Tech alumni make finals with invention, "The Claw"

Tech alumni Craig Forest and David Moeller may just turn out to be the country's next Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison. They may not have designed bifocals or conceived of the light bulb, but they have proven themselves to be pretty darn good inventors.

These two Mechanical Engineering alumni recently competed in ABC's American Inventor, and were selected as the finalists from the show's New York City auditions site.

The American Idol-esque show, co-created by Simon Cowell, provides an opportunity for inventors from across the country to showcase their ingenious (and sometimes harebrained) schemes-whoever comes up with the best invention wins a grand prize of one million dollars.

Forest and Moeller invented the Claw, a bicycle-holding device that clamps on to a bike's front wheel; it replaces traditional ceiling hooks used to hang bikes. These hooks were often inadequate, since they required both vertical and lateral motion to hang a bike. As many cyclists know, this can be highly inconvenient when trying to lift a large, unwieldy bike onto a hook.

"In contrast, the Claw just requires vertical motion to store your bike," Forest said.

Forest and Moeller have a common passion for finding solutions to everyday problems. That passion was the motivating force behind their innovative bike storage system, and, in Forest's words, "is what led us to this invention."

Overall, feedback for the Claw was positive. Three out of the show's four judges gave the invention enthusiastic "yes" votes. Judge Peter Jones, however, was not impressed by the contraption. "It just doesn't do it for me," Jones said. "It's over-invented."

The other judges had nothing but good things to say about the device. "This is the way to get these bicycles out of the way," judge George Foreman said.

"This is wonderful," judge Pat Croce affirmed, after testing the Claw out for himself. "I tell you this thing is great."

"Our long-term goal is to really have an impact on the world as spokesmen for the engineering community," Forest said during this season's fourth episode of American Inventor.

Currently, Forest and Moeller are based out of Boston, Mass. "We met while studying engineering at Tech and share a passion for inventions that can change the world," Moeller explained to judges.

Moeller is now a first-year graduate student at Harvard Business School, and Forest is pursuing a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Laura Major Forest, Craig's wife and a 2002 Industrial Engineering alumna, explained to BUZZwords earlier this month how the two men came up with their invention.

"Craig originally had the idea for the Claw in his senior design class at Tech," Laura said. "Dave contacted him a couple of years ago to resurrect the idea and try to make it a real product."

When the two intrepid inventors saw a casting call for American Inventor in the newspaper, they decided to give it a shot and entered the Claw into competition.

"Together they have taken [the Claw] from an idea to an engineering prototype and they hope to make it a real product on the show," Laura said.

As finalists, the former Tech students have already received funding to the tune of $50,000 to improve their invention. They will return to the small screen for the final episode Wednesday, July 25 at 9 p.m., when they will compete against five other finalists for the grand prize.