Category: Feasible inventions

I was always under the false impression that rotary washing lines were supposed to spin like windmills in the wind.

In fact, the rotation is provided only to allow loading and unloading the line without having to walk about too much whilst carrying a basket of wet washing.

Today’s invention is a version of this device which is free to rotate, when hanging or removing items. The turning part has a weather vane attached (yellow), which orientates it towards the wind, once the washing is aboard.

This vane gradually changes rotational position relative to the turning washing line, under the action of a clockwork motor (blue).

In this way, each face of the triangle lies on the windward side for approximately equal time intervals.

Today’s invention is an application which makes airline meals a bit more interactive.

Before any food arrives, passengers (probably in business class only initially) could choose items using their seat-back touch screen, from a menu showing actual photographs of the meals.

If a particular dish had run out, the system would apologise and suggest alternatives.

Elements of the meal would, once touched, display data about calorie count, the chef who thought it up, its ethnic origin and statistics on how many people had chosen it.

On delivery, diners could then rate each item via the screen.

There are two different scales of Lego brick. The normal size and the much larger Duplo size (shown).

These are incompatible in terms of joining the two types together.

Today’s invention is therefore a Lego/Duplo interface brick.

The underside would be ‘female’ and allow accommodation of Duplo ‘male’ brick surfaces. The top surface would be male and accommodate the ‘female’ underside of the smaller Lego bricks.

In this way, a child growing out of Duplo could still use their old bricks with the finer scale Lego ones.

Today’s invention is a way to determine and plan scenic travel routes.

By analysing Google StreetView imagery on possible journeys between A and B using software such as SceneReader it’s possible to find the candidate route with the lowest amount of readable street signage.

This could be assumed to correspond to a less-travelled and perhaps better preserved path -thus being more suitable for tourist drives.

Today’s invention is a roof tile which has a water channel formed within it.

As tiles are placed overlapping each other, the outlet from one plugs into and seals to the inlet of the one below.

This allows water to be fed into the roof surface at the top and extracted from the bottom, after having absorbed large amounts of solar energy.

Statues are pretty much still artefacts of the stone age.

Today’s invention is to create civic statues of much respected people so that they incorporate some robotic components.

This would allow a repertoire of small movements to replicate some of the physical characteristics of the individual in question. These might be triggered by people passing by or on detecting certain spoken phrases.

No need for an all-singing, all-dancing, uncanny-valley replica, but enough to preserve more of the memory of the real person than marble or bronze can achieve.

Happy New Year, Readers!

Today’s invention is a website which helps guests at public functions to choose what to wear so that they don’t clash with or duplicate each other’s outfits. This would also help make sure that no guest was more grandly or eye-catchingly clad than any guests of honour.

A seating plan would also be provided to all participants, in advance. They would then each choose eg the colour of their dress from a palette, ensuring at least that their immediate neighbours were not planning to wear the same.

To minimise conflicts, guests would only receive their tickets after having provided data about their planned couture (which would be confirmed on entry).

More A-list events might even allow specification of the designers and the style of clothes.

The website could also be used to eradicate the problem of several people appearing in group photographs, dressed like a barber’s shop quartet.

Today’s invention is based on people in wheelchairs carrying with them smartphones which can record or transmit their location.

These data would reflect, over time, those routes and destinations that enabled wheelchair access and could be overlaid onto eg Google StreetView (especially future versions which map the interiors of public buildings).

Areas which failed to be mapped would highlight regions from which wheelchair users were possibly being excluded.

Today’s invention is bicycle handlebars which can be reconfigured into many different styles.

The front forks are made of tubes in circular arcs. Other tubes are fitted telescopically inside these.

The interior ones can be pulled out almost completely, twisted through an angle and locked in place.

This allows, for example, a more upright riding position (A) or a much more aggressive racing pose (B) -as well as almost any other arrangement in between.

Today’s invention is a propelling ‘pencil’ of the segmented type, except that each of the little units consists of a biro, fibre tip, rollerball or fountain type nib, together with its own small reservoir of appropriate ink.

All nibs could be of different widths and inks of different colours.