Every summer, kids everywhere pick up a Super Soaker and drench their friends without a second thought. But behind that iconic toy is a story most people don't know — a story that started in a small Alabama bedroom with a boy, some spare parts, and an unstoppable curiosity.
That boy was Lonnie Johnson. And his journey from backyard inventor to NASA engineer is exactly the kind of story we want every child to know.
A Kid Who Couldn't Stop Building
Lonnie George Johnson was born on October 6, 1949, in Mobile, Alabama. From the time he was small, he was fascinated by how things worked. While other kids were playing outside, Lonnie was taking things apart and figuring out how to put them back together — and then making them better.
At just 13 years old, Lonnie built a robot he named Linex using parts salvaged from a junkyard and pieces from his family's home. The robot could move and be controlled remotely — a remarkable feat for any engineer, let alone a teenager in the early 1960s. When Lonnie entered Linex in a local science fair, he won first place, competing against students from much larger, better-resourced schools.
That moment mattered. Not just because he won, but because it told him something important: your ideas are worth something. Keep going.
From Alabama to NASA
Lonnie's curiosity never slowed down. He earned a scholarship to Tuskegee University, where he studied mechanical engineering. He later earned a master's degree and went on to work for the U.S. Air Force and eventually NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he worked on the Galileo mission to Jupiter and the Mars Observer project.
Let that sink in for a moment. The same kid who built a robot out of junkyard scraps in his bedroom grew up to work on missions to Jupiter and Mars.
But Lonnie Johnson wasn't done inventing.
The Accident That Changed Summer Forever
In 1982, while working on an environmentally friendly heat pump in his bathroom, Lonnie accidentally shot a powerful stream of water across the room using a nozzle he had connected to the sink. He looked at that stream of water and thought — that would make an incredible water gun.
It took nearly a decade of development and persistence, but in 1990 the Super Soaker launched at toy fairs across the country. Within a year it became one of the best-selling toys in the world. To date, Super Soaker sales have exceeded one billion dollars.
One billion dollars. From a bathroom experiment.
Why This Story Matters for Your Child
Lonnie Johnson didn't have access to fancy equipment or elite schools. He had curiosity, determination, and the belief that his ideas had value. He saw the world not as it was, but as it could be — and he had the drive to build the bridge between those two things.
That is exactly the mindset we want to nurture in our children from the very beginning.
When kids see inventors who look like them — who grew up in neighborhoods like theirs, who faced obstacles and kept going anyway — something shifts. Inventing stops being something that happens somewhere else, to someone else. It becomes possible. It becomes theirs.
Wearable History for Your Little Inventor
At Pops Tee Shop, that belief is at the heart of everything we make. Our Inventor Series was created to put these stories on the backs of the next generation — literally.
Our Youth Tees feature nine Black inventors who changed everyday life, from Garrett Morgan's traffic signal to Marie Van Brittan Brown's home security system. It's a wearable history lesson that sparks conversations at school, at the dinner table, and everywhere in between.
And for your youngest learners, our Toddler Inventor Series is launching now — individual inventor spotlights on each colorway, designed to grow with your child and collect over time. Because it's never too early to plant the seed.
Lonnie Johnson started building at 13. Who knows what your child will create?
Shop the Inventor Series at popsteeshop.com and dress your little one in a story worth telling.
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