The Hills Hoist, stump-cam, goon bag and the dual-flush toilet, do they fill you with pride?

They're just some of the products dreamed up by home-grown inventors over the past 150 years.

And they're being celebrated at a new National Archives of Australia exhibition in Canberra which explores the inventors whose ideas have shaped the nation.

Some are household names others you may not have heard of but perhaps this one will stick in your mind a woman who had so many ideas she'd write them down in her sleep.