Lonnie Johnson is always moving, always thinking, always tinkering.
That becomes apparent on a visit to his laboratory in downtown Atlanta. In one room is the invention that made the Alabama-born scientist famous – the Super Soaker water gun that he invented in his "spare time" while employed as a NASA engineer. More than 200 million have been sold since it appeared on the market.
But not far away, in another part of the lab, are large wooden prototypes for a speaker system Johnson experimented with. One local sculptor told him they could easily be displayed in an art exhibit.
Elsewhere is the training room where students on robotics teams from Atlanta's schools train for the world FIRST robotics competition. Last year, one team using Johnson's lab came in third at the world championship.
And then there's the ongoing work Johnson and his team of about 25 have been executing in clean energy. He hovers over the work, giving instructions in a low, soft voice, occasionally interrupted by his laughter at some part of the work. He still gets a thrill at an interesting idea.
Johnson, 67, a native of Mobile, is perhaps the only man in the world in the Toy Hall of Fame and lauded by Popular Mechanics for having developed one of the top 10 new world-changing innovations. Using the capital from his toy innovations, Johnson has spent years working on solid state battery technology and his thermo-electrochemical converter system, the JTEC.
Getting innovations to the market can be a long, taxing process. But Johnson said he's used to it. The Super Soaker, for example, took about 10 years from its conception before it was fully on the market.
"Being an independent inventor is tough," Johnson said. "You develop a product, patent it, then you're looking for someone who will see the benefit from this technology. You assume all the investment and all the risk. It can be a challenge."
But challenges are nothing new for Johnson. The teenage student known as "professor" to his classmates in a segregated Alabama high school has gone much further than anyone could have foreseen.
In 1968, as a senior at Williamson High School, Johnson built a three-foot-tall robot, "Linex," out of junk parts that ran on compressed air. The robot's "face" was made of a reel-to-reel tape player which was his sister's Christmas gift the previous year. The tape gave analog tone commands that made the robot move.
"The antenna on top was from my brother's transistor radio," he admits, looking at a picture of the robot. "He got that for Christmas, too."
He later took the robot to Tuscaloosa for the southeast regional competition, where he won first prize. As Johnson has recounted in interviews, "The only thing anybody from the university said to us during the entire competition was 'goodbye' and 'y'all drive safe, now.'"
Johnson went on to Tuskegee University to pursue degrees in mechanical and nuclear engineering. During his career, he has worked at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Air Force Research Laboratory, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Strategic Air Command. He's been involved in the building of deep space probes such as Cassini and Galileo, perfecting the technology to keep the probe's memory preserved during powerdowns, and developed components for the Stealth Bomber.
Last year, Johnson and his team announced a breakthrough in battery technology – rechargeable solid-state ceramic batteries that can exceed lithium-ion batteries at a competitive cost. Why is this significant? In a world that may one day run on electric cars, it could potentially double or triple the distance vehicles could travel on one charge. And who wouldn't want a phone that stays charged twice as long?
Ceramic-based batteries also have a safety benefit. Unlike lithium-ion cells, these employ ceramic electrolytes instead of liquid or gel electrolytes. In short, they don't explode. They can also be fitted to certain size needs and operate at higher temperatures.
Johnson said he began experimenting with ceramics because he didn't want to be an "also ran."
"I started thinking about what the next thing would be after lithium-ion," he said. "Glass was too light. Ceramics has an energy density that's significantly higher. It's led us down a lot of rabbit holes too."
Johnson's labs are also working on applications for the JTEC – an engine that converts heat directly into electrical energy by compressing and expanding hydrogen gas, creating no exhaust. The applications for this clean technology are almost limitless, from space travel to solar power to the cell phone.
"The amount of fuel needed is reduced, the amount of heat that's wasted is reduced," he said. "Sitting still, a person produces about 100 watts of heat. What if you could use that to charge your cell phone?"
To work on two independent tracks of research at the same time largely with his own money means Johnson is betting on himself, he admitted. He also knows he may never live to see the full application of some of these inventions. That's also the attitude he takes with his work among students – the effect will be more evident many years from now.
Bart Sudderth has nothing but praise for Johnson. Sudderth has a work area in Johnson's complex where he helps inner city high school students and the underserved gain valuable training in technology and robotics. The teams training there are made up of a wide range of students, but Johnson has an aggressive outreach effort to include underserved students. He is proud of the fact that his teams include foster children, refugees, immigrants and inner city students.
Looking over the surroundings, Sudderth points out that when Johnson brought his lab to an old construction materials warehouse on Decatur Street in downtown Atlanta, it was bookended by government housing.
"He's a visionary," Sudderth said. "He's a man that could rival George Washington Carver and Thomas Edison in terms of genius and tenacity. And here, he's trying to tap untapped resources."
Another witness is Mahendra Jagnandan, 22, a Georgia State economics graduate who is now a coach and mentor with the 100 Scholars Robotics Team that meets in Johnson's lab. He said he wanted to be in a program with "Dr. Lonnie."
"It's great to see these kids be able to meet engineers like him who are doing this kind of work in the field," he said. "It gives them inspiration and motivation, and I just wanted to see what I could do to help."
Johnson said he has always seen a need to do something about "the plight of our youth."
"When I think back on my childhood and the things that happened to me, there were certain periods of time where I felt like I was being saved for something," he said. "I feel like I have a gift, and it would be a sin to waste it. I didn't want to grow old and find that I didn't do what I could have done, that I didn't put my best foot forward. I didn't want to have any regrets."