Tonight’s first ep. is just a “best of auditions” bit. The second hour is the one in which a judge will tell one of three contestants that s/he will be continuing to the finals. I believe it’s two more weeks like this, and then we’ll get down to the nitty gritty with a final four.
I still can’t see the football thingie being a huge moneymaker.
This is my first time watching this show, but I have to say I was quite dissappointed that the 14 yr old with the portable car cooler didn’t make it. Everyone loved both him and his invention. He should have been able to go on.
Has it ever come up that the bike thing with the rider on the front is probably going to be illegal? I know that having someone ride on the handlebars here is illegal, I would guess that it is illegal in a lot of other places too. How does the person who’s doing the steering see over the other person and how much steering control are they going to have with the extra weight on front? Were these issues addressed?
Sorry if it was, I was barely watching. This show is turning into a big sappy snoozefest for me.
I don’t recall any of those issues being addressed.
Dragwyr, I agree. The judges’ objection was that “nobody should leave their pets in a hot car,” but they overlook the obvious fact: People DO leave pets in hot cars, or at least in cars that heat up later, so the pet cooler is a good idea as a contingency plan.
They’re just covering their asses. They probably know that it’s a worthwhile invention, but since this show is more about manufacturing sappy dramatic moments than about really promoting the best inventive idea, they have to avoid controversy for the producers and for the network. I’m sure they were all thinking- let’s try to avoid intervention from PETA with this one- give the kid all the props we can muster, but it’s easier to go with something like the Sackmaster 2000 or the emotional guy who developed his own weight training equipment.
Actually, the problem with the kid’s invention to cool a dog in the car is that it already exists. Do a Google search on “auto solar fan” and you’ll see at least one similar product. Except the commercial device just talks about cooling the car, and doesn’t suggest that it can keep the temperature comfortable for a dog, as the kid did. I doubt his product would keep a dog safe, and if he pretends it does, there are some real liability issues there.
And did these people think through their inventions or test them at all? For example, remember the guy with the “perfect pet petter” (the mechanical hand to pet a dog)? Did he actually try this with his own dog? My guess is that any real dog will run away from this monstrosity or will ignore it. They’re not so stupid as to confuse this device with their actual owner. Plus you’d have to adjust it depending on the size of the dog. And the couple with the auto armor for towing cars. You’d have to have separate designs for each model, which gets expensive. And they’re suggesting using the product while the car is being towed. Well, how often do you need to have your car towed, and where do you store the stuff in the meantime?
My damn dvr went wacko last night and so when my roomies and I paused for 30 minutes to discuss something, when we unpaused we had lost all the time during our pause. So I never got to see his bike. I hear it looked cool though.
A few comments:
At first I was liking the kids dog fan car cooler thing. But then I started to think that it is a bad idea, because I think it would make folks leave their pets in their cars more readily. What if the fan broke down?
That guy wioth the dall that said"Everything is going to be all right" was absolutely cracking me up and I think the judges got it wrong. I WANT ONE! Not because it will help my psyche, but because it was so damn creepy as to be funny.
The bike guy defintely deserved to win. I don’t know about the legality of such a bike, but it certainly had the most potential. And it did look cool.The gym guy, if more composed and polished maybe could have been the winner.
I think the scariest thing about the pet petter was the loud voice, then again once your dog gets over the initial shock he can keep himself busy while your gone by attacking it and chewing it to bits.
Re: The auto armor, the marketing niche for that was for people who RV and also tow a smaller car, not just for towing disabled cars. Although the RV niche may get smaller with the increase in gas prices.
I hated the pet cooler from the first time I saw it for reasons already mentioned, people should not be encouraged to leave pets in their car and what if it broke down? It’s too risky.
I wonder if the physics work out for the spherical child safety seat thing. It’ll be interesting to see how that develops.
But I loved the kid’s bike. I’m now rooting for him to win. Seems like a good kid, and I want to see if he’s got any other cool ideas floating around in his head.
I am completely impressed with Francisco Patino, the 2-seat bike guy. So what if he’s only 19, he’s the only contestant who truly and completely gets it, the only one with a clear idea of how the product development process works. Most of the others, possibly excepting Janusz, seemed to be under the impression that simply having the idea is the hard part (it’s actually by far the easiest), and the world will beat a path to your door. To most of them, their own belief in the value of their inventions is enough, and the force of their personality is all it takes to get rich. Francisco showed he knows to be humble, not too much in love with his “child” that he can’t go find out what the market wants and change it appropriately, and even dump it unceremoniously if it doesn’t work and move on to the next idea.
Some of the other inventions may find a market niche, and even outsell the bike thing (I like Word Ace very much, for instance), but young Mr. Patino is the only successful future career “serial inventor” there. Well, maybe the 14-year-old guy, too, when he gets better ideas.
Is anyone else haunted by images of the Bladder Buddy?
I have my doubts about that one - the sphere and baby have a lot of inertia in comparison with the time scale involved in a collision, and I question if it could roll into place in time to do any good. Janusz is an ME; he should have been able to figure it out, or at least do some simple tests. There are federal safety certification hurdles to overcome with that one, too, and the funding and time to get over them may be too much even if it’s successful.
The funniest one for me was the woman in the hat who had the CD that said, “It’s time to get up” for two minutes straight. What was funny was her open-mouthed astonishment that they didn’t think this was the greatest idea since sliced bread.
(Also, any parent could make their own recording easily enough, and my guess is that a kid is going to break the CD the first chance he gets, just out of annoyance.)
I don’t understand how that Here Comes Niya doll got into the final twelve. It’s nice, but I don’t consider it to be an invention. A new product perhaps, but not an invention.
I think it could, depending on the vehicle’s deceleration profile. There are times when the vehicle driver starts to brake well before the actual collision. If they brake hard enough and far enough in advance, I could see this working.
Those relatively-low-G crashes are also the least likely to cause injury anyway, and are already within the capabilities of existing baby seats. Janusz’ invention has to be *superior * to them in the more severe cases or it ain’t gettin’ nowhere.
You’re all forgetting the best line of the night:
“So you’ve invented a stick?”
“No, it’s a wand.”
What were the rules to the Word Ace, how did it work? Unless I missed it, it seemed they never went into it… only his overly sappy, sentimental and suspect story.
Which is really starting to bother me. It’s okay to show us their stories, but dayum. Are the pushing the drama, or what? How many times do I have to hear you invested everything you have, quit your job, and are now living out of your car? Good lord. Get your life together FIRST, then see if you can make your (probably lame) idea happen. And can I see a show of hands of how many people bought gimmicky exercise equipment only to end up in a garage sale later that same summer.
Exactly. On top of that, a multi-lingual doll in increasingly xenophobic America? Hmm.
I thought the sandbagger would’ve gone further (but I missed the video to see if it was a good invention, it looked solid though).
The best moment? The groin smack. Ouch!