Girl, 10, invents shampoo bottle that doesn’t waste a drop

EVERETT — Good to the last drop.

That’s how Forest View Elementary School fourth-grader Callia Park wanted her shampoo.

But, you know how it is, that last glob always gets stuck in the bottom of the bottle and refuses to budge.

Callia, 10, took it to task and designed a bottle that liberates the glob with ease.

She called it The Tilted Dispenser.

“This tilt leads all the remaining shampoo to one side so it comes out easily,” she said.

Callia made a prototype using a plastic water bottle from Costco and Play-Doh, about a $2 investment.

She made a display board explaining how it works and why.

“What it does is solve the problem when there’s really little shampoo in the end and it isn’t coming out,” Callia said. “That is really frustrating and annoying. And you have to cut open the thing, take out the shampoo. Or many people just throw it away.”

What started as a school project led to a state award.

She won Best of Show for her age level in the consumer services category at the Invent Washington competition in Spokane on March 23. That qualified her to compete in the National Innovation Convention at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, on May 29 and 30.

She’s going.

Callia and her fellow classmates in the Highly Capable program at Forest View were challenged to create a product in categories such as health, entertainment and public safety for the state competition.

“We start brainstorming about the problems that the students are interested in, that they have every day,” her teacher Pam VanHorne said. “They need to find a way to do something that is new. So they have to do research to find if it had been done before.”

Callia’s first idea was a shield that prevents you from cutting your hand when using a kitchen knife. Googling revealed that already had been invented.

So Callia went back to the drawing board and came up with her shampoo angst.

Other inventions by her classmates included a night-vision desk platform, grabber tool, silent vacuum, pet-tracking device, survival umbrella and something called a “zi belt.”

A what belt?

“It’s a quick-release belt so your pants will come off quickly when you need to go to the bathroom,” VanHorne said.

It was up to parents to foot the bill for the contest, held across the mountains this year. Several students went. VanHorne hopes to get grants to fund next year’s competition so everyone can go.

Callia’s parents took it even further.

They paid $1,000 to apply for a patent on her tilted bottle to register and protect her idea. Callia signed the official documents with her name and a smiley face.

The patent is pending.

“This tilt is not going to be made of Play-Doh when it is actually going to be sold. It’s going to be made out of plastic because if we sell it like this, people are going to be like, ‘Hey, it’s disintegrating,’” Callia said.

“I hope this invention will save a lot of shampoo, soap or lotion.”

Callia is confident it will take off.

“The money will start rolling in. Awesome,” she said. “I will donate half and buy a huge mansion.”

Her next invention?

“Something so toothpaste comes out all the way to the end.”

Andrea Brown: abrown@heraldnet.com; 425-339-3443. Twitter @reporterbrown.