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On the Go

We want it fast, we want it now, and we want it on the go. Americans love to be on the move, but hate the hassles that go along with it. It’s that hunger for convenience that inventors feed off. They know we will crack open our wallets to make our lives just a little easier, a little more hassle-free. With all its complications, travel is the perfect feeding ground for inventors. There are so many bumps along the road, so many annoying and frustrating obstacles associated with driving and flying—airports, luggage, kids, pets, drinking, diapering—I’m getting cranky just thinking about it all. Inventors focus on those hassles and try to find solutions that we might all be willing to buy into.

One of the inventors in this category is a mom who needed a way to punish her kids when the family was away from home. At home, she could send them to the dreaded “time-out chair.” On the road, that chair wouldn’t fit in the car—and the kids knew it. Lisa Bogart Carvajal came up with an idea that gives her the upper hand even when she’s nowhere near a time-out chair.

From giving water to the family dog while driving down the highway to carrying medications in your wallet, these inventors have found a way to get you from Point B to Point C without the usual pain in the A.found a way to get you from Point B to Point C without the usual pain in the A.

Mo-Bowl™ Mobile Pet Water Bowl

Bowl Me Over

Inspiration comes in many shapes and sizes. For Rich Skowronski, his inspiration had four paws and long hair. “My dog, Bonnie, demanded it.”

Rich is talking about his invention, the Mo-Bowl Mobile Pet Water Bowl. You see, Bonnie, Rich’s golden retriever, must have water while going on any car trip. “When I moved to New Hampshire, I would often take Bonnie in the car with me for several hours, and I’d bring along water for her, but it would spill.” The final straw occurred when Rich took Bonnie on vacation and the water bowl spilled right onto the dog bed, leaving Bonnie with a soaking wet bed. That’s when he came to the conclusion there had to be a better way, or at least a drier way.

Rich is an engineer with twenty-five years of experience. “I looked to see what was on the market,” he says, “and everything either looked good but didn’t work, or worked but was huge”—way too big for an ordinary car .

“Dogs have a spectacular need for water, and not just in the heat. Even in moderate or cool weather, dogs need a lot of water in the car. I felt I could fill a need that a lot of people didn’t even realize their dogs have: water is so important for both their safety and comfort.”

Rich already had “20-something” patents to his credit, including the flexible deck on treadmills and the cord that attaches telephones to the back of airplane seats. But it was the idea for a mobile pet water bowl that led Rich to give over the management of his engineering business to his wife and devote himself full-time to developing a no-spill pet water bowl.

Inspired by travel coffee mugs, which are well-designed to prevent spills, Rich developed a design to fit in an ordinary car cup holder and assembled his own prototypes, which he and his wife test drove in their Jeep Wrangler along their half-mile-long bumpy driveway. “But nothing worked well. As an engineer, I wanted a product that would work perfectly.”

Using his engineering skills, Rich was able to build prototypes quickly, easily, and inexpensively. After setting up a wooden platform test bed to test his designs, Rich mounted a video camera at very close range to record the tests, and then watched the video frame by frame to find the key to a no-spill design.

After a few final changes, Rich solved the mystery. “I’m amazed at how well it works now.” And most important, “Bonnie loves it.”

The Mo-Bowl went into production in September 2005 and is now available on the Internet and at pet stores. Rich’s next steps include getting the word about the Mo-Bowl directly to consumers via media coverage. In one successful appearance, Rich and Mo-Bowl were featured on a Home & Garden television show. He got the lead for this show through a connection he’d made at a local inventors’ club, a networking opportunity he advises other inventors to pursue.

As for additional advice for would-be inventors, Rich offers these words of caution: “If you have an idea and you want to turn it into an invention, it may take a couple of years of your life full time—that is, if you’re lucky. It will require money, so be careful not to waste $100,000 in the process.”