When setting a fire, I find I usually create a small pile of kindling refuse and sawdust on the hearth. Rather than go in search of the vacuum cleaner, I’d prefer to use today’s invention: a draught-driven suction tube.
Set the draught to maximum for a few seconds and direct the (insulated) end of the flexible metal hose at the detritis in front of the fire.
This is sucked up into the chimney gas stream, burning the particles of dust and leaving the hearth area comparatively clean.
It drives me nuts that contact lenses are now so thin and flexible that, whilst super-comfortable to wear, they can easily become inverted in the packaging.
When this occurs, I can’t easily detect it and so have to extract and reinsert (with all the handwashing and eyelid-pulling pallaver that that entails).
Today’s invention is a C-shaped plastic bracket onto the lower-surface of which an opened, transparent lens package is placed. A small lamp on the lower surface shines upwards through lens, liquid and case to form an image inside the upper arm of the C.
The resulting image is different in size, depending on the orientation of the lens.
The marks left on the road when a vehicle brakes hard are actually quite distinctive enough to be detected by relatively rudimentary image processing.
Today’s invention is a system in which a camera is fitted on a car, capturing images of the road immediately ahead. This recognises skidmarks and other traces of rubber and tags these to their location via a GPS system.
Cars would pool their data about where skidmarks exist so that, over time, a map of dangerous braking situations is formed. This could then be used to issue a voice warning to a driver to slow before approaching somewhere where skidmarks have been frequently found.
How many times have I strained to hear an important announcement from a PA system only for some cacophony to drown out the salient content?…too many times.
Today’s invention is a public address system which is attached to microphones arrayed within the space being addressed.
When the mics register too high a level of background noise (as eg when a train is leaving a station) the announcement, whether ‘live’ or prerecorded, is delayed until comparative quiet recurs.
There might be scope for raising the volume a little, rather than wait too long for a profound hush.
Driving in the rain recently, I checked my side mirror before overtaking…except that the door window was so misted up and covered in rain droplets that the mirror was invisible.
Today’s invention is a windscreen wiper for one’s side window(s) in a car. This could take the form of a horizontal rubber blade driven by the window motor -but independent of the usual window movement.
A better solution might even be an ‘airblade’ system capable of blasting a curtain of air down the side window as well as down the mirror surface itself.
The air speed would be sufficient to rid both of surface moisture very rapidly and thus make manoeuvring in wet conditions much safer..
Stirring paint is about as entertaining as watching it dry.
Today’s invention is a deep tray, placed in the boot of the car, which accommodates a small number of paintcans, lying on their sides.
The tray allows the cans to roll about, as the vehicle turns, and mix their contents during the journey back from the DIY superstore (assuming they aren’t already solidified due to poor stock control).
The tray also catches any spillage, in the unlikely event that a top comes off in transit.
Much as I dislike the use of firearms (and that fact the we all seem to rely on them to keep some very bad guys at bay) -still I’m fascinated by their technology.
Today’s invention is a magazine which slots into a machine gun at an angle so that it forms a symmetrical bipod with a normal leg on the other side (I actually dreamed this a couple of nights ago).
Given the effort applied to the issue of reducing the weight carried by soldiers, this would provide a small advantage in only having to cart around half a bipod.
Wind turbine blades, its seems, currently break more frequently, and less predictably, than anyone is comfortable with (certain windfarms are now collecting piles of broken blades for which there is no repair/recycling process).
According to a back of the envelope calculation, based on typical geometry, if a fragment of the tip of a blade comes off it can travel up to 2 turbine diameters in one direction and up to 15 diameters (2 football pitch lengths) in the opposite direction.
This represents a potential threat to anything which lies to one side of a turbine (ie particularly to the left of a counterclockwise blade when viewed from the front).
Today’s invention is a way to lay out a wind farm so that any boundaries are no closer to the machines than two diameters (+safety margin), even when variations in wind direction are accounted for. It also requires that the 12 o’clock direction of blade rotation is always away from the local border.
Although this may increase the damage to more central turbines, it lessens the possibility that vehicles, people or buildings on the periphery will suffer costly impacts.
I happen to have a small driveway which is covered in stones. These provide an effective alert that someone is approaching the front door (as well as ending up on the lawn and inside the house).
For those wealthy enough to have block paving (and therefore presumably with something worth stealing) there are numerous magnetic, infra-red and laser beam security devices, not to mention the traditional, roll-over surface pressure detector.
Today’s invention seems like an obvious improvement in that it consists of a wired network of pressure sensors each mounted beneath a paving block. It might be possible to have blocks each with a built-in pressure sensor. Only a subset, suitably arrayed, would need these.
As the blocks are very slightly displaced vertically when walked or driven over, so they can issue an alarm in the home or to one’s mobile -without the knowledge of a visitor.
A sufficient number of sensors would be capable of determining whether a group of people had arrived or a vehicle (and whether it left more laden than it entered).
I’ll admit to having a softspot for sidecars. They are definitively eccentric.
Today’s invention is a way to store one’s three-wheel steed safely in an urban environment.
A tough, toolshed-like box fits over the motorcycle, when parked against a wall. The box is secured to the wall and when released, it rotates to reveal a sidecar seat with minimally exposed third wheel.
This is placed, for stability, beneath an arch between the occupant’s legs and driven via a chain from the bike’s back wheel.
Allowing limited, sprung, rotation between shed base and bike when in transit might actually allow a reasonably smooth ride. A small pulley arrangement might help the less brawny open and close the system.
