“After receiving the assignment from his eighth grade science teacher, Mrs. Omland, Manuell started tinkering. Using materials he had at home — including old battery-operated toy bugs and the batteries from his hearing aid — he discovered a way to extend the lifespan of zinc hearing aid batteries by 85 percent.” Mental Floss on 7 Discoveries That Started as School Assignments. (For their classmates’s sake, let’s hope grading wasn’t on a curve.)