IDEAS CLUB ( BENDIGO ) www.inventorvic.com.au The Inventors Association of Australia (Vic) 30 Reids Lane Warranwood Vic 3134 Phone President on 0418538604 Email: [email protected] Thanks to our Patent Attorney Alex Tzanidis Davies Collison Cave 1 Nicholson Street Wed. March 6th Melbourne VIC 3000 Australia 2013 P: 03 9254 2777 F: 03 9254 2770 45 Miller Cres. For his excellent tutorial for our members Mount Waverley E: [email protected] Our February meeting was another a good start with 11 new visitors which is the most at any meeting for approxi‐ cracker of an evening with Alex Tzani‐ dis helping inventors from 6.30pm to mately 5 years and we thank all those 7.20pm in their understanding of pat‐ who came and hope to see you again. ents and other intellectual property. Meetup social media has contributed strongly and all were quite young which begins to fulfill our aim of lowering the average age of the association members without culling those at the top end! Our new audio/visual equipment made a difference to the enjoyment of the eve‐ ning which was setup and tested before hand. The microphone worked extremely well through the speaker and we even had music before starting. All visitors were informed that our pat‐ ent tutorials are free and that if they had any general inventing questions or Videos For wanted to know more about the associa‐ Inventors tion that they could identify the commit‐ tee members by their black badges and GARY HEGEDUS PRODUCTIONS to speak to them. www.ghproductions.com.au Inventor of the Year winner Proud sponsor of the IAA VIC. 56 Smedley Road Park Orchards Vic. The Inventor‐of‐the‐Year trophy was dis‐ 3144 played and we asked Marcus McLeod to Email [email protected] Well done and thanks Alex! come up for congratulations as the pre‐ Videos are one of the most useful sent winner with his smart phone video tools for the inventor wanting to ad- 11 New Visitors vertise or launch a product. They can crane BoomBandit. be sent via email, opened in web- Our meeting was chaired by Peter sites and played on laptop com- We have begun to enter all visitors, puters or ipads. O’Shannessy President and it got off to Tel: 98762860 Mob: 0408 994 040 From Idea to Product then Business Plan to Investor Take your business to the next level with Videos sell! BusinessPlans.com.au Proud sponsor of the IAA Vic Call Nigel Catt for special offers to IAA Vic members on 1300 630 330 members, speakers and others who attend our meetings into the new database so that we will have good records of attendances and we will be more easily able to look up past speakers or attorneys. As part of that system we want to eventually list all inven‐ tions and the genre of those inventions too. We are also considering how to develop an Inventor School or Inventor Boot Camp to get inventors off on the right foot. These informal courses could include 3D cad drawing, prototype making, different types of manufacturing tech‐ niques, business planning, market research skills and they would be run by experienced members with specialist sup‐ port where required. As part of that process we would try to develop a list of companies that the members have used for a range of ser‐ vices as a quick guide to where to go. Of course this would Archie thought immediately of a wall mounted Christmas be at the member’s risk because we cannot recommend tree made from synthetic grass which would give the ef‐ businesses, but we can make it easier for members to find fect of a real tree. suppliers. Archie pursued the Christmas tree idea and through a cli‐ A webpage for all ent met up with a guy who had been dealing with a All members are reminded that they are entitled to have a Shanghai source over the last ten years. With the knowl‐ webpage about their invention (each invention) on our edge of this contact Archie busily made many prototypes website and if they have a video to have that on our You‐ before achieving the shape and sizes that he was happy Tube channel. The website is www.inventorvic.com.au and with. the Youtube channel is http://www.youtube.com/user/ He mailed it off to China full of excitement and weeks inventorvic. later Archie and a friend were on a flight to Shanghai Peter promised to send an email to members requesting China, to see the progression of the Christmas tree and their invention information. Keywords are important with webpages and this was explained briefly. One Minute Christmas Tree Archie Grogan was introduced as our Inventor‐Of‐The‐Year competition presenter with his great idea the “One Minute Christmas Tree” which is wall mounted to save space, looks great, has its own lights and folds neatly into a flat box. He had us time him while he opened the box, unfolded it, placed the star on top and hung it on the wall—total 45 seconds! Archie has run his plastering company for many years, but it was always his dream to be an Inventor. Does that sound familiar anyone? He got the Christmas tree idea while he and his wife Eve were renovating houses and Archie was installing the syn‐ thetic grass in the backyard. A Christmas Carol came on the radio at the same time that he was thinking to himself how grass technology had gotten better over the past few years, and a previous idea of Archie’s came rushing back into his mind! He started to think about last Christmas, where he had to put child safety gates around the perimeter of the Christ‐ mas Tree, because his two year old son would pull at the tree, the decorations, electrical lights, leads and tamper with the power point! How many of us have had a similar problem? grass. His Chinese manufacturing contact had organised And for every problem, there is a solution for an inventor! meetings with wire manufactures, LED light manufactures rated. This is also an outdoor decoration because the battery case, frame and grass are all water proof so you can have more than one tree in your home. Archie points out that it only takes one minute to disman‐ tle the Christmas Tree, store it in its flat box and there are no pine needles to clean up or tree to dispose. Archie thinks his markets will include apartments, hotels, homes, nursing homes, hospitals, young families, schools, and pre schools plus other institutions worldwide. Good luck Archie we hope you do very well and we look forward to seeing your presentation at the Christmas Party awards. Our 3D Printer now prints rubber Ray Rabanin informed us that the IAA(Vic) 3D Printer can now print in flexible rubber. If a member has a 3D draw‐ ing they can have a prototype printed in ABS plastic for much lower cost than elsewhere and now in rubber. The cost of the prototype varies because solid objects can be printed hollow to save costs of material, but they can generally be produced for $100 to $300. Gary Hegedus Productions and grass manufacturers. While at the grass manufacturer where Archie finalized his custom made grass, he ordered a huge minimum quantity of grass to make up the five sizes of Christmas trees and had the other 95% shipped over to Australia where he started up a synthetic grass/landscaping business “ De‐ signer Grass” with the slogan “ Transforming Your Exte‐ rior”. After coming back from China Archie realized that it wouldn’t be ready for the 2012 Christmas season which gave him the opportunity to file a patent on the wall‐ mounted Christmas tree, and he has trademarked the “1 MINUTE CHRISTMAS TREE” and copyrighted the slogan Gary who is a sponsor of the IAA(Vic) gave us a fascinat‐ “Giving You a TREEMENDOUS time” , well done Archie. ing presentation of animated video which anyone can Here are some of the benefits which are worth consider‐ use to advertise their product. ing: One of the ways to do it is to use www.xtranormal.com a We have to agree with Archie that this Christmas tree free movie program that turns your dialog into a movie. saves space in your home, prevents having to rearrange Gary showed us one that he had made about his own furniture, it is child safe out of their reach and pet safe company which was very entertaining. too. There is also no mess, it is simple to mount with self adhesive hooks or an existing picture frame hook and Before helping us with practical tips Gary showed us an‐ takes only one minute to set up! other of his creations where he hired an artist and did a series of drawings. The two hours it took to produce It is one of the lightest and most compact Christmas trees them was condensed to a two minute video with Adobe on the market so there is no heavy lifting. Elements and then he did a voiceover to complete the Another problem solved is that you do not have to set it video. All the video shots were of the whiteboard where up close to a power point because the lights are battery the animations continually changed. operated. That means no leads, tangled lights or safety To help us with our own videos which Gary encouraged hazard, it is always ready to go at the flick of its switch us‐ us to take he had a number of tips.