*sigh*
I am not sure how much longer I can watch this show. The whole concept just seems doomed to be a failure of epic proportions. How will they ever engage people each week once they pick the contestants? Right now it is barely tolerable and I'm actively engaged in looking at how they look at the inventions. I'm interested and they can barely keep me watching.
What's killing me is the potential for inventing to enter the realm of knitting and graphic novels - become part of geek chic, let your geek flag fly and all of that. The 10 year old last night who made invisible tear gas (!) was fantastic. He says "I WANT TO BE A SCIENTIST." Outstanding. You can go into your kitchen and mix stuff and blow things up and take stuff apart and get into it. YEAH! Invent invisible tear gas - though it already exists or is being invented now. Just because the folks on American Inventor recognize that it's not really a great marketable product doesn't mean that the CIA won't call next week.
I like that so far it has gotten people talking about American Inventiveness, about falling behind in STEM careers and education, and about problem solving. It speaks to all the areas I am interested in discussing.
I just hope they do it better as time goes on.