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Month: November 2011

#1787: Microtator

All microwave ovens have cools spots where the intensity of radiation may be lower than required to cook food properly.

Today’s invention is a way to ensure that your food gets heated adequately to suppress the proliferation of bugs and also to taste better.

A small disc-shaped reservoir with a microwave-transparent window and a rounded base is filled with water.

As the oven works, two tiny jets of steam are driven from the circumferential pipes shown, so that the reservoir spins on the rotating dish within the oven.

This extra rotation ensures that all parts of the bowl of soup shown will be irradiated correctly.

#1786: RemoteRemote

The TV remote control in a typical hotel room is considered dirtier than the toilet, sink handles, door handles, and even the bedspread.

Today’s invention removes the bacterial infection problem by offering a remote which is operated by one’s feet.

This would take the form of a footstool with a number of big buttons in the surface, modeled after a simplified remote and operable with shoes still on.

The stool would allow the actual remote to be inserted into a slot and there would be direct mechanical links between pressing the pedals and the buttons on the embedded remote.

Happy fifth birthday, IOTD!

This is just a note to say that tomorrow will be the fifth anniversary of this blog.

I’ve managed to post something new on 98% of the 1826 days since 21st November 2006.

Many thanks to the readers and commenters who have helped support my efforts. It’s greatly appreciated. Special thanks also to Kona for suggesting it in the first place.

There are many more ideas in the pipeline -as well as a forthcoming book detailing the methods and mindset which I rely on to maintain creativity.
Cheers,
Patrick

(I should also have expressed my thanks to everyone at SXC, whose photos I’m very grateful to be able to use)

#1785: SweepStalks

Today’s invention is a way to get cylindrical haystacks to roll to one side of the field for collection.

I’d attach a motor and wheel unit by stabbing some prongs at the opposite end from the wheel into the stack.

This would drive the stack along the ground like one of those cottonreel tanks I so loved as a child.

Maybe school teams could be encouraged to develop elastic or solar powered motors and race their designs against each other.

#1784: 0-breeze

If I had only a year to break the man-powered land speed record I wouldn’t develop a whole new machine.

I’d take the best cyclist I could get and seat him on the fastest racing cycle I could find, as comfortably as possible.

Then I’d assemble a shell around him using oasis plant watering bricks. This would be very crude to start with but it’s sufficiently soft stuff to allow a really streamlined shape to be sculpted that weighs almost nothing. The critical element in reaching top speeds is the form drag -given a tight timescale I’d minimise wind resistance and forget the other details.

I’d also supply a leaning pad for the rider’s chest so that he could relax as much as possible (no need to steer in this record attempt).

The other critical aspect is to allow the ‘engine’ to breathe effectively. I’d run the record attempt somewhere at low altitude with lots of trees around for oxygenation.

I’d also cut a few discreet slots in top side of the oasis shell to ensure no buildup of carbon dioxide.

#1783: MealBrake

For people who want to eat in a more refined way and perhaps limit the speed with which they engulf their dinner, today’s invention offers some support.

It consist of a knife, fork and plate set in which both implements contain an electromagnet.

Powered by batteries in the handles, these would be actuated by a transmitter hidden in the plate. When the knife and fork were both in contact with the (metal) plate, a sensor in it would actuate the electromagnets at random intervals.

This would cause the knife and fork to adopt a one-across-the-other configuration ( as recommended by my mum’s table manners lessons to indicate ‘I’m still eating’).

This would have the effect of slowing one’s pace and provoking some prandial peroration.

#1782: Crustwich

There has been much talk in the press about the cheapest possible sandwich.

Today’s invention is an alternative to the toast sandwich.

<img src="https://iotd.patrickandrews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2011/11/toast2.png" alt="" title="toast" width="256" height="192"

It’s the crust-and-air sandwich.

Cut say two or three crusts off each slice of bread and place them as shown on one lower slice. Butter to taste and add the other slice.

As apparently thick as a regular sandwich but only 66.7% as many calories as the equivalent toast sandwich.

#1781: HeatPhones

Surprised that I couldn’t find these within the random pile of online patent database contents…

Today’s invention is headphones for an MP3 player which contain a small heating coil in each one.

This allows them to act as super-effective earmuffs when these things are worn outside on a very cold day.

(This might require carrying around an extra battery pack of course).

#1780: Hospitalidry

Hotels like to supply their guests with a way to get into a waiting car without getting soaked by the rain (assuming the absence of a liveried postillion with a brolly).

Supplying umbrellas becomes unpopular with hotel management, though, when people walk off with them.

Today’s invention is a novel guest umbrella.

It would be designed as a large flat disk with a long, thin conical handle. The umbrella would not collapse but would remain as shown.

A guest could pick one of these up from a nested, space-saving set in the foyer and use it to get into their vehicle. It would then be much too big to get in their car, even if they wanted to take it away and so it would be left, handle-upwards, on the driveway.

Cars could safely drive over the handles, deflecting them but not damaging them (or their vehicles), until they were later collected for reuse.

#1779: QuadGuard

In former times, troops rode horses -making it possible for them to get from A to B as a dispersed group. Attacking them therefore had to be done largely one at a time.

Now that warfare (or ‘peacekeeping’) is mechanised, soldiers get into increasingly large vehicles which need massive amounts of armour to resist eg landmines and rockets.

Today’s invention is a way to protect soldiers from roadside bombs and other weapons directed at large vehicles.

It is the armoured ATV (or four-wheeled motorcycle).

Militaries around the world already use these vehicles and the cost of buying one per soldier on patrol is certainly less than buying the equivalent capacity in armoured Humvees.

By adding a steel shell around the driver of each ATV, it becomes much harder to kill numbers of soldiers, since they are dispersed, still quite fast moving and with some significant individual protection.