Last month Nicole had the opportunity to go to Boston for an exclusive event at the iRobot Headquarters. There she met a few cool and admirable bloggers who would also be participating in the That’s iNGENIOUS Challenge.
What the heck is the That’s iNGENIOUS Challenge?
This challenge is all about getting your brilliant [mommy] thinking caps on and sharing with us those brilliant ideas you use in your every day life whether it’s at home or at work that just makes life a little more (or a lot more) simple. As a mom of twins, I have a created an item or two, usually it’s something that I’ve rigged up, in order to make my life a little more easier. But now, we want to hear from you.
Take for example.. the paperclip. Such a simple item.. yet useful in so many ways – now That’s iNEGENIOUS! Sure paperclips are supposed to be used to keep that pesky paperwork organized and together.. but how many times have you used it for other things? I think at one time I unraveled a paperclip and used it as a button for my pants so they would stay up. My husband has even used it as a hook for his fishing pole a few times.
So get those mommy thinking caps on and bring on the ideas! The ideas can be for anything.. big, small, gigantic or tiny.
If you have an idea.. leave a comment below with your idea (be sure to enter your correct email address in case your idea is chosen!). Even if you think it’s the silliest thing in the world.. it may be that iNGENIOUS ideas that makes everyone think to themselves “Now why didn’t I think of that?”!
Recognition, prizes and even (a little) fame await you. The winning blogger receives $10,000 donated to Donorschoose.org and five (5) iRobot home robots of their choice. You and your community choose what project or projects you want your grant to fund. And of course.. if we win from one of your submitted brilliant ideas.. you will also receive 2 iRobot home robots of your choice!
Entry Criteria:
Winning entry will achieve three key ingenious criteria:
So start submitting those entries now! You can submit as many as you’d like and we can even track them against our competition at the THAT’s iNGENIOUS micro-site.
Remember –
Recognition, prizes and even (a little) fame await you. The winning blogger receives $10,000 donated to Donorschoose.org and five (5) iRobot home robots of their choice. You and your community choose what project or projects you want your grant to fund. And of course.. if we win from one of your submitted brilliant ideas.. you will also receive 2 iRobot home robots of your choice!
Related posts:
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My daughter has the worst time with her infant twins keeping their socks on. No matter what she does.. those kiddos will take them off within minutes of her putting them on, and then their feet are freezing. I’m always so afraid they will get sick so I think they need to invent some pants that have some kind of footies/socks attached to them. I haven’t seen anything like this.. I’ve seen one-piece footies but not pants themselves.
The Dog Collar Beeper
We have 6 bloodhounds running around our house and a lot of times we spend more time yelling for them (calling them to come in) to eat, take meds, etc. What about a dog caller that has a beeper embedded in to it so that when you put the beeper button, you’re dog hears something and comes running in. (Of course this would have to be a trained exercise, but that part should be easy!)
My idea: know how gas nozzle holders are always broken and you’re stuck actually holding them while you pump? It would be great to have a ball shaped contraption to stick in the nozzle handle that keeps it pumping so, you don’t have to squeeze so hard, for so long:)
I’d also love to invent an exersaucer in a smaller scale to be strapped to any size chair or sat on a restaurant booth. Babies always want to STAND when you’re out to dinner, this way they can stand, be contained, spin around and have toys to play with all at the same time. Oh the dreams I have!
Every few years or so my wife gets tired of the wall colors and we both hate it when she’s ready to change paint colors, because painting a room can be a big, pain in the butt task.. so my idea would be to create “color changing walls”. Then when you’re ready to change colors, you can just push a button and viola.. a brand new color.
Dip tubes (kinda like toothpaste) to put your dips in. I hate how when we have chip dip or something similar the chips always get broken when we dip them. Then the next day you’re ready for some dip and what you mainly get is pieces of chips. They can be sold similar to the Cheese can stuff, in small traveling packages or even as empty tubes to create your own mixture to put in there.
Baby Spoon that sense temperature..
When I first started warming the food for my twins I had a hard time trying to figure out if the food was too warm or not. We need a baby spoon that changes colors when the food is too warm!
Baby bathtubs that sense the water temp.
Baby bathtubs these days should have some kind of thermometer on them so you know if the bath water is too warm or to cold for your little ones. This could be as simple as a label that acts as a sensor for the temperature. When placed in the water it could light up one of the options: too cold, warm, too hot, etc.
I think it would be great to have a scanner that you can keep by your fridge and/or pantry that will recognize foods by bar codes, plus allow manual entry of things like produce and leftovers. When you scan an item, you can indicate quantities added, used, or discarded and manually enter an expiration date if it is not scannable. The units would interface with a program you install on your computer to help track what you have, what you need, and what needs to be used up. Reports would allow you to see what you use the most, what doesn’t get eaten, etc. to help you plan your shopping and save money. The program would also interact with an optional recipe database that will help you plan meals based on what you have in the house. It would be capable of printing shopping lists based on projected usage, plus manually entered items from an online database. When this product gets popular, it would also be linkable to local grocery specials, printable coupons and local coupon inserts for maximum savings.
I would love a checkbook that balances itself
I have “reinvented” the use of a barbecue basting brush. Yes, it’s true.
My sweetie loves his stuffed and mounted fish and insists on having them on the wall. Which is fine but have you ever tried to dust one of those crazy things. They are mounted on “logs” that DO NOT have a smooth surface. They always have their mouths wide open. Then you have the fins and “googly” eyes. So, I use the barbecue basting brush on them. The bristles are soft enough NOT to damage the finish on the fish. It is the perfect size and has enough flexibility to reach every crevice, no matter how small. Yep, when it comes to cleaning fish at my house, I have it down to an art.
Forgot to leave my e-mail address: ubrewme@yahoo.com
I would love a set of suspender’s that would keep doggy shoes or socks on and be comfortable for the dog. My little shitzu gets cold feet in the winter snow and the socks or shoes come off as she is running away. Icicles form in their little feet and pads and it is hard to get her unfrozen!
It never fails. Everytime I need to run a quick errand with my 2 year old…as soon as we get in the car for 5 minutes..that’s when she decides to take her nap. So of course, when I get to Wal-Mart, Target, Grocery store, etc..she is asleep and I have to wake her up to put her in the cart. I wish there was some type of “pad” made that was shaped like and would fit into the bottom of a shopping cart . I could keep it in my trunk . (I have tried laying a blanket in the bottom but you can still feel the metal/plastic ….doesn’t work) .Then, I could lay her down in the cart while I get my few items and she could still sleep. I think something like those mats that kids use to take naps on in Daycare but covered in cute fabric that can be removed and washed in the laundry.
Just an idea…
Awesome, Awesome, Awesome Ideas ladies and gents!!
Keep them coming!!
I have one more idea… We usually take 2 long road trips each year with the kids. On these trips, we use my husbands laptop as a DVD player for the kids to watch movies. I wish their was a device you could slide/snap onto the laptop to cover the keyboard area so the kids couldn’t touch the buttons…only watch the movies. This could also protect the keyboard from drink spills , sticky fingers, etc. I have a vision in my mind of some sort of hard plastic piece. I could also use something like this for my desktop computer as well. Not only for the keyboard…but for the computer tower itself. My daughter loves to run up and push the “button” and well, we all know how frustrating it is when our computer is shut down while we are in the middle of working/playing.
Sorry I keep posting..but this is for such a great cause and I can’t believe that more people are not sharing their ideas. Okay so here goes…
I have an idea for a book that would let your child become one of the characters in a story, and at the same time be a way for you to have a type of identification records of your child on file in your home. It is a storybook where there are some main characters(3-4).The body of each character is a finger print. Then the head, arms ,legs,etc are drawn to make each character individual, simple,and appealing. I am not an artist but something like a cute stick figure with a finger print body. (I am thinking a childs boardbook kind of thing.)
These characters would be pre illustrated in each book. Then on each page, there would be a place for your child to include his/her own character by using his/her own fingerprint and then drawing their own legs, arms, head,etc. The story could also leave a blank in the script for the parent to write in the childs name. (EX. Jakob, Dylan, _(childs name here)_, and Jayde were going to the park…)
The child will feel like it is his his/her own book/adventure, because no one has the same fingerprint as they do, and then the parents have a keepsake and a copy of the childs fingerprint for identification. The book could be sold with a tiny stamp pad, in different choices of color.
The parent could have the child use a different finger each time the character was made and then they would have a record of the childs fingerprints on file not to mention a very cute and special childrens book.