My life as a Dad, pt 3512

I’ve just figured out that Ava’s elementary school is an elaborate and cunning front to an entrepreneurial incubation facility, and that they use 4th graders to concept, canvas and vet preliminary ideas, manufacturing feasibility, and market acceptance testing. Brilliant!

A few days ago, Ava came home with the following homework assignment: Invent something – something useful – something that people want – and something that isn’t yet available. Test your idea with a patent search to determine that it does not already exist. Create a market survey questionnaire and perform interviews to determine if people might want it. Sketch it, build/prototype it, make an advertisement for it, and present back to the class in ten days. Oh, and ask a parent for help if you get stuck.

Ava came up with the idea of Night Lite Slippers. Patent search? nada. Market survey form and interviews? check. Sketch? done. Prototype it? Daddy!

Together, we carefully ‘modified’ a pair of slippers to accommodate a small simple circuit including an LED, a toggle switch and button batteries. The result: a prototype of ‘Twinkle Toes’ – the Night Lite Slippers.

Twinkle Toes – the commercial:

And, a bit more about the slippers:

Ava is now wondering what the minimum investment would be for high volume manufacture out of China and to land a North American distribution through Walmart and Target. Daddy is wondering what’s for dinner.