LIKE A LIGHTBULB INVENTORS BRING CREATIVITY TO LIGHT.

Byline: Brent Hopkins Staff Writer

A regular flashlight simply wouldn't do for Bob Fischer.

As a child, lights fascinated him - how they interacted, how they bounced off surfaces. He grew up as a self-described techno freak, becoming an inventor and executive in the optics industry. He always wanted something better, something clearer, something crisper.

And with the Light Pipe, a thin, silver tube that combines elements of a kaleidoscope and a traditional flashlight to project an extremely crisp, bright square of light, he found it.

"In my opinion, this is the most significant advancement in flashlight technology since 1898," said Fischer, who is chief executive officer of the Westlake Village-based Optics 1 and former president of the International Society of Optical Engineering.

"Ninety-nine-point-eighty-three percent of people who see it for the first time say either wow or holy cow!"

Fischer's invention and 24 others made their debut at the California Science Center on Friday, part of a nationwide tour sponsored by The History Channel and Invent Now, a division of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. As part of the Modern Marvels Invent Now Challenge, contest organizers named the devices' inventors semifinalists, with the winner taking home a $20,000 grant during Great Inventions Week beginning May 24.

No less a distinguished person than Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, was on hand Friday to appraise the gadgets and tour around schoolchildren to explain their uses. "The Woz," as he's known in technological circles, looked very much the part of geeky elder, with his ponytail, shape-shifting pinky ring, vacuum tube watch and double-cellular phone sunglasses.

"Some of these, I don't even know what they do because they're out of my expertise," he said. "But some of the others, I think, oh my gosh - I need something like that! It's great to see the invention process is alive and well."

Sometimes in rather unusual ways, too. In the case of Donald P. Hilliard, a resident of Camarillo and radar engineering expert with the U.S. Navy. His decision to take a scenic vacation could save the government millions of dollars.

Hilliard works at Point Mugu, where his co-workers would frequently grouse about their expensive drones crashing to earth because of poor parachute landing systems. If only there were a way to guide the unmanned vehicles safely to earth, they complained. This resonated in his mind as he cruised down Pacific Coast Highway, bound for Disneyland.

"We were just driving along in Malibu, me and my son, and we see ten of those parasails off the coast, right in my face - I couldn't even see the people attached to them, but it got me thinking maybe something like that would work," he said. "So we started talking right there, coming up with ideas."

He suggested a radio-controlled attachment that would tug on the sides of the parachute, guiding it in the same manner a human's arms would. His son Michael, now the co-patent holder but at the time all of 8 years old, pointed out that using GPS technology would be much more efficient.

So they kicked around the idea for the next four years, got a patent with the help of the Navy in 2002 and now find "keen interest" from both the government and the commercial sector in their Precision Parachute Recovery System.

But that's not an entirely new thing for the 49-year-old Hilliard, who holds 11 other patents and began cooking things up as a little kid. He's also developed technology for photonic sensors and missile technology. With his other family members, he also developed a ski-jacket with built-in radar that senses oncoming objects and deploys an airbag prior to collisions. They thought that up after hearing of the untimely ski-death accident of Sonny Bono.

"An invention starts in the heart, not in the mind," Hilliard said.

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IF YOU GO

What: Modern Marvels Invent Now Challenge Exhibit

Where: California Science Center

Address: 700 State Drive, Los Angeles

Phone Number: [phone]

Cost: Free, $6 for parking

Web site: www.californiascience.org or www.historychannel.com/invent

CAPTION(S):

photo, box

Photo:

(color) Bob Fischer of Westlake Village shows off his new flashlight in this multiple-exposure photo. The light tube was one of 25 inventions selected by the television show ``Modern Marvels'' to display at the California Science Center.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer

Box:

IF YOU GO (see text)