James Dyson Essay

483 Words2 Pages
James Dyson invented the vacuum cleaner that bears his name, made famous with late night infomercials in which Dyson, with his British accent, describes the machine's ball bearing steering and "superior suction". James Dyson was raised in a middle class family; he studied industrial design at the Royal College of Art in London, and later helped design the Sea Truck, a short-distance boat, for Rotork Marine in the 1970s. He made a business partnership in 1974 to manufacture the Ballbarrow, a lightweight wheelbarrow designed by Dyson with a large ball in place of the front wheel, which gives the Ballbarrow improved stability, manoeuvrability, and helps prevent it from sinking deep into mud. Despite the popularity of the Ballbarrow, Dyson himself saw only a sliver of the proceeds. In what he called "naked naïveté", he had assigned his patent to the company, and he was squeezed out of his ownership stake in the business in a dispute over marketing strategy. It was frustration that inspired Dyson to build a better vacuum cleaner, as the vacuum he was using in his own home kept clogging. In 1978 he invented the first bag-less vacuum, which operates on a different principle than previous vacuums. Instead of using bags and filters, Dyson's design sucks bits of litter and dust into a cone-shaped holding area where high-speed centrifugal force spins the material against the canister's interior walls, not only collecting the bits of floor flotsam in a holding area but also, as a consequence, releasing air that is cleaner than the ambient air in the room. He spent years making design improvements and building literally thousands of prototypes, while trying to interest existing vacuum-makers in licensing his invention. From his experience with the Ballbarrow, he was not eager to again start his own business, but most companies that make vacuum cleaners also make substantial

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