Build a Better Mousetrap: Make Classic Inventions, Discover Your Problem-Solving Genius, and Take the Inventor's Challenge

by Ruth Kassinger

An entertaining book of projects on all kinds of amazing inventions A follow-up to the author's Reinvent the Wheel, Build a Better Mousetrap presents even more projects based on classic inventions-from the kaleidoscope and the hovercraft to the suspension bridge and the solar water heater. It provides the history of each invention, details on how the original inventor solved the problem, and how the reader can reinvent the invention. Each fun, hands-on project includes a step-by-step activity followed by a complete explanation and an "Inventor's Challenge," where readers are encouraged to find their own solutions to specific problems, as well as observe the world around them and experiment.

124 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 2, 2002

About the author

Ruth Kassinger is the award-winning author of eight science and history books for young adults. In addition, her science and health writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, National Geographic Explorer, Health magazine, Science Weekly, and other publications.

Ruth Kassinger's most recent book—her first for an adult audience—is Paradise Under Glass: An Amateur Creates A Conservatory Garden. She chronicles her journey through a midlife crisis by creating a conservatory at her suburban home. Her adventures of her transformation from brown thumb to green, she weaves the history of conservatories from Renaissance orangeries to glass palaces like Kew to today's high-tech plant nurseries in Florida.

Ruth Kassinger lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with her husband, a West Highland terrier, and dozens of tropical plants and trees.