Archive for: October 2011

Following several tragic deaths and injuries to racing drivers recently, today’s invention attempts to provide a measure of added protection for the heads of drivers of open cockpit racing cars.

When any piece of airborne debris breaks one of a number of infrared beams which form a ‘cage’ around the cockpit area, the engine airduct is fired forward to encase the driver’s head and the rollbar.

The duct is propelled by a strong spring to cover the cockit in a few milliseconds. It moves on a pair of rails and when in the cover position, still allows the driver some forward field of view.

A driver might even be able to retract the hood, once the danger of impact had passed.

When someone is going for a cycle-based land speed record, they really don’t need to be staring forward and thus boosting drag effects.

Today’s invention is a way to help such record breaking attempts.

The rider adopts a face-down position as shown.

A micro projector, attached to the frame and fed with imagery from a tiny camera, facing forward, shows a picture on the ground of where the machine is headed, together with real-time data about current position on the course and the pacing required for that stage of the run.

It might even display motivational messages or imagery.

Sticky zips. Ever since the original brass design was replaced by a range of other materials, zip fasteners have started to snag and jam.

Today’s invention is an aftermarket fix for all those low-precision plastic zips out there.

A semicircular tab (pale yellow) is attached to the normal zip handle (grey). This goes through the hole in the handle and is secured to a small, replaceable wax crayon (yellow) in a housing.

From time to time, the zip handle can be flipped forward, as shown, and the crayon allowed to contact both sets of teeth as the zip is closed.

Such an arrangement leaves a thin film of clear wax on the zipper and stops the usual swearing/tugging/jamming when the rain comes on suddenly.

I’m always interested in the small scale measures necessary to ensure fairness in games and sport.

Today’s invention is a way to guarantee that a coin toss is actually fair.

For any given coin (grey) a close-fitting, moulded shell is made in two halves and of the same material as the coin itself (blue).

These halves are clipped onto the coin so that its orientation is unknown by the caller when ready to toss and so that any asymmetry in its motion is removed.

On landing, a neutral party removes the top half of the case to reveal the result (or it might break off on impact with the ground).

Wearing a hard plastic safety hat may protect you from falling debris. If you have to work on your own at some remote location, a rock or a rivet or a plank which lands on your head may well just render you unconscious.

Today’s invention is an alarm fitted inside all such hats which is activated by any impact large enough to cause concussion.

Any such impacts would be sufficiently strong to drive a prodder mechanism within the helmet far enough to reach a particular button on the user’s phone (stored in its crown). This would send a text message back to base.

It would then cause the phone to issue a few squawks, so that anyone within earshot would rush to help.

The effect would be to minimise injury caused by lying unattended for a while or perhaps staggering around whilst disorientated.

Since, it seems, the entire world economy depends on mobile phones, today’s invention is a new way to market these devices.

People could answer a questionnaire online. This would categorise them as belonging predominantly to one of a dozen or so social groups (eg jocks, hipsters, fogeys, petrolheads, goths, barbies, nerds, etc).

The sales website would then present them with the phone most likely to fulfil their needs (based on both the casing design options and the pre-loaded software).

Not only would this reinforce both people’s sense of identity and community, it would also allow them to be identified by members of other social groups, enabling the starting of a face to face conversation or an evasive maneuvre.

If you are an outdoors type, rather than a glamour camper, you will be unwilling to carry even one gramme more equipment than necessary (I’m told the SAS trim the handles on their toothbrushes to save weight).

Today’s invention is a new sheath for one’s camp knife which takes this into account.

This is made of strong plastic and has the sides omitted, thus protecting the blade whilst lessening the user’s load.

The added advantage is that if you need a tool to eg chop sticks, these can be inserted into the gap under the sheath (via the hinged flap (blue)).

The knife can then be struck hard on its pommel, eg with a rock, forcing the blade to guillotine whatever it comes in contact with.

There is a serious shock to the system of many people twice a year when the clocks are moved forward or back.

Today’s invention is an electronic clock which offers an alternative to the normal step change.

The indicated time would be gradually advanced or retarded, according to a sigmoid curve, over the course of a long weekend.

This would allow those of us who are super-sensitive to the amount of sleep we get some extra time to adjust.

It would also mean that the greatest amount by which we’d be out of step would be 30 mins -at a time when punctuality is less vital than during the working week.

Given that no-one likes having to change a tyre on their vehicle, today’s invention is a way to avoid punctures in the first place.

A camera is located under the front wing, which detects objects in the path of the wheel. This sends a signal to the wheel’s supension, saying, in effect “raise the wheel very briefly, to step over this.”

The car therefore runs on ony three wheels for a moment, but the raising and lowering would be done so smoothly, under electronic control and with awareness of the current rotation rate, that the ride would remain smooth (or at least smoother than without this system).

At very low speed, the raising of a wheel might require a sharp expansion then contraction of the local shock absorber to rock the chassis upwards for long enough to clear any debris.

A similar system would apply to all of the wheels. This might require that, if facing say four broken bottles simultaneously, a decision as to which was the highest priority to miss might have to be taken.

Microsoft have recently applied for a patent which could use a TSA-type body scan to determine which content would be appropriate to an individual’s age.

Today’s invention takes this a step further (can’t believe all those Redmond patent attorneys missed this one) by using these scans to decide which adverts should be shown to a given person as he/she is searched/scanned en route to board a plane.

Based on body shape and size, adverts for slimming aids,exercise equipment or dietary supplements could be emphasised.

Similarly, movies or medicines eg, made for a particular section of society, could be specifically targeted at those consumers with a stereotypical body shape.