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Step 2Make sure you can do what is needed to make the idea a reality
For me and the creation of Plop Trumps, there was one major potential block to it all coming out... photographing the subject matter... poo.
Our equipment might let us down, the subject matter might not look any good, or we might not be able to find enough examples of poo as we needed.
For starters the picture on a typical trump card deck is quite small so almost any digital camera these days should be able to take an acceptable picture. I have a compact 8 Mpix one, so the pictures looked like they would be more than good enough for what we needed.
Could we take enough photos of poo and make them look good enough to work as a set of cards? We did a little bit of research and found that unlike standard playing cards, Trump card games have between 36 to 48 cards per pack. We reckoned about 40 pictures would do it, so the first test was to take a picture and see if the results were good enough to publish.
Luckily we have a pet leopard gecko that produces a rather benign, dry and inoffensive poo. We got a piece of this put it on a little sand from it's cage and did a trial run.
Here we are taking the first picture and the result (this is a big file. Eewww! you can bits of his locust lunch in there... eh up, that's another poo we could photograph... locust poo!
Part of testing the idea is telling a few friends. be careful if you have an idea that you think can be copied, or should be patented, then telling a whole load of people opens you up to be copied and makes it impossible to patent (one of the criteria necessary to meet when making a patent application is that the idea must not have been told to anyone, i.e. NOT MADE PUBLIC). Still it is a good idea to test out what you are thinking a bit, just in case you have missed some vital thing that stops you doing what you want to.
As part of the testing I phoned up the company who make the leading brand of Trump card games, Top Trumps, and asked their marketing director a few questions.
I told him that I had an idea for a new trump card game and was he interested. He said no they weren't interested, and it was not possible that I had a new idea that they hadn't though of already. I then asked if he minded other people doing trump card games ( I personally believed that it was difficult if not impossible for him to stop people making trump card games as many types exist in the world and such games were in existence before his company made Top Trumps the leading brand. I just wanted to know what his policy might be. Of course at this point I did not reveal the exact idea. I quoted a couple of competitive examples. Again he replied in the negative. They understood that other trump card games existed and seemed ok with it.
Great, now all I had to do was take another 39 pictures of poo and I would be ready to clean up.
Our equipment might let us down, the subject matter might not look any good, or we might not be able to find enough examples of poo as we needed.
For starters the picture on a typical trump card deck is quite small so almost any digital camera these days should be able to take an acceptable picture. I have a compact 8 Mpix one, so the pictures looked like they would be more than good enough for what we needed.
Could we take enough photos of poo and make them look good enough to work as a set of cards? We did a little bit of research and found that unlike standard playing cards, Trump card games have between 36 to 48 cards per pack. We reckoned about 40 pictures would do it, so the first test was to take a picture and see if the results were good enough to publish.
Luckily we have a pet leopard gecko that produces a rather benign, dry and inoffensive poo. We got a piece of this put it on a little sand from it's cage and did a trial run.
Here we are taking the first picture and the result (this is a big file. Eewww! you can bits of his locust lunch in there... eh up, that's another poo we could photograph... locust poo!
Part of testing the idea is telling a few friends. be careful if you have an idea that you think can be copied, or should be patented, then telling a whole load of people opens you up to be copied and makes it impossible to patent (one of the criteria necessary to meet when making a patent application is that the idea must not have been told to anyone, i.e. NOT MADE PUBLIC). Still it is a good idea to test out what you are thinking a bit, just in case you have missed some vital thing that stops you doing what you want to.
As part of the testing I phoned up the company who make the leading brand of Trump card games, Top Trumps, and asked their marketing director a few questions.
I told him that I had an idea for a new trump card game and was he interested. He said no they weren't interested, and it was not possible that I had a new idea that they hadn't though of already. I then asked if he minded other people doing trump card games ( I personally believed that it was difficult if not impossible for him to stop people making trump card games as many types exist in the world and such games were in existence before his company made Top Trumps the leading brand. I just wanted to know what his policy might be. Of course at this point I did not reveal the exact idea. I quoted a couple of competitive examples. Again he replied in the negative. They understood that other trump card games existed and seemed ok with it.
Great, now all I had to do was take another 39 pictures of poo and I would be ready to clean up.
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