National Museum of American History
Change YOUR Game
March 15, 2024 – Ongoing
Invention and technology can make the difference between victory and defeat and expand the field of who can participate in sports. Change YOUR Game is a family-friendly, interactive exhibition on the intersection of invention, sports, and technology developed by the museum’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. The exhibition showcases dynamic stories and objects related to diverse inventors, athletes, and technologies that have changed how sports are played. A prototype of the Jogbra from the 1970s reflects the fitness boom at a time when women had few athletic clothing options, a football helmet with Crash Cloud prototype to help protect the brain, a Hawk-Eye camera used during the pandemic by the U.S. Open to automate line calls, and prostheses that made extreme sports possible for athletes with amputations are among the objects in the exhibition. Visitors are invited to identify themselves as inventive problem solvers who can become "game changers" in their daily lives.
Hinda Miller and Lisa Lindahl deconstructed two men’s athletic supporters and sewed the pieces into the prototype sports bra seen here, 1977. Gift of Hinda Miller. © Photo courtesy of the National Museum of American History, photo by Hugh Talman.
