Opportunity for Mass Media? Tech to save children in hot cars.

[Joe Cassandra]

I wasn't hearing much from my friend about building the prototype. So i reached out to him and offered him 10% to just :

1) Build a quick prototype
2) After that, be just a consultant on the project i.e. just answer any questions I have but no manual work.

He was very nice about it, he told me he's been caught up in other projects and his day job as an engineer. he's going to try to recruit his friend to perhaps build it as they both thought the idea had some merit; however, he said if I didn't hear from him in 2 weeks, I should take it as he's not going to be able to help with the project.

Part of that timeline is because I told him I wanted to build a prototype fast and get to talking to the auto execs to Validate it and thus either sink or swim with the licensing plan. He mentioned he didn't want to hold me back timewise and that it might actually be a great experience for me to teach myself how to build it etc.

I've been tinkering with my arduino, found an instructable on how to trigger a sensor that will call your phone, I'll need to just loop in the code about the temp sensor. Unfortunately, that required many more parts so I've been ordering some parts, and they haven't worked as I hoped, so would need to order another etc. I read I could probably just go to a Radioshack....so that may be the new plan for new parts going forward instead of waiting for shipping.

Also, got sidetracked with the new baby coming and I had a another idea I wanted to build a quick prototype for to test and been talking with Chinese manufacturers. I realized I lost time on this project due to that and need to focus on 1 at a time.

Bottom-line: Still building and learning on how it all works. Great learning experience for me.

 

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[sboarding]

I saw something like this on the news the other day. It's a great idea and could definitely save lives.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ho...ns-invention-aims-stop-hot-car-deaths-n167426

 

[Joe Cassandra]

I saw something like this on the news the other day. It's a great idea and could definitely save lives.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ho...ns-invention-aims-stop-hot-car-deaths-n167426

Yeah, I saw that, her Indiegogo campaign is going great! I saw this story a couple weeks ago and she had only raised like $200 now she's at 18k.

I love seeing stories of sub-18 year olds trying to change the world. And changing the world not trying to create the next Facebook

 

[sboarding]

I love seeing stories of sub-18 year olds trying to change the world. And changing the world not trying to create the next Facebook

haha true. I think sometimes these "kids" don't get enough credit! Keep trucking man, I look forward to reading your progress!

 

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[Joe Cassandra]

Been struggling with the prototype. As mentioned above, I had recruited an actual electrical engineer to start working on it, but he jumped ship. I am not an electrical engineer so been spending time trying to understand it more. Time's been wasted with a lot of broken parts I would then need to re-order online [as I couldn't find any at local stores] and that takes time to ship.

Started reaching out to execs. I'm going to target Subaru first as they always talk about safety and family and such and will update as I get responses.

I'm starting to think I probably won't make any money off this as the auto industry is pretty competitive and the margins are budgeted very tightly; however, this isn't a concern as it is more to bring awareness and try and help families for me at this point. This removes the worry about "having to make money to prove myself." If this concept is adapted and saves a life, I've done a good job.

As for a sales sheet, I'm not exactly sure what the final design would look like, so a 3D design wouldn't work well, instead I hired a freelancer and had a whiteboard video created.

The final video product still leaves something to be desired, but at this time, I want to gauge the interest of the car companies before dumping more money & time into concept videos and testing. I worked hard at the script, so let me know what you think.

Patent-wise, I decided to forego doing a provisional patent until I start getting positive feedback. As mentioned in OP, there are already similar patents I would need to tiptoe around and thus any car manufacturer would to.