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[moved] Donâ€™t underestimate the power of your simple General Science ideas PICS ATTACHED

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LAN_403

Thu Mar 22 2007, 03:52PM

Banned on April 7, 2007
Registered Member #277 Joined: Fri Mar 03 2006, 10:15AM
Location: Florida
Posts: 157

In our age of genetic engineering, quantum mechanics and GHz computers, seems there are very few â€˜simpleâ€™ things left to invent by the individual. Seems that most of the simple inventions in GENERAL SCIENCE have already been done. But hereâ€™s 1st hand encouraging insight, on occasion, two existing low-tech ideas which most people would consider in the GENERAL SCIENCE classification can be combined to create a distinct third idea resulting in creating jobs, opening factories, income for workers and their families, food on the table, tax revenue for the state. If youâ€™ve ever had an idea that made you wonder if it could â€˜workâ€™ in the real world, then this post may be of interest to you. In the late 1980â€™s, a new style of super-bright LED with internal electronic chip which made it blink on and off, came to my attention. A neat idea, but nothing too exciting by itself. For grins, I hand made some epoxy resin forms of geometric shapes, round, diamond, triangle, rain drop, with holes for two LEDS per shape and holes for two zinc watch batteries to generate the 3v required by the electronics of the LEDS. I turned them on, and presto, blinking earrings came to life that could be easily seen â€˜strobingâ€™ over several hundred feet away. Because each LED operated on an independent internal timer, they created a constantly changing â€˜rhythmâ€™ moving slowly out of sync with each other, then 180 degrees out of sync, then slowly back into sync. Just about every woman and girl who saw the prototypes wanted a pair for parties, New Years, Halloween, and wild nights on the town. I was surprised that even 70 year old Grandmas wanted them (as gifts to their grand daughters). I had reached a crucial decision pointâ€¦ a point that some of you may find yourself at someday with your ideas. I could be content as is, or I could see if some benefit might be extracted from this idea. So, to test the waters, I showed my prototypes to a few major retailersâ€¦and they placed orders! That was enough encouragement for me to hire an injection molder to create a mold capable of producing many thousands of the plastic earring bodies. I sourced the LEDs and batteries from Asia and opened a factory in Florida employing 70 workers manufacturing the earrings. During the 1989-1990 season, the â€œLobe Strobesâ€ earrings hit the U.S. market through Wal-Mart nationwide, Spencer Gifts, Sears, Disney... even Anheuser Busch placed orders for â€œBud Lightâ€ Lobe Strobes. Spielberg / Zemeckisâ€™ people telephoned asking if they could use Lobe Strobes in a â€œBack-to-the-Future/Pizza Hut commercial, of course, I was delighted to say yes and hand delivered the Lobe Strobes to the California production set (yes, I asked to sit in the goofy looking Delorean, the one with the white walled tires in Part III, unfortunately, no keys, so I wasnâ€™t able to reach 88 mph, hereâ€™s the car bring driven by M. Fox)

Lobe Strobes appeared on Dolly Parton on the David Letterman show, the Associated Press picked up the Lobe Strobe story, appeared on the Super Bowl pre-game show and lots of other media coverage. Production grew to the point that manufacturing had to be expanded to mainland China. Bottom line, two simple low-tech ideas clearly in the GENERAL SCIENCE category as opposed to high-tech category, 1) Blinking LEDs and 2) Plastic molding, were combined to create tangible benefit for many workers and families in the USA and China creating many new jobs. Moral of this story, YOUR idea could be next. Donâ€™t under estimate the power of your idea IF you are truly convinced it is viable, regardless of the nay-sayers, there will always be nay-sayers, but sometimes they are right, so use caution and test marketing before investing any significant funds into production of your idea. I hope this post might be a source of encouragement and reflection for a few of you. CM

Sulaiman

Thu Mar 22 2007, 04:01PM

Registered Member #162 Joined: Mon Feb 13 2006, 10:25AM
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 3140

Nice one CM !

Your ability to take an idea to market has me envious

stop4stuff

Thu Mar 22 2007, 05:55PM

Registered Member #64 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:25AM
Location: Southampton, UK
Posts: 68

cool CM... was your write-up as hard to write as it is to read?

I've got one idea in the pipeline that is currently 'under construction' for a prototye... a totally unique heat difference engine that i've been told may come close to carnot efficiency... we'll see on that one tho.

You could get real complicated with your strobe lobes... aimed at singles bars/clubs... the flash rate picks up if the person wearing them likes someone they see... 5% royalty is enough 4 the idea

Sam

Thu Mar 22 2007, 08:54PM

Registered Member #227 Joined: Mon Feb 20 2006, 10:47PM
Location: Cambridge Ontario, Canada!!
Posts: 127

giving me ideas...
100 2277

what can i do with my ear... leds, LCD screen, small calculator...

edit, maybe a real stobe tube

Steve Conner

Fri Mar 23 2007, 12:27AM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

Don't make me start a Novelty Earring Contest.

ShawnLG

Fri Mar 23 2007, 01:03AM

Registered Member #286 Joined: Mon Mar 06 2006, 04:52AM
Location:
Posts: 399

"Don't make me start a Novelty Earring Contest."
Oh god no.

Fri Mar 23 2007, 01:19AM

Banned on April 7, 2007
Registered Member #277 Joined: Fri Mar 03 2006, 10:15AM
Location: Florida
Posts: 157

Stop4stuff:
Sorry if the flow of the post wasn't composed too well, I compressed what could have easily been 10 pages into about one by leaving out a lot of details that I thought would be boring to most. I hope my message wasn't lost in the verbage tho, which is simply for each of us to take courage in our best ideas and to sometimes take action on them. I've read the archives, there are some truly brillant people who post here, and some people with some pretty cool ideas that could have market value if they acted on them. I realize this forum isn't for evaluating business opportunities, so I'm not focusing on that issue too much, but the businessman inside me senses there is considerable untapped potential here, in terms of benefit to society and possibly making a few pesos on the side. Btw, not all my product ideas have met with success, I developed the first, if not among the first, consumer wireless speakers in the early 80's, went to Chicago and showed them to Sears. They liked them, but unfortunately a much larger corporation had beaten me to the punch by about 3 months and obtained the Sears contract, seems they beat me to all the major electronics distributors, today thier wireless speaker lines are worth untold millions on the international market and mine sit collecting dust in my garage. Win some, lose some. CM

Hazmatt_(The Underdog)

Fri Mar 23 2007, 01:22AM

Registered Member #135 Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735

Put these in your hoop earings, then youd be top notch. hehe

Michael W.

Fri Mar 23 2007, 02:35AM

Registered Member #50 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 04:07AM
Location: Vernon, B.C, Canada
Posts: 324

To bad that (the above) is about 20" across.....

Sam

Fri Mar 23 2007, 08:07PM

Registered Member #227 Joined: Mon Feb 20 2006, 10:47PM
Location: Cambridge Ontario, Canada!!
Posts: 127

MMMMM,19 more inches...

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