Otis Boykin improved the design of resistors, electronic components that restrict current in electrical appliances and machines. Concerned about costs and complicated procedures to produce resistors, Boykin sought to design resistors that could be made quickly and inexpensively in addition to minimizing their inductance and enhancing sealing and mounting processes. He considered his experiences with resistors in radios and other equipment at home, work, and school. He consulted patent records, technical journals, and electrical engineer Frederick Emmons Terman's Radio Engineers' Handbook (1943) to evaluate technical aspects of resistors.

With colleague Dr. Hal Fruth, Boykin devised his first resistor, and they received a patent for the device in 1953. Boykin constructed this resistor by shaping wire into a coil around an insulator, folding the sides toward the coil's center to lower inductance, and placing and sealing the coil in a tube-shaped structure. Boykin attached wire ends in the tube to terminals that emerged from the tube. Grooves on the tube aided the use of hardware to mount the resistor in appliances. The resistor could be set to specific resistance levels.

Boykin continued to improve his resistor design while working for the Chicago Telephone Supply Company (CTS). For his second patent, "Wire Type Precision Resistor" (number 2,891,227), issued in 1959, Boykin wrapped wire in several separate areas around a flat insulator, which he referred to as a tape, with each section's wires being wrapped in alternating directions. He folded the tape so that the wire sections touched. A plastic covering or similar material contained the folded tape.

For his third patent, "Electrical Resistor" (number 2,972,726), approved in 1961, Boykin addressed problems associated with resistor wires, wrapped around spools or bobbins, that stretched during reverse winding in production and how the size of those resistors hindered their use. He stated that his flat design, shaped to achieve maximum transfer of heat, did not involve reverse winding and had better terminals. His other resistor improvements incorporated glass, refractory materials, and metal oxides, as well as various mixing, shaping, and heating processes to strengthen resistor structures and conductivity.

Electronics inventors recognized the value of Boykin's resistors soon after his patents were approved. Patents that reference Boykin's various resistor patents include resistor designs using high resistance or thick films, such as the "Composite Film Resistors and Method of Making the Same" (number 6,480,093), issued in 2002. Boykin's wire-type precision resistor patent retained industrial significance, being referenced by inventor Kenneth M. Hays in his patent "Heating Elements with Reduced Stray Magnetic Field Emissions" (number 6,734,404), assigned to the Boeing Company in 2004.

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