Inventor from LI tackles snowman building

It's an idea that just snowballed.

A Long Island inventor has patented a device that he says will bring snowman building into the technological age.

Marc Asperas, 43, who is originally from Melville, has invented a plastic sphere that allows snow to cling to it when it is rolled on a wintry lawn.

The result is a ball that will be lighter and more symmetrical than an ordinary snowball, making it both more attractive and easier for adults and children to push and carry, he said.

"So then the flash of genius strikes me . . ." Asperas wrote in his patent application as he mulled over the problem of snowman building. "What if someone could make a snow boulder that was lightweight? So light, it could be easily handled so that it could be made really big and still be easily moved? . . . How cool would that look in front of your house during the holidays?"

Reached Monday in Munich, Germany, where he's been living for about eight years, Asperas said he's loved the snow since he was a kid growing up in Long Island, and even now can be found in the winter months on the lawn of his office during his lunch hour making snowmen.

The patent attorney has built igloos and other ambitious structures, and last winter used the prototype for his invention to make a 7-foot-tall snowman he called Frosty.

"I wanted to bring happiness to the world rather than something negative," Asperas said.

But despite his lighthearted idea, Asperas says he's no flake.

His patent application, titled "apparatus for facilitating the construction of a snow man/woman," which was approved Sept. 6, is 25 pages of diagrams and data, and the invention itself is quite complex.

A generator creates an electric charge on the plastic sphere, not powerful enough to harm anyone holding it, but strong enough to bind the snow to it.

The patent also includes several add-ons, such as how to build arms and shoulders and how to attach hats and scarves, said Asperas, who has an electrical engineering degree.

"Having a doofy lopsided snowman does have some charm," he wrote in his application to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. "But we are living in the 21st century now. We have created the Internet. China is getting ready to send a person to the moon. . . . Can't somebody build a better snow man?"

The next step, he says, will be to find a manufacturer to create the spheres in bulk.

Will it be successful? Asperas says there's no guarantee that his cool idea will lead to an avalanche of sales.

Still, he said it's "unbelievable" that no one has invented anything to make snowman building easier, since "It's so much fun, and considering the effort involved.

"But if no one has thought of it, well, no one has thought of it," he said.