#1565: SpeedSleeve

Today’s invention is an attempt to overcome one of the bugbears of parenthood -getting a toddler to don a coat.

Youngsters have trouble getting their arms down the sleeves of a winter coat. Their limbs simply aren’t rigid enough, they can’t follow instructions and it takes maybe five minutes to squirm each arm down a sleeve. This process can even hurt a child’s hand if a parent is impatient.

Instead, I propose coats with sleeves which each have a zip running from armpit to cuff. To help a child get dressed, unzip the arm sleeve and pass their hand through the shoulder hole, grabbing it with your other hand through the unzipped arm.

Once the body of the coat is on, each sleeve can be zipped downwards around their arm with minimal distress and wasted time.

#1564: SafetySafe

Today’s invention is a domestic storage/display case for anything which one thinks of as valuable. This would be in the form of a wall safe with the ability to display the contents behind an armoured glass window -when the safe door is opened.

In the event of a fire alarm, or some other reason for a fast evacuation, this unit would seal its door and be expelled, by eg a strong spring, out of the house and through the wall -guided by a rail to which it is secured by a strong cable lock.

Activated by the fire alarm, this allows precious items to be rapidly moved to a place of safety, removing the temptation to save material things instead of getting the hell out.

#1563: SwitCharge

It seems that I have been following the wrong advice about laptop (or cellphone) battery preservation.

It’s better for them to be repeatedly slightly discharged and then recharged.

I tend to a) drain the battery completely before doing a recharge and b) run my laptop plugged in, whenever a power socket is available.

Today’s invention is therefore a timer which can be attached to a laptop (or phone) power cord which can be plugged into a machine all the time it’s available but which only passes current after a 10% discharge has occurred.

#1562: Periodicubes

Today’s invention is more of a straightforward design. Since I couldn’t find any examples of this online, I thought it would be worth including.

It consists of a shelving unit with boxes arranged to mirror the layout of the Periodic Table. This might be most easily achieved as an IKEA hack.

Label each of the boxes appropriately and you can tell your kids ‘Your lunchbox is in Californium’.

Other suggestions include:
–fill with copies of journals in a periodicals library.
–lie it flat, cover with glass and you have a Periodic (Coffee) Table.

#1561: Repeater

When a target pistol of the semi-automatic type is in use, the centre of mass migrates upwards as rounds are fired.

This causes a noticeable change in the recoil rotation which, in a high pressure competition, can mean losing significant points.

Today’s invention is a pistol of this type in which the magazine is driven out of the grip progressively, by a simple cam driven by the slide, as each bullet is fired.

The design maintains a fixed centre of mass, making behaviour of the gun more repeatable (especially in a rapid fire event).

#1560: PINPrinter

I noticed that if people use a networked printer, they have to run to the device in question in order to stop others reading their top-secret material (or notices of their forthcoming village fete).

Today’s invention is therefore a security-enhanced network printer.

This can be set in secure mode remotely by a user. Printed pages they then generate are directed into a locked tray. Each machine would have several such trays, each with an electronic keypad to allow access to the hardcopy in question.

The machine itself would generate a new lock PIN every time secure mode was entered and transmit this by email to the author so that he/she could approach the machine in due course, at walking pace.

The paper could then be extracted without being seen by anyone else (and without obstructing anyone else’s printing work).

#1559: Intermissioff

Today’s invention is a way to stop me eating distractedly whilst surfing the web (apparently the TV dinner has been largely replaced by IP grazing).

A pressure-sensitive graphics tablet (or digital scale) is usb-connected to one’s laptop. Every time a forkful is lifted off a plate of food placed on the tablet (as inferred from a decrease in weight), whatever is on-screen automatically greys-out and, if a movie, is paused.

When the weight of the bare fork is added to the plate again, the screen is once more made live.

This would enable food to be eaten less mindlessly and during natural breaks in on-screen attention.

#1558: SnowSink

Today’s invention is a modification to the engine of a snowmobile.

Given that the efficiency of any engine is increased by lowering the temperature of its exhaust, a vehicle which travels almost exclusively on snow has the great advantage of access to an effectively infinite heat sink.

The exhaust pipe from a petrol or diesel snowmobile would be redesigned to incorporate a springloaded metal plate protruding downwards from the engine.

This would be free to pivot to accommodate the undulations of the snow surface with which it would be pressed into contact. Its temperature would thus be several degrees below that of the ambient air.

A few extra % in fuel efficiency would be attainable which, in the frozen northlands, could represent a significant saving on operating costs.

#1557: FiShine

Keeping any animal in captivity is potentially a cruel thing to do. I’m therefore very keen to maximise the health of domesticated creatures.

Many fish have very advanced colour vision, so today’s invention is aimed at preserving what might be thought of as their mental health, by giving them some control over their environment.

It involves fitting their tank with a number of coloured lights. Each is wired to illuminate locally as a fish approaches. Fish will tend to congregate at positions which are lit in their preferred shade(s).

Each light in the tank could be placed opposite a simple photocell. The signal from each of these would depend on the number of fish occluding the lamp.

This could be used automatically to infer the distribution of fish and then to control which colours should be ‘on’ most frequently. This would enable the tank’s occupants to customise their own visual environment.

(It would interesting eg to see what spatial distributions developed within different subspecies and whether colour preference varied with the time of day).

#1556: Indicaturn

It can sometimes happen that, due to driver distraction or inexperience, a car indicates that it is about to move left and then turns right.

This is obviously a dangerous situation.

Today’s invention is therefore an electrical link between angle of the steering wheel and the indicators.

If there were a mismatch between the indicated and actual directions, an alarm would sound so that the driver could become aware of the impending problem and correct it.

An obvious extension to this system would be to have an alarm sound when turning without first indicating.