white dots on it. When you mouse over them, they open up like theater lights and project information above them.
The magnifying glass leads you to the Search Inventions section. Clicking the block will take you to the search tool where you have the option of searching by keyword. Or, you can select a category (Inventor, Invention, Date or Decade), which will allow you to browse through the collection. If you select a category, the other side of the search tool will display your results or give you more options to narrow it down. For example, clicking By Invention gives me the option of narrowing my search alphabetically, so I can choose a letter from A to Z.
The silhouette with the question mark in the middle leads you to the highlighted inventor profile. When I was there, it was George Washington Carver, a man who thought up 325 ways to enjoy a peanut, as well as, crop rotation. You get a short biography of the inventor, their inventions and you can even learn when they were inducted into the Hall of Fame.
The nine white dots option takes you to the About Invent Now section, which is where I learned, to my surprise, that the museum is located right in my home state of Ohio. That means I have to start planning a visit there real soon!
This is a great site to learn about inventors and their inventions. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/…all_of_fame.asp
~ Amanda