• Home
  • The Book
  • The Author
  • Events
  • The Blog
  • Failures Within
  • Contact

Seek to Misconstrue   + a

Failure: The Blog  

August 2018

  • When This Executive Was Fired, He Took Charge
  • Obeying The Speed Limit Has Never Been More Fun
  • London Black Cabs Helped Uber Grow
  • Bette Graham Created A Product To Fix Her Mistakes
  • Flamin' Hot Cheetos Had An Interesting Start

July 2018

  • Fear This Instead Of Failure
  • Re-Releasing Songs Created Success
  • A CEO's Purposeful Mistake
  • The Tardy Student And The Unsolvable Problem
  • Fixing Potholes Through Graffiti

June 2018

  • A Surprising Mistake In The Oxford English Dictionary
  • US Army Embraces Mistakes
  • Blocking A Hymn
  • Eddie Shore Was Truly A Tough Guy
  • [Video] Elon Musk Didn't "Pivot" He Failed

May 2018

  • 8 Examples of Mental Toughness Part 2
  • Necessity Turned Accessory: Allen Iverson's Sleeve
  • This Doctor Has Continued To Fail
  • 8 Examples of Mental Toughness
  • MIT Accidentally Creates New Smelting Process

April 2018

  • Johnny Cash Quit Singing Lessons
  • Cruise Control Came Out of Frustration
  • Time Spent Gaming Pays Off In The Navy
  • Rock Around The Clock Was a Commercial Failure
  • Sigmund Freud Should Have Been Discouraged

March 2018

  • Superman Couldn't Fly
  • This School Shares Failures
  • Jim Croce's Parents Hoped He Would Fail

[More archives...]

« Proceeding After A Failure
Waste From Our Eyes Lets Us See »

The Slinky Was Accidentally Created

January 2nd, 2018 - by Alyssa Shea

Many of us played with a slinky when we were little. Did you watch it somehow magically go down the stairs all on its own, too?

The creator of the slinky was a man by the name of Richard James. He was a mechanical engineer and was working to find a way to create springs that could keep certain types of ship equipment steady while out at sea. He experienced a clumsy moment and accidentally knocked some of his samples off of a shelf. He looked on as the springs walked away from their fall and knew he had something special.

slinky failure
Photo © Flickr User topgold

“Along with his wife Betty, James developed a plan to turn his invention into the next big novelty toy. Betty combed the dictionary for an appropriate name and came up with “Slinky.” James designed a machine to coil 80-feet of wire into a two-inch spiral. The couple borrowed $500 to manufacture the first Slinkys.

Sometimes all it takes is a little mistake in order to succeed!

Share on TumblrSubmit to redditShare via email Share

Related Posts

  1. An Undertaker’s Necessary Creation
    “Necessity is the mother of invention.” This phrase takes on a whole new meaning when it comes to the creation of automatic telephone switching!
  2. The Mistake That Created The Whopper Jr.
    If you pull up to a Burger King today, you’re able to order a Whooper Jr, yet this item didn’t even exist when the chain first opened!
  3. Ways To Turn Those Failures Around
    It’s easy to want to shy away from failure. It can be pretty scary. Instead, learn how to turn those failures into success!
  4. The Failure That Created Ridges in Coins
    A question that you wouldn’t think to ask was answered by the History channel. Why do coins have ridges?
  5. The Accident That Created The Tea Bag
    The tea we are used to drinking today isn’t how it first got its start. In fact, tea bags were created on accident.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2018. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


© Copyright 2009-2021 Robby Slaughter - All Rights Reserved • Theme from Web Considerations, LLC