Category: Possible inventions

Formula one motor racing has the quality of the peacock’s tail about it…mostly for show and without a great deal of realworld functionality. Nevertheless, it’s such an exuberant display of engineering that I’ve got to love it.

Even something as mundane as changing tyres is transformed by F1 into a mini opera. The instant the car stops, it’s manually jacked up by only a few inches off the pitlane floor. Tyres changed, the jack is released and the car hits the deck. Millisecond mistakes here cost championship points (and horrifying amounts of cash).

Today’s invention is therefore a spring-loaded jack which doesn’t just drop the car but which fires it downwards at an acceleration greater than 9.81ms^-2. Doubling the downwards acceleration saves about 40 ms (ie about 3m when travelling at top speed…easily the difference between first and second place in a tight race).

If the rules allow it, this descent might be coordinated with the engine so that the wheels hit the deck (harder) whilst spinning at exactly the right rotation rate to give maximal acceleration from the pit lane.

Voicemail is just a way for people who can’t write coherently to get all the benefits of email, whilst not burdening themselves with the need to leave a written record of their message.

Domestic answering machines are similarly irritating, made even worse by the fact that numerous people in a household use the same phone. Messages can pile up there sequentially for all family members (especially if some individuals don’t like using the phone at all -ahem).

Today’s invention is a domestic simulated switchboard/answering machine which allows callers to ‘press 1 to leave a message for Bill’ etc. When Bill has a message, his coloured button on the phone will flash (Mary’s messages will be indicated by a different coloured button).

Bill can then retrieve his messages by pressing his button (perhaps also entering a personal code), without having to live through Mary’s various incoming communications.

It makes even mobiles seem like a good idea.

When a rugby footballer sees himself (or herself) convert a try, the size of the goal subsequently seems wider.

Since this is the only dimension which changes perceptually, the task of scoring in this way is believed to get easier in future.

Today’s invention is a training aid based on this finding. The player wears a pair of goggles which can be electronically blacked-out very rapidly. A set of optical sensors detects the passage of the ball as it is first kicked.

A quick calculation by a computer to which they are connected can accurately predict whether or not a goal will be scored (taking into account cross-wind velocity, as necessary).

If the shot is off-target, the glasses are darkened so that the kicker’s task is never made more difficult by observing his failure.

When a sparkplug does its thing in an engine cylinder, it creates a small cloud of ions in a gaseous mixture of fuel and air. This conducts electricity -a mini lightning bolt which then ignites the fuel and drives the piston.

There are lots of patents which are concerned with how the cloud of ions may be better dispersed using eg ultrasound or magnetic elements of the sparkplug.

Todays invention instead attempts this using a strong magnet embedded in the piston crown. As the piston moves through the top dead centre position, this drags the ions created into a column between the plug gap and piston crown -extending the initial spark front and providing a fuel burn which is better spread in an axial direction within the cylinder.

Using an electromagnet with electronically controlled flux density as a function of crank position may further enhance this effect and decrease ‘knocking.’

James Dyson -is he really a billionaire, as reported in the press? Cool, we desperately need more people who have made serious money from inventions. Some of his have been rubbish, but that’s the point: he will have a better one tomorrow, since he keeps on going.

His latest idea is the air multiplier. As a fan, probably not that great an invention, but as a design object product…sheer genius.

I haven’t done all the fluid dynamics calculations, but today’s invention scales this approach up and applies it to an area for which James won’t hold the patent: helicopters.

Imagine a ring of multipliers arrayed around the fuselage of a helicopter -pointing downwards. Each would be fed from the exhaust of its own jet engine. This would make such a vehicle very much less damage-prone than rotors and even allow conventional ejection seats to operate safely.
(NB this is very different from the VTOL vectoring which eg a Harrier jumpjet performs, due to the entrainment or ‘multiplier’ effect).

Flying long-haul is a test of patience, especially in cattle class.

Today’s invention is a way to make use of existing in-seat technology to help relieve an extra few minutes of boredom in between restless twitching, movies and sporadic naps.

Each seat back display could show the basic booking details of the seatholder, as selected via the same interface used to choose between ‘AirCrash III’ and ‘Alien Apocalypse’.

This information could be optionally augmented, in a form of aerial graffiti, with extra details about their reason for flying, what they thought of the chicken and their ultimate destination.

Overtime, a history of seat occupancy would build up -adding interest and value to each position. People would perhaps pay a premium to sit in the 51b steerage seat used by George Clooney when he was 21, for example (he hated the chicken).

Everyone knows that green screens are used by filmmakers who want later to insert a more interesting backdrop to a scene.

Today’s invention adopts the idea by colouring, in a nice uniform matt green, all items of filmaker’s hardware on a set which might inadvertently extend into a shot.

Any instances of this unnatural shade appearing in recently taken images could automatically alert the crew in realtime, by beeping.

This would allow amateur directors to avoid having to reshoot multiple scenes because for example, someone allowed a microphone boom to be captured as a reflection from some shiny surface..

Today’s invention is a way to create a personal message inside a bottle of fizzy drink (or ‘soda’).

A labelmaker device is used to print a short message, such as a name, as a negative image on a transparent tape. This is then attached to the outside of any plastic bottle filled with gassy drink.

A small heat lamp (perhaps built into the labelling device) is briefly shone on the tape template, This activates nucleation sites on the inside of the bottle wall, so that whenever the cap is removed, the message is spelt out in bubbles on the surface.

Blisters are one way in which the body reacts to damaging friction.

Rather than wait to develop an unpleasant, painful blister, today’s invention is a stick-on synthetic blister, designed to provide the same level of skin protection but without the searing pain and infection risk.

This would consist of a thin, durable, flexible envelope containing a bio-compatible lubricant.

One side of this blister would have an adhesive patch which would allow it to be applied before wearing new boots on a long walk, for example.

Everyone who has to wear a bulletproof vest complains about the bulk and weight -people have been killed because they chose to remove uncomfortable kit.

Today’s invention is a vest which concentrates the most protective elements (eg ceramic shields and kevlar patches) primarily in front of the body’s most vital organs.

This anatomical emphasis increases flexibility, reduces weight and has the effect of achieving a more workable compromise between survivability and wearability.