The Inventist life - A look at the creations of a Chinese 'tinkerer'

Shane Chen is an inventor.

Or to use his own words, he is a “tinkerer” – a fellow who makes a living from molding mechanisms into a multitude of quirky creations, including a watercraft powered by jumps and a kitchen device specifically designed to keep beverages carbonated.

“Growing up in China, I was always a tinkerer,” says the 57-year-old Chen. “During the Cultural Revolution, my father encouraged and supported me to work with electronics by giving me money whenever he could to buy parts.”

Chen’s earliest inventions included a television for his countryside commune and a remote controlled irrigation system for farmers.

Eventually, the budding creator received a degree in agricultural meteorology at the Beijing-based China Agricultural University before moving to the United States in 1986 with only a paltry US$200 in his pocket.

After a stint as a product designer, Chen founded CID Bio-Science, a company specialising in agricultural research products – an industry that Chen eventually found suffocating.