American Inventor Tonight

The car seat guy is going to be on tonight at 9 Eastern. He could be picked to go onto the top 4. They are doing the safety testing it looked like.

Susan

shoot i missed it! Did you see it? What did they do? They better test if a child's stomach could take it too!

I wasn't paying attention to the whole thing, but he did get picked to go on!

Warning - possible spoilers for those who haven't seen tonight's show yet...

Just finished watching/zapping through tonight's show. They saved the carseat inventor for last, naturally, lol.

They showed some clips of people in a focus group who said it looked too large to fit in cars but nobody in the focus group was shown saying anything about carsickness. A test version of the carseat was crash tested with a crash test dummy buckled into it in a large full sized sedan (maybe a Crown Victoria??) in a frontal collision. They said nothing about how the carseat was installed and I couldn't see an obvious belt path on the test version or on the spiffier prototype a design team worked on with the inventor to show the judges. The design team/testers said the data from the crash test showed it protected the dummy well, but they didn't provide details at all such as what speed the crash test was or what type of injury if any the dummy would have sustained. They commented about "full revolution" right after they performed the crash test. I didn't catch any mention of any testing with an actual child under normal vehicle operations but I may have missed some of the details since I was multitasking while watching.

Upon seeing the spiffier looking prototype, one of the show's judges also commented on the size and questioned how more than one of the carseats would fit in a backseat for a family with more than one infant/child. However, the sole deciding judge in this semifinal round did choose the carseat inventor to advance to the final 4 inventors on the show.

I saw the belt path.

It is big, yes. But not gigantic. It wouldn't fit three across and probably wouldn't fit in a very small vehicle, but I could easily fit it in either of my cars (of course, I don't have the dimensions, but just eyeballing it it didn't look as huge as I expected) and I think just about anything fits into captains chairs in a minivan!
The prototype did look really sharp!
I think to improve it he could add some sort of breakaway stopper. Something that prevents the seat from moving all around in normal operation, but is designed so that it would break in a crash.
I don't think you could do the bubble for older kids... that would definitely be getting too large. But one that just spins to either side (thinking side impact here) might work.
I think it's an excellent idea, and I would love to see something like that hit the market. I am sure it would be very expensive... but I would probably buy it if it performed well and was comfortable... and I needed it. Gotta add that part .
I do hope he put a patent on the design though. If he DID, and if the crash results really show promise, then I could see a manufacturer picking up on it and him being able to sell the concept.
Whatever happens, he has brought to the table the fact that kids die every day in car crashes and that we need ways of keeping them safe. I'd love if he put a tidbit about RF in there...

I caught *most* of it. Upset that they didn't show an install nor even speak of it. And that they didn't mention anything about the tests. Apparently some were done, we just didn't get to see any results. Argh!
And no, it wasn't quite as big as I was expecting, but there won't be any 3 across situations hehe
I think the judge let him continue on just because this thing has 'potential' and the guy certainly has a passion for it. But he simply doesn't have the $ on his own to put into this invention to carry it through. The other 2 that were eliminated from that trio...they can walk out that door and sell their product to someone. They were both ready to go and could easily find a market. But this car seat guy is REALLY onto something, but REALLY has a long ways to go yet. I think the judge was just trying to help him out Anybody else get that feeling?

I thought it was huge. Though I have issues with the show not enough substance, too much crying. Bah, I'm not voting for you just because you have the saddest story, I want the best product. (Which I thought was the bathroom clip thingy. But that's just me. I could see buying that at the store for use during a road trip, not the whole "KIT" thing, but just the little clip, for like 2 bucks.).

When he was questioned about the size of the thing, his response was that the car companies would start making larger cars... So, basically no response. You get the feeling that some people don't realize that not everyone drives minivans and suv's.

I can't imagine how you'd get that thing in tightly enough. Where would you put your weight to push it into the seat (of the car). Nothing was really addressed other than that it looked better after than before. It was gigantic.

And to be honest, I'd have a little superstition using a safety product named for the little girl who died in the car accident. Though I couldn't help but wonder what were the factors in that accident, was she in a carseat, was she older than carseat age, that sort of thing.

But I think that THAT invention is wrong for this type of show, because of the amount of money and time and testing required for a safety seat to be properly designed etc.

(BTW, I thought the bathroom thing was totally bogus. Especcially the testing thing. They didn't test under "equal" conditions. If they'd cleaned the bathroom a day before the first test, maybe. But they didn't. So we dont' know if that stupid thing works. And I don't think I'm going to die from toilet spray. lol)

Bumping this up, tonight a new episode featuring the final 4 is on at 9 p.m. EDT and then viewers can vote. Next Thurs. at 9 p.m. EDT they will show a live finale with the results of the vote.