From Tunguska to Fireworks: Your Inventor Smart HQ Week of June 30

This week in HQ:

• 🎤 Inventors Got Talent recap—replay the showcase & meet the award-winners

• 🎙️ Inventor Spotlight Ep 16 with Deanna Ratnikova drops Friday, July 4

• 🚀 International Asteroid Day reflection: Tunguska’s spark for planetary-defense tech

• 💬 Conversations heating up on InventorChat.com

• 🙌 20 new members joined—welcome aboard!

• 💡 Community Spotlight on @BAM and the fold-to-frame PicChair™

• 🛠️ Inventor Tip: Brian Fried’s “Window of Opportunity” market test

• 📸 Add your profile photo—we’ll send a thank-you gift

• 📅 July event schedule now live in the app—reserve your spots

Inventors Got Talent 2025 — Quick Recap & Replay

Last Wednesday was a blast! More than a dozen National Inventor Club members brought prototypes, polished products, and serious pitching skills to the virtual stage. From floating-fear fixes to hands-free diaper duty, the creativity on display was off the charts.

1. Who took home the honors?
   • Most Innovative Invention: Beth Goldman – PicChair
   • Best Everyday Solution: Melon Dash – Learn to Float Station
   • Audience Favorite: Turahn Williams – One Wipe Wonder

2. Full presenter lineup: Melon Dash, Jesse Morgan, Chris Foley, Moises Nevarez, Beth Goldman, Dan Dimitriu, Turahn Williams, Jeffrey Feinstein, Jenettie Pirtle, Denise Ramos, Abraham Espadas, and Ruby Smith. Thank you for the energy, the demos, and the inspiration!

3. Missed it live (or want an encore)?
   Catch the full replay here → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1itCt9cmGKE&t

Grab a notebook, press play, and see which ideas spark your next breakthrough.

💬 InventorChat.com Is Live—Dock Your Ideas and Start Talking!

We’re aiming high this week—International Asteroid Day high—so park your latest “space debris” of ideas in our brand-new forum: InventorChat.com.

Think of it as mission control for deeper discussions, quick troubleshooting, and searchable wisdom from fellow creators. Threads are already orbiting everything from patent strategy to post-event feedback after last week’s Inventors Got Talent showcase.

🔭 Begin here: Re-introduce yourself on the “Launch Pad” welcome thread
🛰️ Scan the channels: Pitch decks, prototyping tricks, funding hacks, and more
🤝 Trade intel: Get real-time advice, swap resources, and keep your projects on course—all in a clutter-free space

The app still handles live events and announcements; the forum just gives your ideas extra gravitational pull.

👉 Jump in now: inventorchat.com

Let’s keep inventing, iterating, and celebrating wins—together.

🎙️ New Episode Alert — Inventor Spotlight Ep 16 Premieres July 4

Ready for a monthly dose of real-world invention grit?
Episode 16 lands this Friday, and host Samantha St. Raymond sits down with Deanna Ratnikova, San Diego entrepreneur and creator of GO Deck—a 52-card set that points locals (and visitors) to one fresh walk, hike, or waterfront stroll every week of the year.

Why press play?

• Origin story: From roaming rural Tennessee without a smartphone to hunting urban “hidden nature” during lockdown with her three-year-old daughter.

• Bootstrapping lessons: Funding the first print run, juggling up-front manufacturing costs, and testing decks one neighborhood at a time.

• Scaling game plan: How San Diego success opened doors in Knoxville—and what it takes to replicate city decks nationwide.

• Mindset check: Keeping self-doubt at bay, involving family in packaging sessions, and leaning on the NIC & Inventor Smart Community for honest feedback.

🎧 Watch/Listen on YouTube: Inventor Spotlight Podcast – Episode 16
🔗 Explore the product: thegodeck.com

Prefer audio only? Find the Inventor Spotlight Podcast on all major streaming platforms.

Cue the fireworks and let Deanna’s story fuel your next outdoor (or inventor) adventure.

🙌 New Crew on Deck — Welcome, Week of June 30!

International Asteroid Day has us aiming for the stars, and July 4th is about to light the sky—perfect timing to welcome a constellation of fresh talent to Inventor Smart HQ.

Whether you’ve just launched your first prototype, or you’re orbit-hopping for collaboration and feedback, you’ve touched down in the right hangar. Say hello to this week’s 20 new members:

• Jesse Sheibley
• RONNY
• Eli (“Superman”)
• Glen – Gx2Vail
• Gabriela Mosquera – BioMathi
• Ruby Smith – FunDesks FunDesigns
• Natonam70
• Tanner – TannerN
• Nessa
• JinDa Ki – Munich1860
• Ed – edhart83
• Gwen – Glr449
• Stewart Barnett – Stew
• Danny – dannywinson1
• Acudoc – Msoic28
• Kayls – Kayla
• ET Daughtry – Daughtry58
• Kumar Nikhil Bhaskar – bhaskarnikhil
• James – TritonDriver
• Kay C Robinson Jr – kcrobinsonjr1

🌟 Excited to have you aboard! Drop into InventorChat.com (our new forum) or post in the app to introduce yourself, share a win, or ask for feedback. Let’s turn sparks into launch-ready ideas.

🎯 Haven’t joined the app yet?
Grab your boarding pass here ➡️ app.inventorsmart.com

Here’s to big ideas, bold experiments, and firework-level breakthroughs—together.

💡 Community Spotlight: Beth A. Metsch Goldman (@BAM)

This week we’re shining the light on architect-turned-inventor Beth A. Metsch Goldman, known in the community as @BAM.

Based just outside Denver, Colorado, Beth brings a powerhouse résumé to Inventor Smart: a University of Miami architecture degree, a Columbia master’s in Architecture & Urban Design, licensure in NY and CO, and four issued patents. Fifteen years ago she licensed her zipper-built ZIPPURSE™ line; today she’s pushing space-saving furniture forward with the PicChair™—a Colombian white-oak chair that flips into a picture frame when not in use.

Beth recently introduced herself in the forum and shared a goal many of us can relate to:

She’s also sparked lively polls on folding-chair habits and storage solutions, proving that a good question can uncover real market data (turns out 69 % of us park extra chairs in the garage).

📌 Connect with Beth & follow her journey:
https://app.inventorsmart.com/profile/1532

Beth, we’re so happy to have your design eye, patent know-how, and collaborative spirit in the Inventor Smart Community. Here’s to folding more big ideas into beautiful, practical products!

✨ Want to be featured in a future Community Spotlight? Stay active, share your milestones, and you might be next!

🛠️ Inventor Tip of the Week — Use Brian Fried’s “Window of Opportunity” Test

Before you spend a dollar on tooling or a minute on a pitch deck, pause and ask:

1. Who exactly is my product for—niche or mass?

2. How many different ways could it be used (or industries it could live in)?

3. Where would each of those audiences naturally shop?

Brian Fried (author of How to Make Money with Your Invention Idea) calls this the Window of Opportunity test. In his own journey he turned a simple bread-bag closer into Pull Ties™, then widened the window to cereal bags, freezer veggies—even cable management. The result? Ten-plus years of retail sales across multiple aisles.

Why it matters:
• A wider window often means bigger market size—and stronger licensing allure.
• It forces you to research early, saving prototype dollars on ideas that are too narrow.
• Retail buyers love products that sit in more than one section.

🚀 Action step: List three additional uses or customer groups for your current concept. If you can’t, the market may be too small—or you may need a pivot.

Tip adapted from Brian Fried’s book How to Make Money with Your Invention Idea (Inventor Smart Publishing, 2022).

🗓 On This Day in Inventor History – Monday, June 30

A Cosmic Wake-Up Call

June 30, 1908 – A blinding flash lit the skies over Siberia, flattening 800 square miles of forest near the Tunguska River. No crater, no fragments—just a mystery. The “Tunguska Event” turned out to be an asteroid (or comet fragment) exploding in the atmosphere, and it sparked a century-plus of inventive work in planetary-defense tech:

• Radio astronomer Robert S. Harrington sketched early NEO-search strategies in the 1960s.

• Engineer Eleanor “Glo” Helin created the first dedicated near-Earth-object survey (P&LS, then NEAT) in the 1970s–90s.

• Today’s automated sky-scanners—LINEAR, Pan-STARRS, ATLAS, Vera C. Rubin Observatory—use CCD arrays, machine vision, and AI-driven orbit software that trace their lineage back to those post-Tunguska ideas.

• 2022’s NASA DART mission proved we can invent a working planetary-defense tool by nudging asteroid Dimorphos off course.

Why it matters to modern inventors

Tunguska shows how a single event can trigger generations of problem-solving, from hand-ground telescope lenses to kinetic-impactor spacecraft. Big challenges—cosmic or otherwise—don’t belong to one era or one inventor; they invite layers of innovation.

So as International Asteroid Day lands on your prototype bench, ask yourself:

1. What problem could outlive me—and how can my first step help the next inventor take the second?

2. Is there tech in another industry (AI imaging, mini-sats, materials) that could give my idea escape velocity?

You don’t have to stop an asteroid to make history. But thinking big—and starting small—has worked pretty well since 1908.

📅 What’s Coming Up This Week

One spotlight, one long weekend, and a full month of learning ahead:

🎙 Inventor Spotlight – Episode 16 Premiere
Guest: Deanna Ratnikova, creator of Go Deck
🗓 Friday, July 4 @ 8 AM ET
📍 Watch on YouTube → Inventor Spotlight Podcast

Get the back-story on how a stay-at-home stroll became a 52-card outdoor-adventure deck now expanding city-by-city.

👀 July’s full event schedule is live in the app!
Workshops, expert Q&As, and community meet-ups are already on the board. Open app.inventorsmart.com, tap “Events,” and add your favorites before your calendar fills up.

Independence Day + fresh inventor content—what could be better?

📸 Put a Face to Your Bright Idea

A profile photo is the quickest way to turn “another username” into you—and it makes collaboration feel a whole lot more human.

Why it matters this week:

• We just welcomed 20 new members—help them spot you in threads.

• July’s calendar is packed with interactive sessions; faces beat avatars in live chats.

• People network faster when they know who they’re talking to (science backs it).

👉 Add or update yours: https://inventorsmart.com/profile/edit

🎁 Snap, upload, done—then DM us. We’ll pop a small thank-you in the mail to celebrate showing up as you.

Let’s keep the community real, recognizable, and ready to invent together.

💡 Inventor Smart Community — Your Launchpad All Year Long

From napkin sketch to shelf-ready prototype, you’re never alone here. Our app is the always-on workspace where makers, dreamers, and deal-makers push ideas forward—side by side.

Here’s what’s waiting inside this July:

✅ A fast-growing network of inventors, engineers, suppliers, and licensors—all speaking “product” fluently
✅ Live Spotlights, patent Q&As, and hands-on workshops already queued on the July calendar
✅ Downloadable templates (NDAs, sell sheets, pitch decks) and toolkits updated weekly
✅ Honest feedback, accountability, and that little nudge to keep building when motivation dips

Cost to join? Zero. Value? Ask the 5,000+ members trading wins and lessons daily.

👉 Jump in now: https://inventorsmart.com

Turn today’s spark into tomorrow’s success—with a community that’s inventing right alongside you.

Take your invention to the next level with Inventor Smart 'Premium Insider'!

Enjoy monthly Q&A sessions with Brian Fried and industry experts, share your story on the Inventor Spotlight Podcast, and gain access to exclusive events and discounts, including a 10% discount at InventorMart and on services at brianfried.com.

🔗 Learn more and join today: Premium Insider

Meet Brian Fried - Your Inventor Coach, Author, Speaker, and Founder

Get to know Brian Fried, the Inventor Coach. With 15 patents and a successful licensing history, he has dedicated 18 years to coaching inventors. Explore his ventures like the Got Invention Show, National Inventor Club, and Inventor Smart Community app. Schedule a call with Brian at brianfried.com.

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