#1613: ScrewHues

We seem to search for items in random assortments most successfully by colour (rather than eg by shape alone). Try looking for a big brass screw in a box of small grey ones). Today’s invention is a way to ensure than new screws are findable, even when tipped into a box of various random fixtures.

A small ring of paint, of a colour unique to a given design of screw, would be sprayed onto the threads (not heads) of all of the new screws of that type during production in the factory.

They could all later be tipped into one’s screws/nails/sundry small parts bin.

Looking for eg three purple screws would then be made very much easier when staring into the box.

#1612: Chocolayers

Today’s invention is a paper-wrapped chocolate bar which contains paper-wrapped chocolate bars.

Removing the outer wrapper allows one to break the chocolate layer off the inner bars. This can be eaten, leaving the inner bars still wrapped.

Still feeling peckish? The inner bars can themselves be unwrapped, shedding chocolate to eat and another layer of wrapped bars.

This allows a block of chocolate to contain separately-flavoured interior packs as a pleasant surprise.

Also, the requirement to unwrap at each level allows one to pause, rather than devour the whole thing instantly (thereby helping overweight people limit their sweet intake, to some extent).

(It would be possible to enrobe wrapped bars in liquid chocolate and then wrap the result -several times…thus providing an extra measure of hygiene too).

#1611: SparSpin

Ordinary heavy punchbags have a tendency to get compressed with use by boxers so that hitting one is like punching a bag full of bricks.

Today’s invention is a punchbag which has symmetrical ends. Each end has a zippered closure containing a set of suspension chains.

After each week’s use in a gym, the chains can be zippered into their envelope and the opposite end opened up to hang the bag.

Inverting the bag periodically should greatly lessen the hardening effect -allowing longer workouts and helping avoid injuries to hands and wrists.

#1610: Quartermastoy

Today’s invention is for parents of young children. It’s a toy-organising chest-of drawers.

New toys almost always come in a bar-coded box. Each of these would be scanned by a parent on entry to one of the glass-fronted drawers. These would have the ability to weigh each box added to them.

A child would be able to enter a code given to it to extract the next toy of choice, only if it had placed some other toy in its box, scanned it and replaced it in the cupboard somewhere.

Parents could set the system to allow a child say x active, out-of-cupboard toys at any one time.

The cupboard could gamify the process further by awarding access to additional or surprise toys and games from inside it after a period of sustained playing with a variety of things and then clearing up (without eg trying to enter boxes only half-full of Lego or obsessing about only one toy for weeks).

#1609: RoofRaft

Todays invention is a new form of cockpit canopy for small jets flying over water.

If the crew has to eject, instead of shattering, the canopy rotates under the seat and ejects with it.

The canopy is then jettisoned into the water below and, equipped with buoyancy bags, acts as a durable life raft to which the crew can then swim.

#1608: $cenery

Today’s invention is a new way to index and compare movies. Instead of using subtitles or timings, each scene is labeled by how many dollars-per-screen-second it took to make.

These figures are constantly being monitored by production accountants, so that it would be fairly simple to add these data to the raw movie and then keep track of them during editing.

This would allow people who were fans of the spectacular, or high-price stars, to skip to the most expensive scenes. Student directors could perhaps determine how to tell a story more cheaply.

It may be that the bar chart of spend-per-scene throughout a film is a common characteristic of a given genre -a fingerprint that might be *searched* for by devotees of a particular movie type.

The cost-rate statistics could also be compared with standard audience appreciation metrics for each scene to assess whether spending more is actually correlated with increased entertainment.

It would also provide a new way for candidate directors to be compared before contracts are signed. Allow say two or three to make the same scene and compare their test audience ratings with their respective costs.

#1607: Topen

Today’s invention is a bottlecap with an integral bottle opener.

This would be supplied on two bottles in eg a six pack and can be used to open the other bottles more conveniently than banging the caps on a table edge.

#1606: Overt-taking

It’s easy to get confused by the images created in one’s driving mirrors.

I noticed the other day what looked like a single blue car (1) in my door mirror -just about to pass me on a dual carriageway. Looking forward through the screen, a moment later, I could see it had overtaken (2).

Since it was apparently the only other car on the road. I was just about to pull out into the overtaking lane myself. Only then did I notice that the blue blur seen peripherally in my door mirror (which I’d somehow associated with the passing vehicle) was actually a second, almost identical blue car which had been following the first.

Today’s invention attempts to overcome this powerful, and dangerous, illusion (A perceptual blindspot: I’d looked in my mirror and still thought it safe to pull out).

The problem is that the mirror is insufficiently identified with the view backwards -especially when the colour in it is the same as that seen through the screen. The mirror is being misinterpreted as a window.

One way to stop this is shown in 3, where there is a gap between mirror and car and a bright support arm runs behind the mirror, making it almost impossible to see this as transparent.

#1605: Bloodrive

Today’s invention is for people with a reduced blood circulation or with a weak heart.

In an attempt to supplement the normal circulatory system, a number of small, external peristaltic pumps would be strapped on, in contact with major veins.

These pumps would detect the user’s current heartbeat rate and the pump rollers automatically driven to rotate correspondingly.

They would thus help return blood from eg arms and legs, lessening the stress placed on the heart itself.

#1604: LensPens

If you are always losing your pens and/or always snapping the folding legs off your glasses, today’s invention is for you.

This consists of a set of lenses with legs which screw in and can thus be detached -allowing all three elements to be stored flat in a pocket.

Each of the legs is also a pen and therefore always conveniently available.