<human>: Summarize the given text in a few sentences.

Hi reddit, I'm 19 and I currently go to Virginia Tech University in the U.S. Ever since I was little i would always come up with inventions in my mind that I didn't have the ability to make myself and would never share for no particular reason with people that could. One that I remember, that recently I found out had been invented was a machine that would tell people how many parking spaces were available and where those parking spaces were in a parking garage. I'd always hate going to the mall with my family and being stuck searching floor after floor of the garage for a spot, and thought that what if someone could create a small sensor like an invisible laser that you could install over every parking space to signal whether a car was under it or not, if the space was free it would light up and direct cars to it. This was 5 or 6 years ago when I was in middle school. The first time i saw one of those boards that tell you if a garage was full I thought to myself, wow that could've been my idea that got me rich, if only I capatilized on the thought. Yesterday as I was parking my car I noticed green lights over spaces that were free and red lights over spaces that weren't...someone had invented what I thought of years ago and put it into reality. Of course someone else deserves the money for the hard work, it just sucks to think that could've been me. Any of you have any similar stories to share?
<bot>: I came up with an idea to speed up finding spaces in parking garages years ago, never did anything about it and someone else invented it recently. Any of you have similar stories?