#1831: CopterDrop

An unplanned descent in a helicopter is obviously highly dangerous.

Today’s invention offers a way to lessen that danger when flying over water.

The fuselage of the machine contains flotation bags and is shaped in such a way as to minimise the initial impact with the water surface.

The accelerations are thus smoothed out over time, as the knifelike profile penetrates the water, resulting in much less severe injuries to occupants.

This profile could be made thin enough in cross-section that the day-to-day drag would not be greater than that for a normal airframe shape.

Once the machine has submerged and the buoyancy force exceeds the weight, it would return to the surface and remain there until rescued.

Fixed wing aircraft could emulate this approach too, so that when about to crash in the sea, a plane could rotate through 90 degrees (one wing at six and the other at 12 o’clock).

#1830: iPlate

Children and adults differ in terms of the amount and type of illumination they like to see applied to their meals.

Today’s invention is to supply meals for fussy eaters in a transparent, modular tray, fitted to and placed upon the surface of an iPad or other tablet.

This machine knows the location and type of food in each modular recess, and can illuminate each from beneath with light of the most appetising colour(s).

Once a section is sensed to have been emptied (ie by the decrease in screen pressure of a moulded bump on the underside)…a small animation could run within that section, saying ‘well done’.

#1829: Carcophony

Today’s invention is a toy car set which is equipped with a pair of wireless headphones.

As the cars are moved by a child, the wheel rotation rates result in an appropriate-speed engine noise being generated (which would also mimic the correct engine note for each make of car, as well as gear changing and tyre squealing ).

Cars which collided with each other at a given relative speed would create a realistic crash noise level.

Other noises would include the closing of the toy’s doors…

…and all of this without disturbing neighbouring adults with incessant brrrming noises.

#1828: FakeFace

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.

#1827: Windwardrier

I was always under the false impression that rotary washing lines were supposed to spin like windmills in the wind.

In fact, the rotation is provided only to allow loading and unloading the line without having to walk about too much whilst carrying a basket of wet washing.

Today’s invention is a version of this device which is free to rotate, when hanging or removing items. The turning part has a weather vane attached (yellow), which orientates it towards the wind, once the washing is aboard.

This vane gradually changes rotational position relative to the turning washing line, under the action of a clockwork motor (blue).

In this way, each face of the triangle lies on the windward side for approximately equal time intervals.

#1826: MealMap

Today’s invention is an application which makes airline meals a bit more interactive.

Before any food arrives, passengers (probably in business class only initially) could choose items using their seat-back touch screen, from a menu showing actual photographs of the meals.

If a particular dish had run out, the system would apologise and suggest alternatives.

Elements of the meal would, once touched, display data about calorie count, the chef who thought it up, its ethnic origin and statistics on how many people had chosen it.

On delivery, diners could then rate each item via the screen.

#1825: BridgeBrick

There are two different scales of Lego brick. The normal size and the much larger Duplo size (shown).

These are incompatible in terms of joining the two types together.

Today’s invention is therefore a Lego/Duplo interface brick.

The underside would be ‘female’ and allow accommodation of Duplo ‘male’ brick surfaces. The top surface would be male and accommodate the ‘female’ underside of the smaller Lego bricks.

In this way, a child growing out of Duplo could still use their old bricks with the finer scale Lego ones.

#1824: Anonymitorn

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.

#1823: Taciturnpike

Today’s invention is a way to determine and plan scenic travel routes.

By analysing Google StreetView imagery on possible journeys between A and B using software such as SceneReader it’s possible to find the candidate route with the lowest amount of readable street signage.

This could be assumed to correspond to a less-travelled and perhaps better preserved path -thus being more suitable for tourist drives.

#1822: Heatile

Today’s invention is a roof tile which has a water channel formed within it.

As tiles are placed overlapping each other, the outlet from one plugs into and seals to the inlet of the one below.

This allows water to be fed into the roof surface at the top and extracted from the bottom, after having absorbed large amounts of solar energy.