He fiddles with the controls and I hear classical I spot some very strange-looking speakers, a music as clear as if I were next to the speaker. I gas chromatograph, and circuit boards that he smile and nod back. Woody grabs a microphone appears to be reverse engineering. Seeing this and speaks through the LRAD, “Now I’ll play array of gadgetry leads to my first question ... some pre-recorded commands being used by our troops in Iraq.” I can hear him clearly. I begin to When did you discover that you wanted to be an hear a series of commands like “Halt” and “Put inventor? your arms over your head” quickly followed by their Arabic equivalents. Again, I nod. Then I see My whole life I have been dragged along by cir-Woody and his prototyping guru, Jeff Belka, chat- cumstance. I became an inventor by accident. ting back and forth, nodding, and smiling. They Around 1960, I was reading a magazine that had are up to something. Woody looks my direction an article about a new kind of electric shaver that and all I see is a big set of teeth slowly revealed ionized off your whiskers — it had drawings and by a widening smile. everything. The article intrigued me. The further I

He turns a control on the LRAD and a 150db read, the more incredulous I became, and sure siren screams out of the device — my hands enough, at the end it said, “April fool.” Here is the instinctively shoot up to cover my ears. The siren part that changed the rest of my life. To the side of is so loud I can’t think or do anything. I am para- the article, there was a small box, outlined in black lyzed. The siren lasts for only a couple of seconds and titled, “Editor’s Note: Submissions Wanted.” before Woody turns it down. I start to put my It was a contest announcement inviting readers to hands down and he cranks it. My hands shoot write next year’s article. The winner would receive back up and I stand there at his mercy. We do $250. I was only making about $400 a month this dance a few times until Woody is convinced at the time, so that was a lot of money to me. I that I get it. The LRAD is cool technology. It has dropped what I was doing, dreamed up a new all manner of communication, crowd control, and invention, and wrote the article. acoustic weapon potential. Before I can clear my My invention idea was a record player tone head and convert my thoughts to words, Woody arm that made a straight line across the record starts to reach for the LRAD again. “It is cool! It is instead of pivoting at an arc. Since that is how cool!” I shout. He gives me an approving look and they cut records, it seemed reasonable to me that motions me in. “Yeah, cool,” he says. “Now we can a straight-line playback arm would be superior. continue.” I was literally in the process of licking the

A recent winner of the Lemelson-MIT Award for envelope to submit my article when I stopped Invention and holder of more than 40 patents, myself. I decided that I should call some hi-fi Woody Norris is the classic American success stores pretending that this was the real deal and story. Born of modest means and largely self- see if they would believe it — the thought being educated, Woody is the founder of a number of that if it could fool them, then it could definitely companies based on his inventions, ranging from fool the readers of the magazine. So I called up personal flying aircraft to a variety of revolution- every retailer in the Seattle area and not only did ary acoustic technologies. As inventors go, he they believe it, they were excited about it. At that is a rare breed that enjoys selling as much as point, I decided I better build the thing instead of inventing — an unusual blend of P. T. Barnum and submitting the article. And that set me on the Thomas Edison. path to inventing things.

Woody’s workshop is within eyeshot of his huge and opulent home on an adjacent hilltop. Of your many inventions, I am most intrigued As we go inside, my eyes are immediately drawn by the HyperSonic Sound technology. How does ^{to the notes and diagrams on his whiteboard. it work?} _{Intriguing terms like} “_{plasma antenna}” _and “_{opti- cal cobweb}” _{fill the board. On the workbench,} >>