Most electric car charging stations are still being developed, after launch.
What, for example stops a passing hooligan, or even another motorist, from disconnecting your car, during charging?
Today’s invention is a lightweight, lockable frame (red) which you can use to keep the charging gun in position, whilst you spend an inevitable hour our two in a service station, waiting for a re-charge.
You lock the gun to the loop, as shown, after driving the car onto the frame’s feet.
Everyone knows that Formula 1 is now a more boring sport than it should be.
This is mostly because aerodynamics and narrow tracks make it really hard for cars to pass each other.
Today’s invention is a simple fix. Cars would be equipped with sensors to determine when another car was in a position to pass.
Once that has been established, the car in front would automatically be throttled back by say 2% to let the following car overtake.
In this way, the driver’s task becomes to stop his opponent getting into a precise overtake position…just as great a test of skill but with more passing and better looking racing.
Military planes often have ejections seats, powered by pyrotechnics.
Sitting on a small bomb is generally not the safest way to fly and so today’s invention is a way to eject a pilot with lower g force.
The plane has an especially strong canopy and a hatch beneath where the pilot sits (The canopy is fixed, so entry is via this hatch). When it’s time to leave, the hatch is blown off and he or she is pushed out of the fuselage downwards by the cockpit air pressure.
If the engines are still functioning, at the same time as the hatch blows, the plane would automatically go into a very steep climb, so that the pilot would also be subject to ‘Coriolis force’, accelerating him through the base of the plane so that his parachute may deploy.
This would mean locating a nosewheel further forward than normal or just having a tailwheel.
Kent in England is about to become an enormous lorry park.
Today’s invention is to help it avoid becoming the world’s biggest outside toilet.
It consists of a fleet of motorcycles each of which carry a portable toilet, together with a pull-up shower screen.
Lorry drivers could call for one of these to turn up beside their truck and pay to use the facility.
Once the bike’s tank was full, as it were, it would be taken to a disposal facility and emptied (possibly somewhere near Westminster).
I feel a bit sorry for people who climb K2 but never reach the highest point on the Earth’s surface.
Today’s invention allows them to climb higher than Everest.
It takes the form of a giant weather balloon, carried deflated. Since the atmosphere is so thin at 8000m+, only a small amount of gas from the oxygen bottles already carried would allow such a balloon to go aloft (on a reasonably good weather day).
Climbers would pay out 250m of rope as the balloon rose. This would have many loops attached of the type that mountaineers already use on rock climbs.
Using these, a climber could, under his/own steam, complete K2 with a final climb to a height greater than that of Everest.
It seems that wind tunnels have been labelled bad, because they are much more costly to run than simulation software. So today’s invention is an alternative to them, but which retains their potential for precision.
Most tunnels rely on dynamical scaling: essentially using model cars and planes scaled down so that their aerodynamic behaviour stays the same (ie the same Reynold’s number -the ratio between inertial and viscous forces), as the full scale flow (Re = density, flow speed, size/ dynamic viscosity).
It’s common to model airflows by using water. Both the viscosity and density are increased. Given that the water flow speed is lower than say that of a car on a motorway, to keep Re the same, requires the use of a larger than life model.
This would be impossible in a wind tunnel, where size raises the costs enormously.
There are, however, many places where there are tide races…predictable, high speed tidal flows within channels.
If we put our big, low-drag car design in a tideway we could do a bunch of tests at very low cost.
Today’s invention is an outline for a new form of ultra survivable tank.
It consists of a cylindrical module for each crew member (green), as well as one for the main gun.
These modules (except for the sealed weapons modules) each contain the controls for all the main functions of the tank and are individually armoured (small spheres are much harder to crack open). They can rotate and vary their height using hydraulic rams (red). This allows the vehicle to go into low-profile or conning tower mode.
As well as enabling a tank to continue operating if one or more modules are damaged, each of them will have an ejection device(turquoise) with parachute, so that crew members can exit and disperse if their systems are broken or they themselves are injured.
When a battleship fires its guns, the momentum exchange is enormous.
Today’s invention makes use of that fact to help a ship perform emergency manoeuvres.
When a ship needs to stop urgently, it will attempt to run the propulsion units backwards. In addition to this, imagine it firing all of its guns forward simultaneously or in a very highly controlled sequence (this could be achieved electronically).
Such an action would greatly slow even a battleship.
With modern weapons such as railguns, it might be possible to fire them all in a coordinated way, in order to make sharper turns than would normally be achieved using just rudders.
Young women learning Scottish Country Dancing tend to get gripped hard by the upper arm when inexperienced male partners are too rough.
Today’s invention is a set of reinforced pads for the upper arms which allow their partners to hold onto them during the inevitable spinning process, but without causing the usual bruising.
This week, I watched a documentary about some adventure motorbike riders. They were confronted by trees blown down across their path…but had no chainsaws with which to fix the obstructions.
Today’s invention is a set of sharp teeth which can be fitted through a motorcycle chain. Each tooth is retained using a circular spring clip, that stays out of the way of sprockets.
If you get stopped by a large branch, first place the bike on its centre stand.
Fit say thirty teeth to the chain. Push the chain into contact with the wood, engage first gear and open the throttle.
