Category: Whimsical inventions

Today’s invention is a way to ensure that even the heaviest sleeper will be unable to ignore getting up time.

A bed frame is hinged as shown, so that the default, horizontal orientation is rudely interrupted at alarm time, rolling the occupant onto the floor.

The unhinged side of the frame would be supported by a glorified hot water bottle containing two chambers, connected by a clockwork-controlled valve.

One chamber would be located in the space within the frame, so that the bottle could simply be rotated the following evening and the clockwork reset.

How about a toy which encourages kids to eat a healthy variety of different things by rewarding them with a little fun?

Today’s invention is a trainset laid out on the dining table in a loop, as shown. Each of the dishes on the train corresponds to a diner and contains one component of a balanced meal. Each young diner wears a simple throatmike which registers when they are eating (and is tuned to ignore when they are talking).

Once everyone has munched, for between five and twenty seconds (as defined by a supervisory parent), the train moves to the next person and stops.

Hungry youngsters can encourage their less keen siblings to eat-up and thus provide themselves with a properly-paced, varied meal. (This idea first appeared here).

Traveling in a tall building’s lift the other day I scrutinised the control buttons and was surprised to find that the most worn ones were those for some of the uppermost floors.

If most people are going there, surely it makes energetic sense for the people seeing the most traffic to be located on the lowermost floors?

Today’s invention is a lift control pad which has only the names of companies or departments on it (ie no floor numbers). People press for their destination department and the pad counts the number of journeys to each.

It then reallocates floorspace in the building on a yearly basis -according to the frequency with which departments/companies have been visited. The most visited get positions nearer ground level (and a rental charge which better reflects their use of the building’s resources).

This requires an annual reordering of the building’s occupants but probably by no more than one floor -until a state of equilibrium is reached. Initial movements might serve as a useful organisational shakeup, as well as a cost readjustment mechanism).

See this article for some fascinating insights into liftshaft lore.

I have an abiding respect for those who work in bomb disposal.

There are many different designs of protective suit available to these people, although I have serious doubts about how effective they would be in the event that an explosive device initiates whilst they are working on it.

The suits, which are intended to protect against fragments, heat and pressure injuries, certainly don’t lend themselves to any kind of quick getaway. Today’s invention is therefore something like an automatic ejector seat, designed to fling the bomb disposer out of harm’s way.

A disposal suit would be fitted with an extra shield in the form of a sprung rocket nozzle protruding forward from the armored breastplate. in the nozzle, an explosive charge would be located -on the far side of the shield from the disposer. The disposer would lean forwards, locating this charge close to the bomb as he works on it just within arm’s reach.

In the event that the bomb detonates, the charge attached to the suit would explode as the detonation wave from the main bomb passes through it. The shield/nozzle would focus the blast and would act like reactive armour -throwing the wearer away from the bomb, before the main blast effects could reach him.

Today’s invention is a way to create woven baskets etc using living plant material (eg Ficus). See this example by way of background.

A base for the basket would be constructed and some vertical strands inserted to form the warp in the usual way (these verticals might also consist of growing plant fibres).

The base would be rotated, ultra-slowly, about its central axis, whilst a small light is shone on the growing end of the weft plant (which would otherwise be shielded from ambient illumination). Its natural tendency would be to grow towards the light supplied.

This light would be very slowly oscillated so as to direct the growing tip in and out between the strands of the warp fibres; eventually forming a woven basket without human intervention.

As a person keen on the variety which weather brings to life, I’m dismayed by the incessant uniformity of the online ‘environment’.

Today’s invention is a way to represent the weather, which an online author is currently experiencing, on his/her website. If the local weather report says it’s snowing near where I live, then browsers everywhere would apply a snow effect to my sites (one of a small repertoire of weather-effect plug-ins). This idea could be extended to affect the author’s desktop too.

With any luck, this would have the effect of uniting sites from regions which, although in different countries, were experiencing similar climatic conditions. It’s a very small planet, after all.

I read today that airlines in Canada can’t charge obese people for two seats even if they don’t fit into a single, standard size one.

(Aren’t there rules about having to wear seatbelts? I don’t really believe that these offer much added safety in a crash, but they might stop the wearer banging their head on a locker in turbulence -so what happens if you don’t fit a normal belt? What happens if you have trouble squeezing down an aisle?)

Today’s invention is to fit bench seats in a section of an airliner equipped with a sliding set of armrests which would allow people to accommodate their different girths. Inertia reel belts would extend to fit pretty much anyone (Having worked on airline projects, I realise this is unlikely, since they wouldn’t fork out £5 for even smokehoods -which are proven lifesavers).

People would be asked when buying a ticket if they would fit in a standard seat and if not, they could be allocated space on a flexi bench at no extra cost. They would thus occupy less than 2.0 seats each at the cost of 1.0 seat. Thinner than average people could be encouraged (eg via special meals or movies) to sit in this area and each occupy less than 1.0 seats at the cost of 1.0 seats.

Bored by the sheer complexity of jet engine design, yet enthused by Whittle’s inventiveness and determination, I’m always interested in alternatives.

Here is a much simpler (albeit less efficient) engine in which the rotating elements (blue) are all made in a single, casting (which is therefore inherently robust -the compressor and turbine blades are retained by strong outer rings which rotate in bearings built into eg the body of a wing section).

The simplicity of this inside-out, shaftless design would allow many such engines, each fed centrally with fuel as shown, to power a given aircraft or whatever.

Confronted by leering, smug facial images on various websites I visit frequently, it occurred to me that if I can’t hack their servers and replace the offending pics, I’d really like an opportunity to control their appearance somewhat.

Today’s invention is a program which allows my browser to record the details of glasses or a silly hairdo which I have chosen to draw with a mouse on my screen -and then always adorns that particular image, when passed to my browser, with these whimsical features overlaid.

This would lessen my irritation with certain political individuals and the fact that I have no control over their rampant urge to self-publicise.