 As he drives his Ford Galaxie through a light rain, the constant movement of the windshield wipers irritates his troubled vision.The incident inspires him to create a wiper blade mechanism modeled on the human eye, which blinks every few seconds rather than continuously.With financial support from Gil Previck (Dermot Mulroney), Kearns converts his basement into a laboratory and develops a prototype he tests in a fish tank before installing it in his car.