Home Archive by category "Feasible inventions" (Page 63)

Category: Feasible inventions

#1258: LapStrap

Laptops are equipped with all manner of software-based security measures but that doesn’t count for a lot if someone can jab in a USB device eg and boot up your machine (If your BIOS isn’t password protected, for example).

Today’s invention is a simple device to make any such access to physical connections very much more difficult.

The diagram shows a plug placed in eg a USB socket and attached to a strap which passes under the machine and into a clamp fitted to the other side.

The strap can be locked in place, making attachment of any peripherals impossible without doing serious damage to the device or the machine.

#1252: LayerLogs

Getting a fireplace to light up can be a challenge. Somehow there is never enough of the different constituents (ie various grades of kindling) and I end up using 20 matches attempting, fruitlessly, to get the bark on a solid log to burn.

Today’s invention is therefore fire briquettes which each consist of a solid wood upper surface and a series of other strata of decreasing density. The lowermost layer would be loosely-bonded paper.

A machine could be devised to make these in bulk. This would take the form of a rectangular metal box into which pieces of wood could be dropped, followed by twigs, cardboard and then paper. Slots in the box would allow the contents to be tied in a layered bundle which could then be sawn into stove-sized lengths.

Place several of these at angles to one another in a fireplace and light the papery underside of each…instant conflagration.

#1250: n-ike

If we can have bikes and trikes then why not an n-wheeled vehicle called a n-ike? (just waiting for the ‘cease and desist’ letter from the world of humourless chinese trainer manufacturers).

Today’s invention is a simple way to make a bicycle frame using wheels. Two would be used to hold the rear axle and the seat. One more would be clamped between these to hold the drive sprocket. A fourth would be clamped to this one to hold the steering yolk.

With the two on the road that makes six wheels in total. This arrangement offers lightness, ease of manufacture, a way to reuse old wheels and the possibility of personalising the riding geometry by changing the clamping positions.

#1247: BinaryBinding

Today’s invention is stereo books, for secure reading.

A bookmark, shown in grey, can be cut to comfortably fit the brow of a user. This is placed between two pages (as shown).

Opposite pages each carry one of a stereo pair of images. The bookmark enables these images to be more easily ‘fused’ by the user so as to generate a 3-D image.

The book could be full of such images. It might also be used as a simple way to allow secure reading of confidential text eg on a plane or train, since each page could be composed of an illegible set of letter components.

#1246: Fruitstand

I’ve ranted occasionally about the stickers that seem to get attached to many forms of fruit. Today’s invention turns this problem into an advantage.

A new form of fruit-identifying label would be a thicker-than-normal ring. This would be sticky on one side, as usual, but the added depth and hole in the middle would allow the part-eaten fruit to be set down on a flat surface. This would avoid the problem of having an apple or pear roll over and collect eg dust, crumbs etc.

The sticker would still carry the inevitable advertising, of course.

If you wanted to encourage the consumption of eg five items of fruit a day, these rings could each have a part-message printed on them so that assembling five of these into a cylinder would spell out some additional message or web address on the side.

#1245: Heavyhitter

I know almost nothing about the sport of Baseball (apart from the fact that it seems a lot more engaging than cricket or golf).

Undaunted by ignorance, today’s invention is an adaptation to the baseball bat.

This consists of several microphones embedded in the bat surface. When they sense that a ball is nearing for a hit, they cause a weight to be driven axially within the body so that the impact point becomes the centre of percussion. (The weight movement might be effected by eg compressed air).

This allows every impact to occur on a new, specially engineered ‘sweet-spot’.

Even if it doesn’t conform to the rules of competition, it might be useful to novice players, removing the jarring and pain caused by hitting the ball with the wrong part of the bat in training.

#1244: Spacears

In space, no-one can hear you scream…so today’s invention is 3-D hearing for spacewalkers.

The number of people who work in the near vacuum of space is set to increase. These people hear only radio transmissions, the sounds of their suits and their own physiology.

First, equip each spacewalker’s helmet with stereo headphones. All astronauts, and anything movable, would be fitted with a small transmitter sending out a chirp of radio every second or so. These transmissions would be unique to the source person or object.

A processor aboard the Astro’s helmet would receive these and translate them into characteristic, realistic noises in stereo (an approach from the seven o’clock position by a friend or a passing robot arm could be perceived in advance, thus boosting safety and general ‘situation awareness’.

Toolboxes drifting off would soon be detected by their simulated wooshing into the distance as well as an occasional plaintive cry of ‘help’.

The headphones would also drown out one’s stomach rumblings when it’s time for that dehydrated stew, again.

#1243: BaggageBand

I was recently intrigued by a movie of someone breaking into a locked, zippered suitcase with only a ballpoint pen.

There are numerous ways in which baggage could be made to resist such (casual) attack. Today’s invention is one such approach.

A case would be made of tough, flexible plastic (one or both sides could be made transparent, to lessen the need for a full search before eg boarding a plane).

The top half is pushed down on top of the bottom section until the chamfered lugs (I love that engineering talk) engage with the holes in the lower part, as shown.

Then, a steel belt (like a carpenter’s tape measure) is threaded through the lugs and secured by a padlock (not shown).

This is pretty inexpensive and makes it almost impossible for anyone to access the contents quickly and without using tools to inflict serious damage.

#1242: StepStore

Today’s invention is a way to improve the use of storage space in both homes and offices.

Shown in filing cabinet form, but adaptable to other types of furniture, it consists of drawers which are deep enough to provide access to other drawers which extend almost to ceiling height.

Each drawer is fitted with an internal step enabling a kind of staircase and the whole cabinet is bolted to the wall to limit any tendency to toppling.

#1239: PopPout

I’m disturbed to read about various lipsticks and lip salves which provide, apparently, a nice comfy haven for germs and bugs.

Today’s invention is therefore a pop-up pencil device which contains a number of single-use lipstick or lip salve pellets which, once used, are forced into the bottom end to make the next one available.

Each pellet would have just enough for one (or two) applications, so that no-one need be wiping their mouth with an infected microbiological substrate.

If the outer sleeve were made transparent, each of the pellets could be of a different colour, so that one could choose to coordinate with the mode du jour.