Thomas Edison was born in 1847 in Milan, Ohio. Young Tom was not doing very well at school, so his mother decided to show him home. She gave him a pile of books to study. Tom was an inquisitive child. He generally needed to know how things worked. He got a chance to check if he could improve them. His mother allowed him to set up a research facility in the house where he could try different things with things.

As a young man, Tom set up his own laboratory where he could evaluate his thoughts. He designed a lot of things in his research center. Think about what his #1 innovation was? It was a phonograph. If you needed to hear music in front of a record player, you had to play it yourself or play a show.

Edison's favorite development was light. At this time, individuals used gas or oil lights to light their homes. Edison realized that harnessing energy would be cheaper and easier. The problem was that no one knew how to do it. Edison had been working on his idea for quite some time. He tried a lot of things that didn't work. Still, he didn't give up. He kept trying until one day it worked! Today, you can flip a switch and have light whenever you need it.

Edison also built a primary power plant. Edison's Pearl Road Power Station opened in 1882 in New York. It sent power to 85 clients and created enough capacity to light 5,000 lights.

Edison also designed the motion picture camera. The moment you head out to the movies or stare at the TV, you can thank him for his thoughts and hard work. Much of the electrical machinery you see at home or at school comes from his ideas.

Edison liked to create things the most. He wondered how things worked. Then he thought about how he could improve. This is called motivation. The critical step came immediately. Edison needed his ideas to work. He tried a wide variety of things until he found the exact thing that would work. He called it sweat. He said innovation is "one percent motivation and 99 percent perspiration."