Invention Of The Day – Page 179 – Just another break-step productions sites site

#1099: DampStamp

Today’s invention is a way to make use of the dribbles from a cup or glass.

Each drinking vessel at a party would have a press-on disc attached to its base. This would have machined into its underside a series of channels in the shape of a logo, a celebratory message or an advert.

The disc would fit neatly (in only one rotational position) within a coaster which forms part of the kit. When any dribbles flow onto the base of the glass, they fill the engraved advert (by surface tension) and magically leave a message on the coaster (or any other surface the glass is set upon).

#1098: Painbox

Today’s invention is an email inbox which indicates when the number of unanswered messages is approaching some user-prespecified figure.

Once the number of messages exceeds this allowed total, then a number of messages corresponding to this overspill is removed from the earliest messages in the box.

These messages may only be retrieved, once you have freed up space in the inbox, by paying to access them from an online repository.

#1097: MultiDrone

UAVs are getting smarter individually but there are still opportunities for cleverness in the ways they interact.

Today’s invention is a way to build larger autonomous aircraft by having conventional ones join up in flight. Each vehicle would have eg electromagnetic patches on the wingtips, enabling autonomous docking without ultraprecise manoeuvring.

As with migrating geese, this would help with fuel efficiency when flying long distances. In the event that such a swarm of vehicles were attacked, any damaged ones could be disengaged very rapidly and a new configuration automatically adopted.

This robustness could be further enhanced by having these machines duplicate each other’s gathered data, exchange fuel in flight and adapt their grouping shape and sizes to minimise detectability.

#1096: AimFrame

We hear a lot these days about cars which can automatically apply the brakes and swerve to avoid collisions.

Today’s invention is a variant on that theme. The vehicle would be designed with special structural impact points built in around its bodywork. These would be capable of absorbing an enormous amount of energy, but be sparsely enough distributed so as to avoid a large weight increase.

When the usual onboard system sensed an unavoidable collision, the steering would be taken over, at the last few milliseconds, so as to actively drive the vehicle to impact on one of these strongpoints.

#1095: Solaroid

Just when you thought that Polaroids were finished with…
today’s invention is a low-cost sunburn avoidance tool.

A Polaroid sheet is tightly clamped within a container using a grid of bars which separate the sheet into separate windows. Each window has a light-impermeable hatch.

When sitting on the beach, one window containing a reference colour would be opened. The adjacent window would then be opened, exposing a calibrated square of film to the sun’s rays.

When the film square and the calibrated colour become visually indistinguishable, it’s time to head inside.

#1094: Fanfar

Today’s invention is a new way to cool one’s computer, without just bolting on a series of ever noisier fans.

The normal fan outlet in a laptop or desktop machine would be connected to a flexible hose with internal diameter of the order of 1cm and, say, 10m in length.

The other end of this hose would connected to a large, remotely-located fan (which might also be joined to many other computers in a room, for example).

This fan would be powerful enough to enhance the cooling airflow across the internals of many machines, and to overcome the pipe friction in their hoses, but also be locatable sufficiently far away (in a cupboard) that there would be an insignificant extra noise contribution from it to the users of the computers.

The air passing through this hose might even be cooled by a refrigeration unit near the fan and passed back, via a further length of hose, to each of the original computers. Computers might be sold with a powerful remote fan, and only a small internal one in order to minimise their weight.

#1093: Stapletop

Much as I love the idea of the paperless office, I know better than to think it’s happening anytime soon.

Today’s invention is a laptop the (strongly built) hinge action of which can be used to

enable a stapler to clip together papers placed between lid and base

allow paper placed there to be embossed (with eg a company seal)

cause paper to be cut by corresponding sharp metal edges built into one side of the screen and one side of the base.

#1092: Waftair

I’ve spent an hour fruitlessly searching various patent databases for this one. It’s quite long enough to justify me posting this…

Think of the common door closure spring mechanism. It’s great. Now imagine it fitted with a small motor so that the door can be made to oscillate backwards and forwards.

Today’s invention is just such a device which can be use to help improve ventilation and maintain thermal equilibrium in a house or office building by wafting air backwards and forwards between rooms.

The doors would have to be driven quite slowly, through a limited arc, and have a switch to disable the motor if any resistance was sensed.

Such a system might be equipped with electronic thermometers so that it started up automatically when the ambient temperature difference between rooms exceeded some preset threshold.

#1091: Pimplepaper

People who have to work with great sheafs of paper know that sorting and shuffling this material can be hard and frustrating work. Two sheets of paper, when pressed together, resist separation because viscous air finds it difficult to flow into the widening gap between them.

Today’s invention is therefore a printer which is capable of embossing a handful of pinhead sized marks into each sheet, forming an almost invisible sparsely-dotted line from one side to the other. The line for each sheet would lie at some random angle to the edge.

These dots serve to hold each sheet very slightly away from its neighbour and make the task of separating or shuffling adjacent ones very much easier (because the air gap thickness starts from a value greater than zero).

#1090: Chewpakka

Some of the hard plastic boxes which house products on sale are great for protecting the contents in transit and making them visible on the shelves.

The trouble is that you need a hammer and chisel to get them open, which can sometimes result in damaging the delicate product within. So people inevitably use their teeth…generally a bad choice and ironic if the the product is a toothbrush.

Today’s invention is a device a little like a staple remover. This is effectively a pair of substitute metal teeth and cheap enough to be supplied as part of the plastic packaging.

A user repeatedly bites down on the integral pads (using muscle-powered molars rather than canines), piercing the packaging and driving the ‘teeth’ gradually around the outer seam of the pack.