InnovationPlay was founded in 1997 by Mike Hickle and John Pollock. Its original charter was to use high technology that we were exposed to through our automation business (Unique Equipment Co.) to better our off work 'play time'.

Our original idea was to use smart, controlled laser texturing of golf club heads to help golfers control the spin of the golf ball based on their swing. We had a lot of fun texturing club heads and then ripping into golf balls but we eventually abandoned the idea because there were just too many club head alloys to deal with.

Soon after that idea fizzled we sold Unique Equipment Co. to Newport Corp. We both ended up technically getting laid off as the DOT COM boom ... busted.

In 2005, Texas Hold'Em fever was alive and well on the Internet and in semi-retirement along with a monthly poker game in the garage, John started development on InnovationPoker with the follow question in mind:

Why would so many people play cards interactively in front of a computer, wasting an enormous amount of time, when they could create a virtual player to do the work for them while they are off enjoying the world?

InnovationPoker is a fully automated poker environment that you upload your virtual player into and sign up for tournaments, five minutes later its over, email is used notify you of your results with statistics attached, and if you are a winner you have the option of automatically entering another tournament. What could be better, a small investment that could pay off a 100 times over (like a lottery) and yet you control the outcome and the host can actually make some money because the tournament doesn't take days....it takes minutes, even with a 1000 players. Now that's why computers were invented....to do the work for you....just like a calculator!

The question of whether anyone would participate was answered 20 years earlier at Northern Arizona University, THANK YOU Dr. Lanny Mullens.

The UIGEA put a stop to the urgency and the flow of money (out the door) but the fire burns. The electronics for the keyfob version were designed and tested and we have 200 or more of every device including the usb micro-controller, a small OLED display and small lithium polymer batteries. We have a pc based version of the virtual player creator application that is pretty cool. Patents are pending!

Current Farming Related Projects

We are currently in the middle of writing 2 government grants to develop equipment that supports small rural farmers. As farmers and engineers, we often see areas where we c an use our knowledge and technology we have been exposed to to improve processes and usually end up saving the little guy, time money and resources.

Small milling operations that produce yarn from wool are one of the only methods that the small sheep, alpaca, and goat farms have to add value to their fleeces. Large milling operations require large amounts of consistent fiber in each lot.  We need more small milling operations as the time to get the fiber processed is often months. The cost is high because the the equipment is expensive and it doesn't produce the amount of yarn that it should.

Slowly but surely we are looking at each piece of equipment and improving the throughput based on the usage of the equipment, namely very small lot processing.

We have currently design a new scouring (washing) station that can wash 120lbs of fiber in 8 hours. The cost of this equipment is only slightly higher than the most widely used equipment on the market but we can produce over 4X the amount of clean fiber in the same time frame. Our equipment includes recycling of not only the rinse water but also the wash water.  Without recycling, the process would use 1500 gallons of water a day. With recycling, we use just 150 gallons of water a day.

A second project involves watering a 2 acre orhanic farm. Commercial controllers do a fairly good job but we have a couple of unique watering capabilites that add efficeincy to our watering cycles. The controller will control over 50 valves and cost a lot less then commercial units supporting the same amount of valves. We will develop, test, and quantify the capabilities and then provide the completely packaed and documented controller to small farms at cost.

Consumer Projects

We won't discuss our consumer projects in any depth but if your read about InnovationPoker from the links above, you can see that it is now possible to replace the IrDA communication we used in the keychain device with wireless RF solutions at a very competitive cost. With the introduction of Bluetooth LE devices due out soon, for under $2.00 a complete BT solutiuon can be added to devices to give them wireless connectivity to the world. Our intent is to use mobile phones as the 'brains' and display and create low cost modules that provide solutions to different industries.

For instance, a chip ID reader used for animal indentification will cost $300+. For show animals these IDs are mandatory. If an animal comes to a show and their ID cannot be read, then one will be provided for ~$50 depending on the show. If the famers had checked the ID before going to the show, they could have known the ID was not working and replaced it for ~$10. We can develop an ID reader for about ~$10 in parts and hopefully get it to the consumer for ~$50 assuming they have a mobile phone that supports Bluetooth LE or ANT.

Thanks for stopping by. If your interested in anything on the site, just drop me an email HERE.