Lesson plan
Flowbee
The Flowbee is an electrically powered vacuum cleaner attachment made for cutting hair. It was developed and filed for patent in 1986 by Rick E. Hunts, a San Diego, California, US carpenter. US patent 4679322 was granted in 1987 and the product marketed since 1988. Hunts initially sold the Flowbees out of his garage before finding success with live demonstrations at a county fair. The product was advertised as being capable of performing "hundreds of precision layered haircuts" in frequently aired late-night television infomercials. By 2000, two million Flowbees had been sold. Hair cutting devices like the Flowbee are used by astronauts during spaceflight missions, including on the ISS, because hair particles are sucked into a container instead of floating freely inside the spacecraft in the absence of gravity. The standard Flowbee can be used to groom dogs with long hair such as Maltese or Bichon Frisé with a special pet-grooming attachment; a Flowbee Pet Groomer variant of the device was available previously. Over the years, the Flowbee device saw at least three revisions which can be identified by the shape and labeling of the cutting head ("Vac-u-cut", "Flowbee Int.", "Flowbee.com"). It continues in production, and is sold through the Flowbee factory direct website and various Internet sellers.…
Article summary
The Flowbee is an electrically powered vacuum cleaner attachment made for cutting hair. It was developed and filed for patent in 1986 by Rick E. Hunts, a San Diego, California, US carpenter. US patent 4679322 was granted in 1987 and the product marketed since 1988. Hunts initially sold the Flowbees out of his garage before finding success with live demonstrations at a county fair. The product was advertised as being capable of performing "hundreds of precision layered haircuts" in frequently aired late-night television infomercials. By 2000, two million Flowbees had been sold. Hair cutting devices like the Flowbee are used by astronauts during spaceflight missions, including on the ISS, because hair particles are sucked into a container instead of floating freely inside the spacecraft in the absence of gravity. The standard Flowbee can be used to groom dogs with long hair such as Maltese or Bichon Frisé with a special pet-grooming attachment; a Flowbee Pet Groomer variant of the device was available previously. Over the years, the Flowbee device saw at least three revisions which can be identified by the shape and labeling of the cutting head ("Vac-u-cut", "Flowbee Int.", "Flowbee.com"). It continues in production, and is sold through the Flowbee factory direct website and various Internet sellers.…
Key claims
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.