Nikola Tesla’s remote-control boat, and other unpopular inventions

Nikola Tesla's influence on the modern world as an inventor, scientist, and engineer is too often overlooked. Tesla harnessed the power of alternating current, developed induction motors, and even experimented with wireless power, yet there is still no museum dedicated to his extensive work in the United States.

Though many of Tesla's ideas and inventions were influential and had a near-immediate effect on the world around him, many more were met with indifference, laughed out of the room, derided in press coverage, or simply ignored. Still, their influence in machines and technology today are tangible, even if they began as self-styled magical toys.

The New York Hall of Science unveiled its Tesla-centric exhibit, Tesla's Wonderful World of Electricity, last week in Queens, New York. With several models from the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, the exhibit highlights some of his highest-profile inventions, like the spark-producing Tesla coil, as well as less immediately successful ones, like his remote-control boat, or "teleautomaton."