Category: Possible inventions

Who can be bothered to refill the screenwash in the car? I can’t ever remember to do so until I press the pump switch and no water emerges on my windscreen.

Today’s invention is a water scoop, fitted beneath a vehicle, which gathers water from puddles a vehicle drives through.

The scoop would be located behind one of the tyres, so that some splash from every puddle would be caught in it and fed to a tank.

This water is then filtered before use so that drivers in rainy countries never need to replace their screenwash.

A genuinely better mousetrap is hard to come up with.

Today’s invention is intended not for domestic use, but for when plagues of rodents descend on stockpiled food resources.

A very large number of rats or mice would be channeled onto a rotating belt. The belt surface would move backwards but still allow rats to make net progress along it.

As this belt moved, it would spin up a generator whose output was wired to metal plates embedded within the belt itself.

This would allow the kinetic energy of a flood of vermin to electrocute a proportion of the running rats, causing their bodies to be discarded (mostly) into a pile at the upstream end.

Inspired by Cloudbase in the Captain Scarlet TV series, today’s invention is an aircraft carrier for drones.

These are carried within the fuselage whilst the carrier’s crew sit in a cockit embedded within the main wing section.

At altitude, the nose and tail open, providing drones with instant takeoff airspeed.

Returning drones can land at this airspeed, using autopilot, via the rear door.

Have you noticed how few people can apply fake tan so that they don’t end up looking like a pumpkin?

Today’s invention is a tool to help people apply such facepaint more effectively.

It consists of a computer driven printer whose print head can move in 3 dimensions just like a 3d printer.

People would have their faces scanned so that when placing their head against a chin rest, their face shape could then be followed accurately by the print head.

This would scan back and forth, changing the colour of the spray-on cosmetic very subtly, so as to capture the local lightness and hue variations in a real suntan.

This would result in a very rapid and realistic simulated suntan, whose intensity could be requested by the subject in advance (eg ‘4 days on the beach in the Algarve’).

Such a system could also be used to apply foundation and blusher as well as children’s face painting patterns.

Call me paranoid if you like, but when I get a receipt or other docket which contains information about what I bought, when, where and also some details of my credit card, I like to tear it up before throwing it in a bin (or bins).

I know that DARPA can now reassemble thoroughly shredded documents automatically, but my tearing by hand must surely make it significantly harder for a thief to reassemble and misuse my personal data.

Today’s invention is therefore a printer for receipts which provides all the same information as usual, but which prints this in locations which change from occasion to occasion.

The printer also understands that it’s a good idea to tear across each word of significance at some point along its length.

This allows it to overprint a series of suggested tearlines for a receipt, which optimise the meaninglessness of data on any given fragment.

This could be combined with foldlines which would be employed before the tearing began in order to make reassembly of the pieces even more difficult.

Today’s invention is an addition to the very useful SeatGuru website.

Opinions differ as to where exactly the best seats are for minimal motion sickness. I tend to favour over the wings, but there is no real basis for my preference.

My suggestion is therefore to place accelerometers (an iPhone might suffice) in a variety of seats within each of a number of each type of airliner.

Over time, these would provide information about the accelerations felt locally and allow an online map overlay of where the motion sickness is likely to be least.

(Alternatively, cabin crew could gather data about the locations from which most sick bags get collected, but I suspect the other approach would be more accurate).

If you are transporting valuables, leaving your vehicle unattended can cause a degree of nervousness.

Today’s invention may help. It consists of a safe carried within one’s vehicle. Just as you are about to stop, the strongbox slides automatically through the floor, via a set of vertical guiderails, onto the road below.

A slight forward-facing slope on the box lid acts as a ramp, so that the vehicle (assumed rear-wheel drive) rides up onto the lid a little and locks in position.

This seals the box, makes it very hard to reach and also reduces the chance that the vehicle can be driven away.

On returning to your vehicle, the process reverses and the safe is withdrawn into the car body.

Today’s invention is a new form of element for kettles which improves heat transfer to the water and lessens the build-up of scale in hard water regions.

This takes the form of a flexible heating element which is moored at one end only.

As the water heats, so boiling occurs on the element’s moving surface, generating intensified turbulence which, in turn, promotes heat transfer.

The element will thus flap up and down, due to the convective boiling regime, cracking and shedding any scale build-up.

Today’s invention is to create a military rifle which can have a number of standard magazines inserted into a rotating housing -much like an old fashioned revolver.

Since the infantryman has to carry these anyway, he or she might as well have them located within their weapon.

As each magazine arrives at the six o’clock position, it is snapped into place and rounds can be fired from it until it’s empty.

The housing moves around until all magazines are spent and the housing is discarded -to be replaced by another one full of full magazines.

This overcomes some of the problems inherent in drum magazines -such as controlling the feed of a large number of bullets without too much inertia or jamming.

It also removes the need, when using one magazine at a time, to fumble around trying to find and clip in the next set of bullets.