Turning a DIY Project into a Product

Turning a DIY Project into a Product

Most DIY projects never go beyond what’s essentially a prototype stage—they’re one-off affairs that don’t have to be cost-effective or easy to use. But after a bunch of your friends say, “Gee, I could use one of those,” it’s time to consider producing your project on a larger scale. It’s also time to rethink the entire project: What works for a single build often doesn’t when you have to do it hundreds or even dozens of times. I got a sense of this recently when my son and I built a high-powered replacement for the Wii sensor bar. Nintendo’s own sensor bar, which is actually a pair of infrared emitters that the Wii controller uses to determine which way it’s pointed, isn’t much good beyond 3 meters. We created a bar that has nine high-powered IR emitters. (Actually, we built two bars, one for each of us.) We liked it so much we knew others would too, so we launched a Kicks...

Full article: http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/turning-a-diy...