#1. Rugged LED Spotlight

#2. PCB Layout of an Ethernet PHY

Want to see how a printed circuit board layout is designed? This video is a quick overview of how things get done!

We hope you have enjoyed these videos and please share them with your friends! Now get back to work! Chop chop!

#1 The Marble Machine

Music and Engineering.  A mechanical wonder. This gentleman is part engineer and part musician (as Front man for the Swedish band Wintergatan), and plays this hand-crafted mechanical engineering beast like it’s an instrument. A circuit of 2000 cascading steel marbles activate a vibraphone, an electrical bass guitar, a built-in Turkish cymbal and other instruments. Incredible sounds and fun to watch.

#2. Bridge building machine

Got a bridge you need to build in place?  Necessity is the mother of invention.  We don’t know how else they would do this, but this machine is amazing in the way it can lift itself up and move things around to build a bridge, in place.

#3. 5-Axis CNC machine

Machining a crank shaft in one shot.  I’ll never be this coordinated.  Beauty is in the details.  Yes, it’s a long watch, but anyone familiar with the complexities of a crank shaft will appreciate the coordination of multiple axes working together to polish the journals.  

#4. Lego Mindstorms

#5. Tree Cutting Machine

Unless you have all of the resources you need to create and develop your product, you are more than likely interfacing with a technical consultant or engineering company.  The more effectively you can communicate with the technical team, the better your chances of getting what you want. 

Writing it down and describing all of your ideas and how they will work together will be a very effective task for moving your idea forward with your technical team.  You will begin to see holes in the logic, stumble upon new ideas, and begin to document what is in your head.  Writing it down will also alleviate the constant ruminating of an idea in your head.

But you say, “I’m not an engineer!  I don’t know how to write a specification!”.  Well, both statements may be true, but if you want to pave the way to a successful product development venture, you’ll need to learn to communicate your ideas effectively to the engineers who can write a specification.  And with a few helpful tips, you too can write a basic specification.

An item of note, this list is for a somewhat validated idea.  This list assumes you’ve already performed the basics like validated a market, created a tentative business model, and you have performed some level of prototyping.

1. Brainstorm.  Your first step is to just get all of your ideas down on paper.  White boards, drawings, and short lists are a good place to start.  You want to focus enough on this so it is all out of your head and on paper.  You can move things around later, but now you have your concept documented and you can begin to refine it.
2. Strong and weak words.  Inventors tend to get very tied to their ideas.  Try to break away from that and begin to describe what you need done using some special words.  If you use a phrase like, “The device shall be made from titanium,” then the reader will expect that you are the expert in this material and there is no room for variance.  Other strong phrases are: must have, required to, and will.  Does it need to be made from titanium or is it that weight to be minimized?  There are weak words to use like may or should or can.  Think about what is absolutely required and what would be nice, and the real goal you are hoping to achieve.  Then write that down.  Keep in mind that opposites can also be valuable in your writing.  Phrases like cannot, shall not, and should not are equally useful.
3. Sketch.  As you have heard, a picture is worth a thousand words.  You may be amazed at how effective a simple block diagram in Power Point can be.  Show how things are connected.  Show the logical flow of operation.  There are great mock-up tools for software/apps these days you can also use.  The more you think and articulate your idea, the more effective it will be conveyed and possibly become a better product.
4. Write what you know.  You are probably not an engineer if you are reading this, so don’t try to be.  Yes, you should educate yourself in the technical field of your idea.  You should not spend your days looking over websites for microcontrollers and then specify the use of one in your project.  Describe the features and functionality you require, don’t try to engineer the product unless you have that skillset (before you had this idea).  An experienced engineer will have just that, a lot more experience.  Take advantage of that and let them do what they are good at.
5. Iterate.  A specification is a living document.  It can change as the market and business input is uncovered.  As you learn more about your idea, do more research, and develop your product and business, it will constantly evolve.  Now with that being said, once you engage a technical team, there can be costs associated with change.  You will want to get close enough to start engaging your technical team, but once you hand it over to them you should have a good assurance it’s right, and only make changes that absolutely have to be done.  Inventors tend to like to ‘tinker’ with their ideas which can keep products from ever reaching the market, so iterate until you have something to sell, then stop.  Let the market drive your iterations.  This is a subject for another posting.

What I’ve described above is generally referred to as Functional Requirements Specification or a FRS.  The engineering team will then likely create several documents from this which could be a Design or Product Specification, Test and Validation Plans, etc.  Those are beyond the scope here. 

Don’t worry about making it perfect.  From a non-technical perspective, you should put down the things that you care about.  However technical and non-technical that is.  If you care about the color, put that down.  If you care about costs, put that down.  If you don’t care what material is used, let the engineer figure that out.  In any case, your technical team will start to ask you a lot of questions to help flesh out your specification.  After the ground work is laid, then everyone can be on the same page for what needs to be done.

But there often is a long, and lengthy, process from taking an idea from concept to reality, to something tangible that you can hold in your hand.

This is where Anidea Engineering comes in. We take ideas, mere thoughts, and bring them to reality, making them into something real.

We make something from nothing, whether it is helping with product development, engineering consulting, hardware design and engineering, software design and development, industrial design and mechanical engineering, printed circuit board design and development or manufacturing and prototypes, we do it all!

On the top of our web site, right below the URL, is an amazing document to help any inventor prepare for the process, one which we excel at guiding companies through.

When you’re ready, it is time to make a prototype. So what exactly is a prototype? Merriam-Webster defines a prototype as “an original or first model of something from which other forms are copied or developed; someone or something that has the typical qualities of a particular group, kind, etc.; and a first or early example that is used as a model for what comes later.”

Thomas Edison went through many different variations of his prototype of the light bulb before he found one that worked. It took him more than 10,000 tries, but eventually he got there. This can be a long process, but in the end, it is worth the time and dedication. After all, your idea is on the path to becoming a reality.

So you start with a prototype to create a tangible version of your idea. There are many types of prototypes, but the three Anidea Engineering typically deals with are:

• Proof of Concept – This would be an early level prototype that includes many of the final features, but usually has a low level of customization. Typically, Anidea Engineering can take a few off-the-shelf-devices, modify them, program them, etc., and prove the concept the inventor has in mind is practical. They can then be used for raising early stage funds and validating your idea to focus groups.
• Functional Prototype – This is a mid-stage prototype, which usually has a high level of customization. Most components are custom or designed for volume purchasing at this point.  Most of the features are in place. There may be some compromises on functionality due to cost or time constraints.
• Pilot Run – This is a late stage prototype which you have before you start production without the engineers. At this stage the device should represent what you intend to sell. If you find issues here, you iterate, make minor changes and try again.

Prototypes can range in how sophisticated their design and packing are, whether they are made in the garage with a glue gun, or professionally made and ready to show to the market. However, in the early stages, it doesn’t have to be pretty – it just needs to work. Even if it doesn’t, and you keep having to return to the drawing board for your design, don’t feel badly. It isn’t a failure; you are learning what doesn’t work. If it worked for Edison (Even Thomas Edison went through more than 10,000 prototypes until the lightbulb was just right), it will work for you, right?

At Anidea Engineering, we guide you through the process, going from a garage and glue gun inventor to a professional, sellable, specific product.

Yes, prototypes are expensive. For instance, a watch might cost $100 in a department store, but to get that watch from concept to prototype, with manufacturing and testing, may cost more than $100,000.

It takes time, effort, organization and work to take an idea from concept to reality, and we’re here to help.

To learn more, visit www.anidea-engineering.com or call us at (561) 383-7311. Check us out and see how we can help you. Have an idea? Get Anidea! We’re located at 8020 Belvedere Road, Suite 1 in West Palm Beach Florida. Not local? Call and we can set up a Skype conversation at gabriel.goldstein.anidea.

It may come as a surprise, but you can pay a company or a person for engineering design work, and not own the design that you paid for. It has happened to several of my clients working with other vendors in the past, and it happened just recently and I was compelled to bring this to light.

I refer you to the Copyright Law of 1976. It’s some nice light reading for a Sunday afternoon; it’s rough.  Here is the gist, if you create something, it’s yours. Yes it gets more complicated that than that, but in the case of engineers and other people who are typically in the business of creating, that’s the way it works. So you walk into Joe Engineering, Inc. (no offence, Joe) and pay them to create your new invention for you, they own the design and have every right to protect it. You could still very well have a patent on it, but without any additional contractual terms, they own it.

Now obviously in whatever you signed with Joe, you should have been assigned at least some rights to the work you are paying them to create, but that’s where the devil is in the details. And as I lay out these examples, one isn’t better than the other, they are just different and it depends on the company’s monetization model.

Work for Hire. This is an actual exception to the copyright law above. As I stated above, if you create something, you own it. Well we are all pretty comfortable and understand that if you are an employee of a company, the work you do is owned by the company. This is work for hire. However it gets messier if you work with an independent contractor, company, or freelancer. The entity that created the work for you owns the work, unless rights have been explicitly granted to the entity doing the hiring.

So you walk into Joe Engineering, Inc., sign the agreement, they do the work, you pay them, now what? If the agreement states that the work was a ‘work for hire’ or that you are granted full rights to the design, then you can do whatever you want with the work. If however if a ‘work for hire’ was not agreed to ahead of time, they could very well present you with a set of drawings and say thank you very much. Heck, they may not owe you anything, it just depends on your agreement. Typically they would just offer you the output documents (files to produce the product, but not change). Which brings me to the key point of this paper, read and understand your contracts.

This isn’t about the companies being mean, it’s just the way they chose to do business. What typically happens, is if a contracting company sells and assigns the entire rights of the design to the client, they have to charge more. They are selling their work at full price. On the other hand, if you have a company which tightly controls their intellectual property and maintains ownership of their designs, they generally charge less as they intend to monetize their costs other ways (manufacturing, change orders,etc.).

The typical case when a client finds out about the details of their agreement is when the client is no longer satisfied with the work of the engineer and wishes to split their paths. The client explains that they need all of their design files. These are the files used to create the design. They could be source code, solid models, schematics, etc. And you want the files used in the native software so they are easily editable so you can have someone else work on them. And the engineering company tells you no, you don’t own those files. You don’t have a lot of options here. You are either tied to that engineer on this project or you can pay another engineer to re-create the design for what might be a simple change at a significant cost.

As I said above, read and understand your contracts. You may get three bids from engineers on your development project and one is just so much lower, this may be a reason why. Sure, as an entrepreneur and/or startup company money is tight, but be careful of the long term implications.

Disclaimer. I’m not a lawyer. Seek good legal advice. I own an engineering company and have seen these issues played out numerous times when new clients want to use us instead of their other engineer. 

The kids were great and very receptive.  I’m posting a few resources here for them. 

Students, I’d love to hear your feedback on today’s presentation.  Feel free to post comments below and share your thoughts.  You are also welcome to ask me questions.

Technical

• Arduino – www.arduino.cc
• Basic level programming of hardware
• Internet
• Snap Circuits

Personality:

• Meyers-Briggs/Keirsey
• http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp
• http://similarminds.com/jung.html
• http://www.keirsey.com/sorter/register.aspx

Humor:

• The Knack

Thousands of Wellington, Florida residents, including Gabriel Goldstein’s family attend Sunday services at LifeChurch.tv. When this popular nationwide church with 15 locations and a global online audience shared its idea for volunteers to design and build the movie-themed Monsters Inc. art installation in its lobby in Wellington, Gabriel and his company Anidea Engineering, Inc.  immediately signed up, even without any pressure from his two kids aged 5 years and 11 months old. It’s not by coincidence that our company’s tagline is: “got an idea? Get Anidea!”   

“Anidea strongly believes in giving back to the community.” said Gabriel Goldstein, CEO and Chief Product Design Engineer at Anidea Engineering.

Our experienced, Palm Beach County-based product design firm was ecstatic to donate our expertise in design, mechanical and electrical engineering, and implementation in two main areas:  a conveyor system and LED sign.

First and more intense was a pulley, conveyor system that aerially displayed vibrant Monsters Inc. artwork throughout the church’s lobby. This required over 400 hundred feet of steel cable running through seven custom-designed pulley brackets and a motor drive mechanism.

The second major contribution was inspired by the Monsters Inc. movie “Stalk – Don’t Stalk” LED sign. Our efforts replicated the sign and decked it out with flashing green and red lights, surprisingly and resourcefully made from a Styrofoam beach cooler.

In closing, Gabriel Goldstein states, “working with fellow, talented LifeChurch.tv volunteers and seeing the amazement in everyone’s eyes, including my children’s, made this philanthropic effort worthwhile. Give us a ‘monstrous’ idea, we helped make it a reality, and it was ‘monstrously’ fulfilling for everyone!”