ID Group Helps Francisco Patino With His Product on American Inventor  4/27/06

ID Group Turns Vision Into Reality on ABC's "American Inventor"

Product Development Studio Takes Inventor's Concept to Market-Ready Product

HUNTINGTON BEACH, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 04/27/06 -- ID Group, Inc., a multi-disciplinary product development studio, today announced its role in helping Francisco Patino turn his new invention into a real product on tonight's ABC Television Network's hit show "American Inventor."

"American Inventor" is the biggest search ever for America's best new invention, and the embodiment of the ultimate American dream. As the list of contestants was narrowed to the final twelve, each was given $50,000 to develop their product, refine it and take it to the next level.

ID Group worked with Francisco Patino to perfect his invention for a "Double Traction Bike," taking the product concept to production-ready prototype in less than 30 days.

The vertically integrated capabilities of ID Group to research, design, build and test new products helped Patino converge on a market-ready product under the intense pressure of an aggressive development schedule.

"The technologies within our development environment allow us to deliver world-class designs and prototypes to our clients that are manufacturing-ready against timelines that wouldn't even be attempted 5 years ago," said Jeremy Wilkens, ID Group Design Manager.

The "Double Traction Bike" is a new bike design that features a second seat on the front of the bicycle, so that an additional rider can sit and help power the bike with their own set of pedals. ID Group led Patino through the new product development process starting with ergonomic studies, functional mock-ups, conceptual sketches, onto 3D product development, and ultimately to a physical prototype.

The technologies making up ID Group's supporting cast include a host of software from various companies including Adobe®, Autodesk®, IronCAD and CoCreate. The basic process involves designing the product in 2D in Adobe's Illustrator® and Photoshop® software. Once the visual language and 2D design is approved the vector information is directly imported into CoCreate's OneSpace Designer.

This design intent data can be merged with 2D and 3D data from other applications including IronCAD and AutoCAD® to create one complete 3D master design inside CoCreate's 3D CAD software, which excels at natively modeling imported data from other 2D and 3D systems.

"This merging of information allows complete 3D design and engineering in one complete file that anyone in our office can work from," stated Wilkens.

From this point the virtual 3D design information can be leveraged for both renderings using 3D Studio MAX® and rapid prototyped into functional products. ID Group has both plastic and metal prototyping capabilities in-house with a Stratasys® Eden500V(TM) for generating plastic components and Haas CNC mills and lathes for machining metal parts.

In the case of Patino's bike all avenues of product research, conception, development and prototyping were utilized. "The depth of our capabilities and infrastructure allowed us to produce this prototype in record time," said Wilkens.

"American Inventor" brings the exciting world of new product development into the mainstream household. As products move from "proof of concept" to manufacturing-ready, it is often through the support of product development studios, like ID Group, that match their design and manufacturing expertise with the inventor's vision.

"'American Inventor' captures the heart and passion of the new product development process and how firms like ours help inventors, and companies alike, turn new product concepts into market ready products," continued Wilkens. "The American dream is going to come true for one of the show's inventors. We are excited to have helped turn Francisco Patino's vision into a product that will vie to make its way into American homes."

Images of Francisco Patino's "Double Traction Bike" will be featured on ID Group's website following the show's scheduled appearance, at http://www.idgroup-inc.com.

About ID Group

ID Group is a full-service product development corporation providing tactical and strategic solutions to a wide range of industries. From concept to production, we bring as much of the product design and development cycle together under one roof as possible. This allows us to help bring your product to market faster, while maintaining design integrity throughout the process.

Source: ABC Press Release