Ruby Lucken, who spends much of her free time inventing things, created the Food Cubby for kids who want plates where foods don't mush up together. Photo by Bill Brown Photography.

This is a great story from the Denver Post about a Kindergardner using the engineering design process to solve a problem:

Ruby Lucken didn't like different foods touching on her plate. Two years ago, when she was 6, her parents got rid of their plastic-divider kid plates in a purge of kitchen cabinets.

Ruby, a pint-sized inventor who loves to tinker, used some modeling clay to create a curved wall on her plate, and then wondered if a different material would suction better.

Her parents lent her some seed money, and she tested prototypes until she found something that met her approval — it suctioned so well that it lifted the plate.

So then she worked with an engineer to create some easy pull-off tabs, and last summer she started selling her invention — called the Food Cubby — at local farmers markets.

To her family’s surprise, this simple solution is also good for people with special needs or older people who need help at mealtime. The semi-circle cubbies suction onto your plate, but they do more than just keep foods separate. The cubbies create a “wall” to help push food onto a fork or spoon.