Archive for: November 2007

Cliched or not, those old stories about people not washing their hands after using the lavatory really aren’t funny.

Today’s invention represents a low cost way for an organisation (including eg a hospital) to monitor handwashing among its staff…and thus consider the urgency of conducting an in-house hygiene campaign.

For each washroom, take a credit card calculator and place it in the door frame with only the “+” button left exposed (the others could be prised out of the keboard). Every time the door springs closed, this device will add 1 to the ongoing total.

Repeat the exercise with the push plate on the hand dryer units (this will require removing the outer cover and placing a calculator behind each plate).

After a few weeks, the ratio between total number of door openings and the number of hand drying occurrences can be calculated. If the figure differs significantly from 1.0, then maybe eating those peanuts at the christmas party is a bad idea.

Universities and other institutions often consist of a diverse collection of buildings from different eras and architectural backgrounds. These can sometimes be interdigitated with other buildings that happen to be there for historical reasons, but which aren’t anything to do with the urban campus in question. Visitors were always stopping me on the street in Cambridge, standing between shops, government offices and colleges, and asking “Where’s the University?”

The situation is even more daunting for new students who are actually expected to find their way about without stumbling into banks whilst in search of biochemistry. This is a bigger issue when two unrelated campuses abut one another.

Today’s invention is a simple way to group the real estate belonging to such an institution visually. It involves equipping each building with a discreet collection of small, energy efficient lights -in a single appropriate colour. These could be attached (removably) at a uniform height above ground -or below the rooflines. They might be illuminated in waves across the university -unifying even the most eclectic collection of institutional outstations.

It’s ridiculous to expect people to choose between extinguishers when they have just discovered a fire. Interpreting iconic or written instructions, when you can feel the flames, is really not a viable solution…especially since using the wrong extinguishant (eg water on a hot oil fire) can have catastrophic consequences.

Today’s invention is a way to deal with this issue.

Each bank of three or four different extinguishers would be equipped with an “electronic nose” capable of determining the nature of the fire by analysing the airborne combustion products. This would be helped by locating the nose sensor at the inlet to the extinguisher hose (or horn), being held towards the fire.

If the sensor detects e.g. the products of burning electrical insulation, it will decide to allow use of dry powder and to restrict any attempt to use a water-filled unit. This choice could be indicated by having a green led light up on any available extinguishers which are appropriate to the current fire.

This might be further automated by equipping smoke detectors each with one of these ‘sniffers’ and a low cost infra-red camera to locate the seat of the fire. This could then allow the right extinguisher to be automatically pointed and activated.

Today’s invention is a metal fence for schools and playgrounds which is also a musical instrument.

Think of this as a vertical xylophone. Each metal upright (or tubular bell) would be moored, so as to retain the children, but free to vibrate when struck.

The vertical spacing of the moorings for each ‘rail’ would be movable (by an adult with a key) so as to create sections of the fence arrayed like the notes on a xylophone -and other sections which could play a tune as a child runs past, brushing them with a stick.

People tend to listen to music via earphones at a volume that may be actually doing them harm. I know this because, aside from the published concerns of audiologists, I can often hear their choice of listening across a noisy train carriage.

This morning, it was some banker tuned to Duran Duran, but even real music can be intrusive when you’re only getting the tinniest of high frequencies which have escaped from the foam earbuds.

Today’s invention is simply to incorporate a small microphone in one earpiece. This would register the sound level emitted and reduce the volume -so gradually as to be imperceptible to the (intended) listener.

Obviously the noise-crazed, volume addicts may override the mic, but this approach would reassure the parents of kids who are still in the early stages of deafening themselves.

Although it’s inexplicable, there are still some people and institutions who prefer to send hardcopy documents rather than electronic ones (Only a couple of years ago, the Law Society of England and Wales, for example, declared itself to be ‘against email’).

This means searching for a post box and ensuring that the right stamps have been applied. After that, you just wait for some response (assuming no postal workers’ strike that week).

Today’s invention is an alternative way for the Great Unwired to send hardcopies to each other.

Banks are still reasonably trusted institutions (if you ignore all those missold pensions, Nick Leeson, sub prime mortgages…). They have ubiquitous ATMs which are capable of handling deposit envelopes and a secure way to gain access to and, if necessary pay for, their services.

People wanting to post a letter could write it as normal, print an address on a deposit envelope and enter that into their local ATM. The content could be automatically extracted, scanned, identified from bank address records and sent electronically to whichever ATM the intended recipient used next. On logging in with their pin, the ATM would print a copy of the document, insert it in an envelope and drop it into their hands.

I’m not one of those people with a phobic reaction to having a cannula inserted into my arm (especially if it’s done by a professional, practised nurse, rather than some bleary, junior medic).

I’ve noticed that a lot of thinking has gone into the design of these things to make them easy to insert and keep them sealed against infective agents. The English NHS buys about 20M of these a year, so the cost implications of any change are significant.

One problem is that this design of cannula creates a finger-sized protruberance from the the surface of one’s skin…just asking to get snagged on a hospital gown, bedclothes, stethoscopes etc. After a few hours, any movement of the needle, driven by the external plastic collar, is painful and messy (forcing the needle into the vein wall).

Today’s invention is a fine nylon tube which is driven down the inside of the needle, after it has penetrated a blood vessel, by the attachment of a syringe or a tube leading to a ‘drip’. This proboscis greatly decreases the damage which the needle can do to the inside of a vein and the discomfort of wearing a cannula for a few days is therefore lessened.

In addition, when the needle is withdrawn, the nylon tube still protrudes from it, making it very unlikely that medical staff will prick themselves on a ‘sharp’ covered in someone’s blood.

A quick search for ‘chainsaw safety features’ quickly confirms my suspicion that these are seriously dangerous devices…especially in the hands of anyone who isn’t a professional lumberjack.

Most people who pick up a chainsaw aren’t looking to decapitate a sequoia. They are more likely to be chopping off the odd branch or two whilst hoping to keep their own limbs attached.

Today’s invention is a new form of chainsaw shield. Only a small part of the chain is initially exposed. As it cuts into a branch, the outer section of the shield is deflected away from the user by the wood itself, exposing just enough of the chain at any time.

The outer section is attached by a narrow, sliding, spring-loaded spine to the inner section (which allows the saw to fully penetrate the wood and also protects the user if it kicks upwards).

It had to happen, I finally got around to reinventing the wheel.

Rather than persisting with that simple old round geometry, today’s invention is a way to have wheels (top of the image) transform themselves into tracks (bottom of the image) by varying their internal geometry. The suggestion is to do this by using an outer track with driver wheels raised off the ground in both cases. Idler wheels would be moved radially inwards or outwards within slots to create a circular arc or flat profie (or intermediates between these).

In the wheel case, the idlers might even be locked in position around the circumference of a circular hub, so that the whole thing could roll, effectively using the track only as a wheelrim.

This would provide, when a wheel’s low-rolling and turning resistance weren’t required, a better response in terms of grip and load distribution.

Someone has now built a version of this (although they seem to be using extensible tracks and only two idlers, in a rather complicated mechanical system -but it certainly works).

When planning permission is sought for some new building, it can send small ripples of uncertainty around a neighbourhood. Amongst the local residents, there will usually be some knee-jerk noes and some don’t knows and some don’t cares.

In order to help people form a more informed opinion, today’s invention is simply to create a VR simulation of the proposed building, based on any CAD drawing that has already been prepared.

This would need to be rendered in sufficient detail that issues like the before-and-after light levels could be investigated, together with questions regarding access, services, etc. I’d like to see an acoustic model incorporated which could help assess how noise levels might be affected for example, and for industrial buildings, how waste might be managed.

Only then could all parties really begin to understand the implications of a planned development -and have their concerns validated or negated.

The effort required to build such a model would be substantial (although more useful than a cardboard version) but it would provide a valuable extra hurdle in helping to prevent unwanted development or unfounded objections.