American Inventor - Picking The Top Three Of Six
Episode 7 Recap by Gayl Killough
July 26, 2007
This week's American Inventor is a two hour special for the six semi-finalists to convince the judges and the audience that their product is the next great American invention. There were six audition cities and each city had one winner who was given $50,000 each to invest in their inventions. Each winner was given only 4 weeks to invest the $50,000 and come up with a winning prototype and winning presentation. The judges will pick a top three out of the six semi-finalists. Then the audience will pick the million-dollar advance winner out of the top 3 finalists.
The six audition city winners are presented like the judges are normally presented in the beginning of the previous episodes. The six semi-finalists are The Tuckers with EZT4U, a tea adapter for any swing out coffee maker; Elaine Cato with her multi backless bra; Craig Forrest, and David Moeller, a Harvard Business school graduate student and a MIT graduate student in mechanical engineering with a bicycle storage device called "The Claw"; High school teacher Ricky Devennaux with the HT Racer, the paper cars; firefighter Greg Chavez with the Guardian Angel, the Christmas tree fire suppression system; and The Miller brothers who are both 59, but good Catholics instead of twins (sorry, that is just the way I remember them at first) with the Wrap-Away, an insert that organizes wrap dispensers.
There are very clear stereotypes given to the semi-finalists. The Tuckers are the loving couple, Elaine Cato is the single mom, and there are the graduate school buddies, the high school teacher who wants to be an inspiration to his students, the firefighter, and the small town brothers.
The semi-finalists will be forced to work together in the same big room for the next four weeks and they start out very competitive toward one another. The first thing is that the semi-finalists have to endure, before they even get started on their prototypes, is a focus group.
The HT Racer is up first for a focus group and Derennaux has chosen ages 11 to 14 as his target group. I am immediately concerned because I think that is too old of a demographic to target. Oddly enough, I think with this age group in particular, it is better to appeal to kids either younger or older. The kids in this age group think they are too old to play with cars. As a female, I remember being too old for dolls when I turned 11, only to start collecting dolls in high school and continue to this day. I got over being too old for toys. I am not surprised by the results. I agree with Derennaux in that the kids want to appear to be too cool to play with paper cars, but will actually still buy the products or at least play with them if someone else buys them. Derennaux looks crushed. I think he has the best invention out of all the inventions, but he chose the wrong focus group.
The next focus group is tea drinkers and I wonder if they represent serious tea drinkers. I think the tea adapter would appeal more to casual tea drinkers and serious tea lovers who are lazy about making tea. Serious tea drinkers are more likely to want to make tea in a more traditional way. On the other end, if the adapter is too much trouble, the really casual tea drinkers will not bother with it. The real question is whether or not the tea adapter really works. Actually, that is the test that I am putting to all the inventions: does it work? If it works, how well does it work? No one in the focus group thinks it is worth the trouble. Even worse, we find out that they do not have a working prototype. I am shocked the judges let it through without testing the tea first. They tested the "steak toaster".
The third focus group is the Wrap Away and the Miller brothers are very cocky. Several of the other contestants are upset that the Millers have been happy that the others are doing badly in the focus groups. The Millers receive all positive remarks and the homemaker group all say that they would buy it. The Millers brag in front of the others.
The Claw's focus group is shown next. The focus group complains that plastic looks cheap and that no one would buy it. The focus group mentions that a nail or hook is good enough. All I see is a woman leading the focus group talking with people in a room. I wish the inventors had a chance to demonstrate their product like they did for the judges. I now realize that all the inventors are watching their products through glass in another room, so the inventors can watch, but they cannot interact with the focus group. I understand the reasoning behind this from a science kind of view, but I think the inventors would be better off if they could directly explain and demonstrate their products. On the other hand, people will decide in a few seconds walking down an aisle in a store whether or not they purchase the invention, so maybe this is more realistic.
There are plenty of sob stories in the finals. Every finalist has given up being with loved ones and has sacrificed a great deal to be there. Well, I am going to add a sob story of my own. When I see the Claw, I see all the days as a child that I could have ridden my bike if I could have gotten down my bicycle by myself. I still remember those days that I wanted to ride my bike and did not because the only place that my bike seemed to fit in the garage was hanging on a hook on a lower beam of the garage. It was way too high for me to reach as kid. When I got older, I begged and begged to get my bike down by myself, but finally when I was old enough to get down by myself, I remember that one time I injured my back really bad and another time I managed to give myself a goose egg knot on my head when my grip slipped while trying to maneuver the bike off the hook and the handle bars conked me in the head. I can see how the Claw would have fit into other places in the garage that a hook would have not and it would have been so easy to grab and put back up. There is not doubt in my mind that I would buy this product based on my childhood experiences. There is a theme of opportunity with the inventions, and when I see The Claw, what I see is the missed opportunity of riding my bike on certain days, not just a gimmick. For some people, an invention is not going to be what they are looking for at all, but for others, an invention will represent an opportunity that do not currently have.
Cato is all about opportunities. If I had a nickel for every time that she is mentioned being a single mom, I would be rich enough to fund my own invention ideas. I am trying to not to hold it against Cato, she looks like a great role model, but the single mom mention over and over again really annoyed me. As for the product, I am trying to judge it with the same criteria as I am judging for the other products, does the product really work. Or more specifically, will the product work for me? I thought for hours on this and re-watched the clips of the bras several times to really understand how the bra works. I don't think this bra will work for me and therefore I need proof that it would. Back to Cato's focus group, as I expected, rather average looking females all thought it was great and would buy it. I honestly don't want to see her idea ripped apart, but I think she would have been better off to receive some constructive criticism. If I would have been one of the five people in the focus group, I would have been asking her some tough questions and I believe I would have been a no for purchase. It is not fair to her, but I have years of frustration with bras, and it all would have all come out in my evaluation of her bra product. There are several things that I would like to see in a bra, and her bra goes in the opposite direction of what I think I need. Now, maybe I am a rarity and it would not have been fair to have someone like me in her focus group, I might have thrown the whole dynamic off for the whole focus group. Which is the problem with focus groups. Focus groups do serve a useful purpose, but they do not necessarily represent the true public as a whole and can be very misleading.
Similar to showing two audition cities at once, American Inventor is highlighting two semi-finalists at a time, going back and forth between them. I find it very annoying. The first pairing is the Tuckers and Elaine Cato. I am wondering at this point if there is going to be one yes for the top three and one no out of each paring.
The Tuckers learn that different types of teas need to be brewed at different temperatures and the typical coffee maker does not heat the water to the right temperature for tea. The Tuckers have to go an extra step and change their product in order to meet the temperature challenge. The Tuckers are feeling down at this point. I have read several people mention that they just prefer to put tealeaves into the coffee maker itself. I have tried that and the tea tasted awful. I think I now know why, t was the wrong temperature for the tea. I have to give this show kudos for this episode, because I am learning a lot tonight.
Elaine Cato gets the sob story treatment. I thought the larger chest woman with the sleep aid, Marsia Tucci, was treated unfairly in comparison. The bra will appeal to many women beyond larger chests, while the sleep aid is a very limited niche, I do understand this, but one does not have to have big fake breasts to relate to Tucci's idea. I thought Tucci was dismissed as a bimbo while Cato gets the classy, sob story treatment. Although in some ways, I wish Cato's accomplishments were mentioned more instead of the single mom comment. Cato is deserving of better and the show is very unfair to people. I realize that this is the norm for reality television, but it is still worth mentioning from time to time.
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