#2935: TrojanTanks

Everyone has heard about the use of inflatable tanks to deceive the enemy’s intelligence work.

Today’s idea takes that approach a step further.

Dummy tanks can be made for a tiny fraction of the cost of a real one, but these have only been used as static decoys. So imagine making a huge number of them from say plywood with a thin steel skin, each one equipped with a remote controlled chassis from some kind of quadbike. They might have internal loudspeakers and smoke generators too.

Quadbikes and skin kits could be airdropped beside conventional armour for a sudden attack if necessary.

Now equip all your real tanks with an outer skin of plywood and thin steel, so that they are indistinguishable from the fake ones (even using eg thermal imaging).

When battle commences, an enemy army will be intimidated and confused by the size of their opposition and waste ammunition firing at many fake, rolling tanks.

Some of these vehicles will be surprisingly fast moving, adding to the confusion and making target selection much more difficult.

#2934: FiltrEight

Say you want to make a filter or a catalyst and you use incompressible, cylindrical fibres. Even when the fibres are packed together as closely as possible, there will be a guaranteed minimum volume between them (through which a fluid might percolate).

(If you use square section fibres, they might align, in the worst case, so as to give effectively zero volume between them).

Today’s invention is to use fibres for your device which are regular octagons in cross section.

These provide a minimum flow volume -which is way better than those with square cross section and just a little bit better than purely cylindrical fibres.

Octagonal ones may well offer the best possible minimum porosity, but this hasn’t been proven yet.

In an application which is super sensitive to the pressure drop through the system, this small difference in flow space might be significant.

#2932: CargoCharger

I believe that a C5 transport jet can fly at about Mach 0.7 .

Today’s invention aims to increase the top speed of all such transport planes with a rear pallet loading system (and a strong enough air frame).

It might get in the way of airdrops, but imagine a pallet consisting of a liquid fuel jet engine. The rear door could be opened and the jet smoothly ignited to provide a burst of thrust to evade eg SAM missiles or to effect a sharper take off whenever necessary.

The jet pallet itself could be parachuted out and recovered if stowage forward needed to be dropped.

#2931: JiggLens

Many motorists say, after crashing into a motorbiker, “I just didn’t see you.”

This can happen in good visibility, when the bike rider is bedecked in dayglo colours and his headlight is on.

One problem seems to be that it’s easy to overlook a single oncoming headlight, or even a fixed bank of spotlights, because its hard to see things that aren’t moving relative to the observer.

Some instructors suggest wiggling your front forks a little if you feel you haven’t been seen. This is fine but a) this may not be safe to do and b) there is still guesswork around whether the motorcyclist’s headlight has been registered.

Today’s invention offers a cheap approach to increased riding safety.

A thin plastic lens is attached to the headlight, using a couple of small springs. The lens may need a small weight attached.

The springs/mass system is chosen so that a wide variety of road surfaces will cause the lens to oscillate chaotically across the headlight lens.

Without losing any of the light’s output, the jiggling of the beam will make a motorcyclist much more detectable.

#2930: HighStanding

Many statues of famous historical figures are now controversial, because those figures may have behaved badly by today’s standards.

Today’s invention gives people back some control of whose statues appear in their cities.

Imagine a statue on a plinth of variable height.

People can express approval or disapproval by eg typing in their email address at one of a number of terminals in a town square.

The statue plinth is mounted on a hydraulic cylinder whose height increases with the number of supportive entries made.

Similarly, if a statue’s popularity falls below a certain threshold, it will withdraw below street level and be replaced by the statue of somebody else on a list.

#2929: GroUndulation

Today’s invention is a mountain bike (or go-kart) circuit which incorporates sections of these reconfigurable mould surfaces as track components.

This would allow eg racing to occur using a different circuit for every race.

For racing inside a hangar, sections could be mounted on lockable wheels so as to allow lengths of the track to be quickly swapped in and out, thus providing a great deal more challenge for riders and interest for spectators.

#2926: GlideRide

Scott Mansell recently sent out an email describing the 1980 Williams Racing F1 team’s attempt to improve their ground effect car, by removing all the suspension.

This, he says, resulted in

    –Perfect aero platform stability
    –Minimal weight transfer
    –Lower possible ride height
    –Maximum ground effect efficiency

Alan Jones, the driver, found that the car was faster without any springs, but it was shaking him to pieces and couldn’t be used.

Today’s invention repeats this experiment but isolates the driver from vibrations, by fitting a heavily sprung and damped driver compartment.

This would contain the seat, steering and pedals, but the connections between the compartment and the rattling chassis could all be, these days, electronic.

Sensors would detect the steering column and pedal positions but without mechanical contact between these and the ground. Drivers would hate the lack of feedback -until they started to win races.

#2924: Inkerface

I like electronic reading devices (although the Kindle is an interface disaster).

Today’s invention is a small upgrade which consists of an extra e-ink screen on the outside cover.

This could be used to display useful information such as:
-do not disturb
-a brief CV
-the title of the book being read…please discuss with me
-the title of a different book you want to be seen reading
-an email address on which to contact you later
-illustrations from the story, or a suitable cover picture (chosen by the reader?)
-a flashing request to train or flight staff to bring a gin and tonic
-a flashing request to train or flight staff that you feel under threat

If you were feeling altruistic, the page you were reading, so that somebody sitting opposite could also read it.

#2921: BlimPointer

Imagine a hot air balloon with a basket suspended from it using a low friction bearing.

Inside the balloon a number of radio controlled vehicles are driving at speed in horizontal circles on the inside surface.

The vehicles all go in the same direction and cause the balloon to rotate about its vertical axis, whilst leaving the basket not turning.

If there is wind blowing across the spinning balloon, the Magnus effect will generate a lift force roughly at right angles to the wind. This would allow the balloon to be steered, just as sailing boats are, rather than just bobbling about at the mercy of the elements.

(My calculations show that, for a wind speed of 2ms^-1, balloon rotation rate of 1 turn per 2 sec (perhaps too fast) and a balloon radius of 5m, the total lift force generated would be about 1.2 kN per unit height of the balloon. For a 10m tall balloon, this gives 12kN, which would be reasonably significant compared to the (approximately calculated using Cd=0.9) drag force of approximately 200N at the same speed.

#2919: PenguRing

When a group of people is walking in a very strong wind they can get seriously chilled. They might be polar explorers, Royal Marines on a yomp or plane crash survivors in the Andes.

Penguins it seems, know all about this problem. They will stand against the Antarctic blast for long periods, but exchanging positions between those who are upwind and those who are in the centre of the crowd. It’s a kind of peloton with the aim of reducing heat loss rather than drag.

Today’s invention is a belt which a group of people can surround themselves with and which is intended to avoid hypothermia. The belt can be tightened to force them to stand closer than normal social rules allow, so that heat is retained within the crowd, but walking as a group is supported.

The ‘buckle’ area has a fixed, small radius corresponding to the width of a human torso. This area contains a temperature sensor. As people pass the belt in a clockwise direction, the sensor will beep when it reaches the point of minimum temperature. This will place the buckle at the point where the wind speed relative to the people is greatest (and the people coldest).

As the group walks in its chosen direction, arrows light up on its surface showing the people adjacent the direction and speed of circulation they should adopt.

This results in a convection current in which cold (blue) people on the windward side, move along and back up through the crowd, where they become pinker (warmer).