Nikola Tesla was born on July 9, 1856 at the stroke of midnight during a huge lightening storm.  At the precise second of his birth a huge bolt of lightening struck.  The midwife said “He is a child of a storm.”  But, his mom said, “No he is a child of light.”  I think it is just a weird coincidence, because he did loads of things with electricity.

Tesla grew up at a farm near Smiljan, Croatia.  He loved to learn new things at school.  His mom memorized poems in many different languages and invented lots of simple things.  Tesla also loved books.

Once he caught June bugs, he glued them to 2 sticks that were crossing one another.  They would try to escape and run around and around.  So he made a June Bug Motor.  He had loads of ideas of things to do with the June Bugs, but then one of his neighbors came over and ate his June Bugs live.  This grossed Tesla out, so he didn’t do anything else with June Bugs.

Once their town’s fire department got a new hose.  They were doing a demonstration at the park.  They set a huge fire.  When they tried the new hose it wasn’t working.  The fire was out of control, but Tesla couldn’t see any kinks in the hose above the water.  So there must have been one underneath the stream.  In his Sunday clothes, he jumped into the river and undid the kinks so the hose worked! After that he was a hero within the town.

Once some of his friends were going fishing with their new fishing pole.  He had an argument with one of his friends so they didn’t let him come.  But he wanted to try fishing too.  He got some wire and twisted it into a hook, he couldn’t catch any fish, but dangled it in front of a frog who jumped up and bit it.  When they were walking back, his friends had caught nothing, but he had 20 frogs.  This was one of his first inventions.

Not all of Tesla’s inventions worked.  Once he tried to use an umbrella as parachute.  He jumped off the barn with it and badly injured his legs.  After six weeks in bed he recovered and he went back to playing.  One of his favorite toys is a small water wheel he built.  All of his friends saw it as a toy, but he was fascinated by it.  It later inspired some of his other inventions.

When he was in high school (before electricity) they used candles to read.  He stayed up really late reading.  When his Dad took away his book, he would find it, then his dad hid all his candles.  The next night he made his own candles, just so he could read.

When Tesla went to college he tried to solve a problem all of the worlds scientists couldn’t find out.  In college Tesla tried very hard to make AC power.  In every spare second of time he tried to think of an answer.  Then in later part of college, him and one of his friends were out walking and suddenly the idea just popped into his head.  He had just got the idea of one of his first of many alternating current motors.  He told many people about alternating current but he didn’t have to be worried about people copying him, because no one believed him.

He went to work for a Thomas Edison electrical company in Paris.  Later the owner recommended him to Thomas Edison and he moved to America in 1884.  He got to American and Thomas Edison signed him up to work.  Thomas Edison and Tesla had many differences.  Tesla was neat and clean, but Edison was sloppy and messy.  Thomas Edison had heard about Tesla’s idea for Alternating Current.  Thomas Edison offered Tesla a $200,000 bonus, if he could make some of their generators more efficient.  Tesla set out to work for a whole entire year to make them work better.  Then after one year he went back to Edison to ask for his bonus.  Edison said, “I was just joking.”  Tesla was so sad for spending all that time working on it. He left never to return.

He went into New York and got a job digging ditches.  Alfred S. Brown approached Tesla one day when he was digging ditches.  He heard of Tesla’s idea for Alternating Current and he wanted to invest in it.  So when he found out he was digging ditches, he came up to him and gave him lots of money to work on it.  Tesla was so happy.  Tesla got his idea patented and they started the Tesla Electric Company.  Loads of people learned about alternating current.  It is cheaper, it could carry thousands time more electricity than Edison’s Direct Current wires.  He also formed Westinghouse Electric Company.

Edison was angry that Tesla was doing things.  Edison paid school boys in New Jersey 25 cents to steal dogs and cats from people.  So then he electrocuted them, using AC electricity, in front of a lot of people.  To make them afraid of Alternating Current.

Tesla then went back to France.  Tesla was telling everyone the good things about Alternating Current. AC could be sent in lower current so it wouldn’t be dangerous.  If we had only only Direct Current there would have to be a power house every mile.  With Alternating Current the electricity could go for miles and miles.

In 1839 they were going to do a Chicago World’s Fair.  It was going to be the first fair to be lit by electricity.  General Electric (GE – Edison) and Westinghouse Electicity (Tesla), bid for the right to do the lighting.  GE offered to do the job for 1 million dollars.  Westinghouse said he would do it for half that.  He was going to use Alternating Current.  Edison was super angry so he prevented Westinghouse from using his incandescent light bulb.  Then Tesla invented a two piece stopper lamp in only 3 weeks.  On the opening day May 1, 1893 tens of thousands of people attended.  When the sun set the president flipped the switch and all the lights flickered on.  Tesla had his own tent showing a lot of electrical things.

Tesla had an FBI file because he had a little shed in his back yard in New York.  He was doing an experiment that had a device that shook steel to break it.  When he did it in the shed, he didn’t know that the shed and the buildings surrounding it were built on sand, so it all started shaking.  At the nearby police station, they thought it was an earthquake.  Someone said, “No it’s Tesla” and they drove to his place.  But when they got there the experiment was over.  Luckily no houses caught fire.  With this invention he could drop the Brooklyn Bridge in half a day.

Tesla wanted to harness free power. He built a giant Tesla Coil in Colorado Springs.  It could light lightbulbs 100 miles away.  He wanted to create a main central place that could send out low current electricity and fly it around the world.  So if you were in the middle of the ocean and needed power you could put up a thing to collect it. He tested it, but never built one that could send it around the world.

I think Tesla was a hero, because his inventions helped a lot of people.  He believed that the invention wasn’t owned by the inventor, it was owned by the world that used it.  Tesla didn’t care who the patent went to.  He just invented things that helped people.  So they could do things they liked to do, not just chores.

His older brother and mom were his mentors.  His mom invented things for her daily chores.  His family was a family of inventors.  This inspired him.  In 1893 he became an American Citizen.  He felt this was more important than all of his science inventions.  On January 8, 1943 he died.

I am like Tesla because I like inventing things, thinking of things and I love to read. Not that many people know about him.  You will learn about a lot more of his inventions in the presentation.