"I like inventing because, to me, it's the most pure thing you can do," says the soft-spoken lecturer, who claims to be a bit of a perfectionist.

Cudmore grew up in South Dakota with a Sioux Indian caretaker and Indian art instructors. "Being exposed to Indian culture made me realize that there's more than one way to look at things, and that often the Indian way is better."

Cudmore first started as an architect, having earned a Masters Degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He won a Progressive Architecture Design Award in 1969 for his work on Cornell University's campus store and later worked on the New England Aquarium in Boston.

But he dropped architecture, opting instead for the life of an inventor. "Inventing allows you to more perfectly solve problems, without compromising at all," he says. "Also, it provides direct contact with basic physical principles."

This emphasis on invention over architecture created new demands on Cudmore and his two sons, Colin and Sean. "At first it was hard." says Colin, 20, who is presently working in Washington, D.C. "We didn't have any steady paycheck, and Dad had to be alone all the time so he could think."

But Colin adds that "a lot of kids know that their dads work for some company, but they aren't really sure what they do. Our father always talked to us about what he was doing, really enthusiastically. We used to all sit down as a family and try to come up with names for the inventions together."

"Often he would just sit down with a pencil and paper, nothing else, and come up with things left and right," says Colin.

Having college-aged children has helped the lecturer understand his Harvard students, Cudmore says. "Besides being able to relate well to younger adults, I also have tremendous tenacity, and tolerance for failure--good traits for an inventor."

"I realize that you learn the most when you're at play, so I try to have a real spirit of fun when I go about my work and my classes," he says. "I go about life as if it was a game."

Cudmore teaches the courses "Three Dimensional Design and Invention" and "Design of the Manmade Environment." Students in his classes have invented new types of musical instruments, floor plans for emergency housing in shipping containers, and children's toys based on the principle of light refraction.

"He tells us some weird things, like about Aborigines communicating with each other over 12 miles by talking to trees," says Andrew L. Nash '87, one of Cudmore's students. "But in context, you realize he does it to keep our minds open, to get us thinking in new ways."

"One thing Patrick teaches you," says Nash, "is that you don't have to just live with something that bothers you. He gets you into the mind-set of thinking of creative solutions, and eliminating the small annoyances of life.