Braille Glove When high school student Ryan Patterson, 18, saw a deaf woman trying to order food at a Burger King, he had a eureka moment: Why not create a device that translates sign language into text? Armed with that idea and a leather golf glove, Patterson created a device that senses its wearer's hand movements and transmits them wirelessly to a tiny handheld monitor, where they appear as words. The device won Patterson a top prize at the Siemens Westinghouse Science and Technology Competition. Time Magazine Inventions of the year 2002.