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“Inventing is a combination of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less material you need.”
(Charles F. Kettering -- American engineer, inventor of the electric starter, 1876-1958)
Welcome to The Inventor's DesktopTM!
How to Invent New Products: Parts I, II and III Monday, 08 February 2010 12:37 |  
There are a series of articles appearing in eHow collectively referred to as "How to Invent New Products" (Parts 1, 2 and 3). The first part deals with generating ideas, the second with the initial patent search and the last with market research. Each of the parts is excellent reading on their own. Collectively, they constitute valuable inventing wisdom, especially for the wanna be inventor in all of us. Set forth below are the links to each of the three parts. Enjoy! How to Invent New Products. Part I Generating Ideas Inventing Under the Desk Monday, 08 February 2010 12:07 |
R&D Innovator Volume 2, Number 7 by Walter Raczynski
Mr. Raczynski is a product designer in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Back in 1988, I was on my hands and knees, reattaching a snarl of cables to the back of my personal computer. With a foul-tasting flashlight stuck in my mouth (it was perfect for blocking the escape of the profanities this task was earning), I worked at inserting the connectors, guided by their trapezoidal shape.Then came my favorite part—tightening those dreaded tiny thumbscrews, located only the short radius of a helium atom from their neighbors. As I continued connecting my digital servant, I got to repeat this joyful task, except that the next connector didn’t even have thumbscrews. The manufacturer had been too value-conscious (read “cheap”) to bother with them, so I dragged out the jeweler’s screwdriver I kept by my computer and got to work. A Problem, and an Opportunity I’m a product designer—so instead of merely committing blasphemy, the normal human response to the aggravation caused by bad design—I tend to ask questions. For example, “Why does it take two hands, one flashlight, a direct line of sight and a screwdriver just to connect a printer to a computer?” Having asked the question, I made a few on-the-knees observations about the design problem. This beloved connector had a body holding its electrical components, with a screw on each side to engage two nuts on the computer. Both screws, as luck would have it, were products of the industrial revolution—meaning they turned clockwise to engage, counterclockwise to disengage.Computers and peripherals are constantly being improved (at least their guts, if not their accursed connectors). Obviously, each change would necessitate further fumbling with cables. Could I save fellow office workers the embarrassment of having to expose their buttocks to the breeze while fumbling with a screwdriver and flashlight during these inevitable equipment changes? In other words, could I couple the motion of these screws easily and cheaply? I thought of several solutions and gauged them according to ergonomics: The best one would interface naturally with the human hand. That meant I couldn’t use a gear to connect the thumbscrews—it would have to be too thin (I knew the computer industry wasn’t going to reposition the connectors for my benefit, and they’re spaced too close for a big gear to fit between them). Tractor BeltI was still on my knees when I thought up the inverse of a gear. A gearbelt would have teeth on the inside like the tracks on a bulldozer and teeth on the outside to easily engage the driving machinery (the office-dweller’s paw). This would allow me to call my invention a “tractor-grip” connector. As I carefully extricated myself from the tangle of cables beneath my desk, I began the engineering and design process. My first problem was strength—if I reinforced the belt, it would be impossible to install on the connector during manufacture. And how strong did it need to be? If the belt stretched, it would help prevent office Tarzans from overtightening the connector screws—this does happen—and stripping the nuts on the computer’s end of the connector or, worse yet, snapping the screws. That would allow me to add safety to my list of features, which obviously began with convenience. I found a belt supplier who actually seemed to care about the use to which their belts would be put, and they sent me some samples that were nearly the right size. I pondered the physical constraints on a computer connector (and ended up spending more time than I wanted staring at the backs of these machines), then put together some drawings and had a shop construct a “proof-of-principle” model. Now, to CommercializeSince I had belts that were one-sided only, I had to glue them together with a vile industrial cement, something which had the fortunate side-effect of stretching the belts to the correct length. I took my sample connector to a computer manufacturer and had the pleasure of watching 50 engineers pass it around as if it were contraband. That was when I realized that they’d spent even more hours on their knees wrestling with those stone-age connectors than I had! I had a ready audience, and if only this engineering department hadn’t been disassembled immediately after my visit, I’d have made a sale on my first call. I contacted a second firm, however, where I was rejected several times by the marketers. Finally, I had the presence of mind to call on the president directly. I was able to convince him that he really wanted to see me and that he would sign a non-disclosure agreement. As time is always short in situations like this, I just pulled the prototype from my pocket, watched the flash of “religion” in his eyes, and licensed the invention to his company the same day.As a designer, I have always been engaged with function as well as the visual “correctness” of a product. I think that if it’s not visually correct, there's usually a functional flaw as well. Following this principle, it was relatively easy to design the adapter as an attractive unit instead of a bulky bulldozer-behind-the-computer. My last challenge was to find a belt that was both stretchy (so it would slip against the screws when Tarzan tried to over-tighten it) and slippery (so it would slide over the connector during tightening). I knew I couldn’t lubricate the product as I had the prototype—with forehead grease—so I settled on a belt that was molded in two stages, with hard, slippery teeth on the inside and a grabbier, yet stretchier urethane on the outside. I was granted a patent on my gizmo, and first licensed it to Xircom, Inc., who began using it on pocket network adapters. In June, 1992, LAN Times called it “the most clever mechanical idea to turn up at NetWorld,” a Boston computer-equipment show. The Wall Street Journal recently covered my adapter as well. It turns out the computer industry, despite signs to the contrary, is not immune to good ergonomics.So now I can buy flashlights that aren’t mint flavored, and go to work on my desktop rather than under it. Last Updated (Monday, 08 February 2010 12:11) Invention Allows Humans to Breathe Like Fish Saturday, 23 January 2010 17:23 |
January 13, 2010 Alan Izhar-Bodner, an Israeli inventor, has developed a way for divers to breathe underwater without cumbersome oxygen tanks. His apparatus makes use of the air that is dissolved in water, just like fish do. The idea of breathing underwater without cumbersome compressed air tanks has been the dream of science fiction writers for many years. In George Lucas movie "The Phantom Menace", Obi-Wan whips out a little Jedi underwater breathing apparatus and dives in. As things tend to happen in our world, yesterdays science fiction has turned into today's science fact due to one Israeli inventor with a dream. There are a number of limitations to the existing compressed air tank underwater breathing method. The first is the amount of time a diver can stay underwater, which is the result of the compressed air tank capacity. Another limitation is the dependence on compressed air refueling facilities near the diving site which are costly to operate and are used to compress the gas into the tanks which might be dangerous if not handled properly. The final problem has to do with the actual use of compressed air tanks underwater. When these tanks are in use they empty out and change the balance of the diver in the water. Engineers have tried to overcome these limitations for many years now. Nuclear submarines and the international space station use systems that generate Oxygen from water by performing 'Electrolysis', which is chemical separation of Oxygen from Hydrogen. These systems require very large amounts of energy to operate. For this reason, smaller, diesel fueled submarines cannot use these systems and are required to resurface to re-supply their air tanks every so often. Divers can't even consider carrying such large machines not to mention supplying them with energy. To overcome this limitation an Israeli inventor, Alon Bodner, turned to fish. Fish do not perform chemical separation of oxygen from water; instead they use the dissolved air that exists in the water in order to breathe. In the ocean the wind, waves and underwater currents help spread small amounts of air inside the water. Studies have shown that in a depth of 200m below the sea there is still about 1.5% of dissolved air. This might not sound like much but it is enough to allow both small and large fish to breathe comfortably underwater. Bodner's idea was to create an artificial system that will mimic the way fish use the air in the water thus allowing both smaller submarines and divers to get rid of the large, cumbersome compressed air tanks.
The system developed by Bodner uses a well known physical law called the "Henry Law" which describes gas absorption in liquids. This law states that the amount of gas that can be dissolved in a liquid body is proportional to the pressure on the liquid body. The law works in both directionslowering the pressure will release more gas out of the liquid. This is done by a centrifuge which rotates rapidly thus creating under pressure inside a small sealed chamber containing sea water. The system will be powered by rechargeable batteries. Calculations showed that a one kilo Lithium battery can provide a diver with about one hour of diving time. Bodner has already built and tested a laboratory model and he is on the path to building a full-scale prototype. Patents for the invention have already been granted in Europe and a similar one is currently pending examination in the U.S. Meetings have already been held with most major diving manufacturers as well as with the Israeli Navy. Initial financial support for the project has been given by Israel Ministry of Industry and Commerce and Bodner is currently looking for private investors to help complete his project. If everything goes according to plan, in a few years the new tankless breathing system will be operational and will be attached to a diver in the form of a vest that will enable him to stay underwater for a period of many hours. At Home of ‘As Seen on TV,’ a Chance for Inventors Monday, 11 January 2010 10:36 |  Author: Administrator |
FAIRFIELD, N.J. — You’ve seen them in stores, you’ve watched them on TV, but if you want to see how those “As Seen on TV” products — bunion scrapers, kitty claw clippers and the like — go from concept to prototype to wonder item starring on late-night infomercials, welcome to TeleBrands headquarters here off Route 80. But wait, there’s more. We’ll throw in the Infomercial King, A. J. Khubani, who tries to divine the next magical product that can slice, dice, organize, clean or exfoliate — anything, as long as it can get that late-movie watcher reaching for his wallet and dialing some 800 number to reach the operators who are always standing by. The company held one of its “inventors days” last Wednesday, and entrepreneurs nationwide brought their self-styled products to pitch. Mr. Khubani, 49, the TeleBrands chief executive, and his team of evaluators sat around a long table in the shark tank that is the company’s conference room. In they came: the Texas cop who pushed in a lawn mower to show off his patented mower caddy shelf; the smooth-talking guy from Los Angeles demonstrating his Find-It beeping keychain; the woman demonstrating her self-adhering wrapping paper; the man behind the all new EZ-Stack party dish. And hey, haven’t you ever needed the Gutter Gremlin drainpipe screen? “Keep your mind out of the gutter,” chirped its inventor, Steve Reuter, from Dover, Del., as he searched Mr. Khubani’s stoical face for some hint of approval. Mr. Reuter had set up a mock gutter and was pouring a pitcher of water over a pile of leaves to show how his product, a filter for the top of a drainpipe (fashioned out of half a Wiffle ball), would prevent clogging. Mr. Khubani raised one eyebrow to “Leave-your-number-at-the-desk” level and called for the next inventor from the two dozen in the lobby, each hoping to have his product selected for the marketing big leagues. Visions of megastore shelves and “As Seen on TV” logos danced in their heads. And that’s not all. These hopes turned to elation or heartbreak. Some pitchmen left crestfallen: Dudley from Minneapolis got his tie rack panned, and he slumped in defeat next to his products. Others left floating, like the makers of the Hanky Tanky Hanger, which suspends a dozen tank tops at once — No More Folding! While waiting, the inventors stared at a repeating loop of TeleBrands infomercials on a lobby screen, and at the giant display model of the PedEgg foot scraper, the company’s all-time best seller, at more than 30 million units retail since coming out in 2007 — there’s money in those dried, cracking soles! TeleBrands auditions thousands of products a year and markets maybe five; those five may get better airtime these days because of the sagging market for television ads. Each inventor last week got five minutes that began counting down on a big digital clock on the wall. A polished pitchman of product, Craig Nabat — he of the beeping Find-It keychain and the laser-growth hair regenerating helmet — strode into his audition, dressed in designer black, and told Mr. Khubani, “You guys have distribution in 90 countries; that’s why I’m here.” Mr. Nabat fired up a laptop to play his pilot commercial for another version of his Find-It keychain, which beeps its whereabouts if you press a separate button remote. “Yeah, but what if you lose that?” asked Mr. Khubani, who later decreed, “You got a ‘Maybe.’ ” Two men came in with an attachment for a cellphone. “Another cellphone product,” Mr. Khubani exhaled, causing the men to stiffen. Two women tried to pitch a safety tether for a bracelet. For this, Mr. Khubani turned to his wife, Poonam — he often brings her and their teenage children along for advice — who sealed its fate. “I wouldn’t put a safety-pin-looking thing with my bracelet,” she said. Next! Vic Grigorian, 50, of Los Angeles, came in and began over-explaining his all-new EZ Stack party snack organizer. The room yawned, but wait — there was a gleam in the eye of Mr. Khubani, who earned his direct-response marketing stripes with the massage slipper and the AmberVision sunglasses. He’s also the man who brought you EarLifts, Heel-Tastic and the Potty Putter (Practice Putting on the Toilet!). And now the king saw some “Wow Your Friends!” magic in this snack dish. He grabbed it and performed a nifty demonstration. So-so product, he concluded, “but it could demo very well on TV and that could cause me to want to buy it.” Next, two teddy bears bounded in — no, it was two women wearing their product: a terry cloth jumpsuit for after showering. This hit a nerve with Mr. Khubani, who is still stinging from passing up the Snuggie robe, which caught another marketer’s eye and sold millions. He assured these jumpsuit gals they’d hear from him. And on and on: the Showerhands shampoo holders, the TearLess Onion Chopper, the Zip Tube refillable lotion containers. One man showed his special barbecuing utensil, insisting, “With this tool, you replace tongs, spatulas, forks, fish baskets and kebabbers.” “What’s the problem with a spatula?” Mr. Khubani asked. He explained to the inventors: “You have to look at the product and say, ‘Wow, I get it.’ It has to have that wow factor.” Last Updated (Monday, 11 January 2010 10:42) |
