I am happy to announce that I have volunteered to become the recording secretary at the Inventors Association of New England. Sure it isn’t the fanciest title, but I think it will help the group, the newsletter and ease the burden on some of the existing contributors. This may be somewhat of a cop out because I already do write about the monthly meetings on this blog but there will be some major differences. In this blog I get to talk about reflections, thoughts, and expand on points made during the talk. My meeting summary as the recording secretary will stick to the facts and try to incorporate every valuable piece of information for the group. All in all I am pretty excited to start helping the group in a more official capacity and am looking forward to my first stint as recording secretary November 10th.

Of all the strategies that I have used to get feedback, I have found the Inventor’s Clinic of IANE to be the most painless and most helpful.  Although I have yet to present, I attended my second last night and left wondering why this type of meeting doesn’t happen all the time across the world.  Maybe it does, under different names and not highly advertised to keep the crowd honest and small.  I’ll give you a quick run down of the meeting structure and regulations, so perhaps you can create your own inventor’s clinic where you live and then talk about why these meetings are great for the inventors.

The meeting is held at Bob’s house, the president of IANE (private residence so not disclosure) and feature coffee and water, although next month I will bring brownies.  The group is members of IANE (only $40/ yr) only, between 10-15 people show up.  Around four people show up to present their idea.  Each presenter has a non disclosure (3 yr length) the audience signs that  also assigns all ideas from the meeting to the inventor free of charge.  The confidentiality agreement includes a few vague words about the invention, so if anyone in the audience is working on something similar, they can excuse themselves.  The meetings are recorded by a digital audio recorder and this time by a camcorder.  Bob runs through the typical pitch format, problem, market, competition, solution, questions for the audience like would you buy, at what price etc.  The recording starts, the confidentiality agreement and social contract (help the presenter, so when you present you get help) are explained.  The inventor is introduced, the door is closed so someone who comes in late and hasn’t signed the agreement can’t hear the presentation has to wait in the kitchen.  And then the fun begins.

The response, questions, concerns all coming from fellow inventors that specialize in different fields like engineering, manufacturing and marketing and relying on the most universal attribute among the crowd, consumers drives the fun.  Of course, I can’t talk about the inventions, questions, answers or even the results but it seems as though the presenters leave the meeting with an idea of what to do next, whether it be to abort, pursue this avenue, talk to these people or just get going and do it.

As a product developer, I thrive on getting products moving forward in a productive direction.  Whether a client, a fellow inventor or just someone on the street, helping ideas get to the next stage delivers a lot of satisfaction.  The inventors clinic seems to be able to do that in a cheap, easy, honest, and effective means.  I’ll be attending these for a long time.

Post the IANE meeting featuring friend of Flashpoint Michael Collins (Founder of The Big Idea Group) I thought I’d do a post on virtual prototypes for physical inventions.  There are many different types of virtual prototypes, but basically its a product picture rendered on a computer.  We make virtual inventions all the time, but we tend to favor CAD and cheap rapid prototyping fabricators, because I think you get more value.

In its simplest form, a virtual prototype is a Adobe Illustrator / Phototoshop (Google Sketchup is free and ok) drawing of your new invention.  The drawing will use texture, shading and materials to make it look like it was a picture of the real thing.  This is a popular route for trying to license because it should cost a few hundred bucks max and you have something pretty to send around on a sell sheet to potential licensees.  While these pictures tend to make the product look more real, I always wonder how much more affective they are than a really good colored sketch by a talented artist.  The only measurable value that these prototypes provide is the lines.  Adobe Illustrator wire forms can be imported into a CAD project like Solidworks and essentially traced.

The next step up is animating these drawings.  I feel that if  you are going to go the virtual prototype route and actually giving licensing pitches, having something that actually demonstrates how a customer will use it can really help see what is going on.  During the presentation, Mike showed a rendering of a picture frame with a snow globe feature in front of the lens.  From the audience it was hard to see what the product was, it looked like a foggy picture lens.  However if there was a quick animation showing it shake and the snow flakes jumping around, we would have got it immediately and said, “wow that’s a great idea”.

The object of these virtual prototyping strategies is to make the product seem real, however they have made very little progress on actuall becoming real.  The way to bring them to life is through CAD like Solidworks (Alibre is free and very functional).  The benefits of using CAD are enormous, but it is a little bit more expensive than an animation (not that much and well worth it).  The benefits are:

• Integration of required features in design (circuit board, battery, plastic connection etc.).  Instead of a drawing dreaming up dimensions, these are actual accurate sizing for the product.
• Prototype ability:  With a CAD drawing you can get a cheap rapid prototype for a few hundred bucks and actually be able to hold it in your hands.  It won’t be the real material, but you can feel it in your hands and that is how you make your products real.
• Virtual testing:  CAD allows you to do engineering analysis to really understand where the product might break.  Stress analysis and Finite Element Analysis are great tools to make the best long term product.
• Actual Progress:  I believe that a licensee, is looking for a great idea that has made good progress.  If the licensee has done it in the past, having a CAD (which they understand is required to move forward) is a great selling advantage.
• Manufacturing quotes:  You can get accurate manufacturing costs from willing manufacturers. With a rendering they are guessing and a guess that is a few dollars of the actual could have really bad affects on the financial breakdown of a product.
• Does everything else:  A CAD drawing can use material textures, shading, animation very easily.

So CAD drawings will cost a little more than the animation of a rendering and you will get a lot more.  Most importantly, don’t rely on virtual prototypes to lead you to production.  Comfort, size, feel are all important aspects of a physical product and when you pursue a virtual prototyping strategy exclusively to production you will not have tested very import features of your invention.  If you are pursuing renderings for licensing, that is fine but realize the shortcomings and try to compensate with a truely accurate rendering that can be transfered into CAD.  As an engineer, product developer and former inventor I just love it when physical prototypes are made.  Holding your idea in your hand, having it work and showing people what you have accomplished is truely a rush.  If you need any help, if the costs seem outrageous, if you are uncertain about who to hire, if you are a first timer looking for some guidance, feel free to let us know (no cost or obligation).

IANE 7.14.2008

Welcome to the Flashpoint Development Blog!

I hope you enjoyed the networking event as much as I did. although I wish I was more prepared and could have showed you some of the products and successes that we have been lucky enough to help with.  Welcome to the Flashpoint Blog where we talk about client projects and how we approach issues.  I am hoping that you stick around and rss feed this blog because I have a few blogs that I have been working on for a few days that talk about how to prototype effectively (even you on your own!) and the process of moving from a rough prototype, a sketch of a marketable design and the engineering requirements of the product into a real functioning prototype that looks great.

TIP

You should have an RSS reader and put us in it (or sign up for e-mail updates through the subscribe button (the letter pic).  Of course we are not the only blogs you should be monitoring.  If lets say I was inventing new batteries, I would be monitoring the chemistry, new electric technology that might depend on it.  Monitor blogs working in the same area as your invention and places that can help (us). I use bloglines because I can easily sort blogs, although I hear good things about google reader.  I monitor a lot of blogs in this area, so if you find an active one in the product development / invention help area, let me know.

A few clarifications /additional Info

While I was very open to talking to strangers during 2hot and Desk-2-Go, at Flashpoint we take confidentiality of our client’s products very seriously.  Every sub contractor has a standing NDA that is the stiffest in the business and we don’t talk about it what so ever, (unfortunately that means without our clients expressed consent, we can’t talk about our projects here).

Here is the website for 2Hot and Hardball products, it will probably be moving on to the Flashpoint server at some point in the near future, but it works for now.  http://www.2hotsafety.com/index.html  It only has 2hot posted, and the video was taken down (because of one of the potential licensers, and not yet put back up).

Questions / Issues

Please feel free to comment / ask questions if you can’t find an answer to the topic that you have.  This is a relatively new blog and I want it to become a resource for you guys. Poke around and give some feedback I am working on the website when I have the time.

More coming tomorrow….