Today’s invention is the transparent plugtop.
This allows the interior of an electrical plug to be viewed, so that a user can check that the wiring is correct before plugging in the attached appliance (there might even be coloured lines on the plug’s inside surface with which the wires could be compared).
The fuse rating could also be easily seen as well as any internal scorchmarks or cable fraying.
This could be incorporated in new plugs or as a replacement for existing plugtop front plates.
Today’s invention is a set of light, transparent, hollow panels corresponding to the body panels of a particular car.
To the narrow space within each is attached an inlet pipe at the front edge and an outlet pipe from the rear edge. These are used to pump smoke through the narrow space from a central reservoir.
The smoke can be made to change colour rapidly (as happens with eg a distress flare or firework). This provides something close to programmable colouration for the vehicle.
Streaklines in the smoke flow can also create the illusion that the vehicle is travelling faster than it really is, thus adding drama to driving slowly and perhaps reducing accidents.
Penalties are always controversial as well as dramatic in soccer.
To add to the drama, today’s invention involves displaying a big-screen image of the target goal, with a numbered grid superimposed (say two rows of four boxes).
Spectators would have two minutes to text the number of the square they wanted the shot to be directed at (and perhaps even win bets or prizes if a score was deemed to have occurred via their chosen box).
The penalty taker and goalkeeper could each choose to respond to this advice or ignore it, but either way the crowd could claim increased influence over the game (especially as statistics were amassed about the preferences of individual players).
(A sneakier version might involve showing the crowd’s preference to only the goalkeeper or the penalty taker).
A friend of mine recently had a minor bike accident in which the small passenger in the child seat at the rear might have been hurt.
Fortunately, everyone was fine, but even when wearing a helmet and properly strapped in, there remains the danger that a child will automatically extend its hand(s) as the bike is toppling onto the ground.
Today’s invention is a springsteel band which is normally compressed at the back of a bike seat, as shown.
When a tilt switch is activated by the machine toppling, the band is released and forms a round spring, restrained at two points. This cushions the impact with the road and prevents any damage to extended hands.
Whenever a tracked vehicle has its tracks damaged, the crew are left vulnerable.
Today’s invention is therefore to equip such a vehicle with some road wheels which, when a track breaks, are capable of running directly on the ground.
These would each have independent motors, for maximal survivability.
The speed of movement might be very slow and uncertain on soft ground but in many circumstances this would be sufficient to escape, since each of the motors could be driven in such a way as to provide for rudimentary steering.
I have wrenched my back several times getting a child into a childseat from outside a car.
Today’s invention is a childseat attachment which allows the seat to hang securely on the window frame of a car door. This lets a parent place their child in the seat without stooping and stretching.
The child is then belted into the seat and the door closed, allowing the seat to be detached, through the open window, through the very small distance onto the car seat.
The car door can then be reopened and the childseat attached to the car seat via the main belt in the usual way.
Another one I can’t seem to find in the great book of patents granted…
Today’s invention is a transparent, inflatable weather cover for a motorcycle (or other small, open vehicle (as a former winter biker, I remember how cold you can become, long before the conditions get too icy to ride).
This would take the form of a collection of connected bladders made of paddling pool material and wrapped around the bike (with a zipped access port for the rider to get on board). There would be a plexiglass screen at the front, attached to the bike, just for better forward visibility.
The cover would be inflated (hard enough to avoid buffeting at speed) by a small, motor-driven air pump (which could be used for the tyres as well). There might be vents at the front, for an air cooled engine, but it would work better as a cover-all for oil cooled machines.
When the bad weather abates, the pump would be run in reverse to ‘vacuum-pack’ the bladders tightly against the machine.
Today’s invention is a way to make office chairs roll more smoothly across office flooring.
Conventional casters (with wheel centre trailing the vertical axis) always seem to end up pointing in the wrong direction. This causes carpet rucking and a massive amount of extra, irritating friction.
The new approach has the chair mounted on a shallow, conical base with casters, as shown.
To move in a certain direction, first rock in the opposite direction slightly, allowing the casters on the other half to rotate around under gravity to align themselves with the planned movement.
Rolling onto these then allows the chair to be supported and move unhindered on aligned wheels.
When you drop a rubber ball on a hard surface it bounces to only a fraction of its starting height.
Today’s invention is a novelty device which overcomes that limit, by storing extra energy in a hidden, internal spring.
The ball is first squeezed, compressing the spring between the two hinged calipers which then lock ends together.
When the ball is dropped, the impact disengages the caliper ends allowing them to fly apart, react against the floor and provide an added upwards fling to the ball -beyond the bounce supplied by the rubber outer material.
(It may be that a version of this approach could be used to provide eg reactive armour for sports players and cyclists).
Trade shows and exhibitions are so last-but-one century.
People pay vast amounts to have ‘stands’ so that many more folk can pass by semi-somnolent and maybe pick up horrible free pens and product literature.
Today’s invention is to have an exhibition space filled with ‘stands’ which are free to move very slowly from place to place. These would each be mounted on an electrically-driven trolley and allow anyone to hop on and off (or wheelchairs to roll on roll off).
Just having stands appear next to each other in interesting juxtapositions would be exciting and thought provoking, but I’d also suggest having stands of differing sizes so that many people (eg startups) might have one that was like a powered shopping trolley.
How about stands which could be directed by delegates’ mobile phone messages?
