Today’s invention is a new form of motorcycle chain. Each link has the ability to lock to its neighbour(s) rigidly, on receipt of a computer-controlled signal (using something like a small solenoid).
As the chain is driven in the usual way, at a) it becomes flexible as normal and at b) it becomes a rigid beam. The situation reverses at c).
Clever timing of the signals allows this smart chain to act as lever arm and springs, thus reducing the weight of the machine by a significant factor.
Footballers and other sports players wreck their knee joints by twisting. Many designs of boots attempt to lessen the stresses which cause this.
Today’s invention is one such consisting of a cylindrical ‘cookie cutter’ blade moulded into the base of a boot. This would be edgy enough to provide good grip on the surface but not so sharp as to allow injury to people coming in contact with it.
The foot could be well planted on the turf and then the player could spin around the centre of the cutter, without causing any internal damage.
The whole process of booking seats on public transport is a potential nightmare. People sit on your seat and then you have to fight with them so you can sit down, or you may find that you have accidentally parked in a location reserved for someone’s aged relative. In either case, embarrassment ensues.
Today’s invention makes booking a seat a well-defined event. Instead of attaching an inconspicuous piece of paper to the back, train staff flip the base around a fore-aft axis marked X. This locks the seat with a number of random-height hoops sticking up. Impossible to sit on or even put a case on. No danger though of causing anyone injury.
When the seat owner appears, they unlock it using their credit card (or via a keypad), flip the base and sit in upholstered luxury.
A smarter system might have remotely powered seat rotation setup in direct response to the booking computer’s signals.
I’ve been fascinated by self-erecting cranes for some time. These work by having a cage which can move up or down the column of previously built units (blue). When it stops, the bottom part of the cage engages with a unit and pushes upwards off its roof, lifting all those units above one unit higher.
If you want to build a tower by this method, the fastest approach is a)
keep the cage at the bottom and keep injecting units without waiting for them to be lifted any higher. If, however, you want to minimise the stresses on the cage, then b) is a better option ie insert units at the top.
If you wanted to build a towerblock in which each unit was a floor of the building, b) would be used. A novel, ‘instant’ fire escape would need to operate in a) mode.
Today’s invention is a simple algorithm for building such towers.
Knowing the maximum safe load for the cage, inject from the bottom for maximum speed of construction until this load is reached.
Then, move the cage up one unit and inject at this new level. Repeat this last step until building is complete.
Films, whilst entertaining to watch, are often nearly as much fun to discuss afterwards. Indeed, I’m convinced that the films you like (or more precisely, the most memorable scenes) are strong indicators of the person you are.
Today’s invention is an online dating agency whose matching algorithm is based on the scenes which people say most move them.
A person could create their profile consisting of the usual personal data but then add formatted information about the 20 film scenes that most affect them (eg “LeMans, 23 mins, nostalgia, reminds me of boyhood in the 60s”). The scene information could be selected from an on-screen database or added and edited by hand -or from here.
The emotions stated could be ones of irritation or disgust or joy, just so long as the named scenes evoke strong feelings in the person concerned. These views would be used to optimise matches from within the database of potential ‘dates’.
Today’s invention is a low-cost radio controlled toy.
Two aerosol cans filled with compressed air have their necks clipped into a control box with steering levers which can be made to press the button on either can (or both).
The resulting jet(s) is directed onto the ground so as to drive the whole vehicle forwards, turning according to the strength of the left or right airflow. The cans can have a couple of loosely fitting cardboard rings attached, so as to make this turning easier.
Who says that wallpaper has to be as wide as it is? We have decorative (horizontal) wallpaper borders, so why not wallpaper itself?
Today’s invention is strips of (vertical) wallpaper which are much narrower than normal (eg perhaps 12 cm wide).
Although requiring more trips up the ladder, these would have the enormous advantage of being very much easier to paste and hang around tricky surface features (eg corners) than the usual stuff.
Once the first strip was hung correctly, using a plumbline, the others could be very easily butted up against each other. This would obviously work best for paper with a bold, vertical, striped pattern; hiding the joints and making pasting and pattern correspondence between adjacent strips very easy.
Today’s invention is a way to reduce the noise nuisance caused by ‘cruising’ cars with loud music systems.
It is an automatic volume control which turns down one’s in-car entertainment in correspondence with a combination of factors: a) the degree to which the windows are open b) the lateness of the hour c) the proximity of hospitals and nursing homes d) the slowness with which the car is being driven.
When the volume or any of the latter four factors is sensed to be on the increase, then the windows automatically close tightly.
If some young person wants to drive fast during daylight with the windows rolled up and miles from anywhere then they are welcome to ‘pump up the volume’ -otherwise I decline to share their taste in audio.
I’m always boiling more water in the kettle than I need. This wastes huge amounts of both water and energy.
Today’s invention provides a fairly simple way to limit this bad habit. An inlet pipe to a small cistern is sealed against a kitchen’s cold water tap. The tap is left in the open position but water can only flow from the tap when a handle is depressed: as in normal bathroom cistern operation.
The difference here is that the internal ballcock is capable of being set by an external dial so as to allow water to flow through in multiples of 1 cupful.
You can thus place the kettle beneath the outlet, dial up ‘four cups’ and only that amount flows into the kettle. Much easier than squinting at a meniscus through a steamy window in the kettle wall as you attempt to hold the whole thing in mid air.
When a vehicle, say a landing aircraft, hits the brakes in an emergency, it’s usually in danger of becoming unstable, inverting and creating an even more dangerous collision.
Today’s invention is therefore an auxilliary, when-all-else-fails braking system.
When the brakes are applied very sharply, ultra sticky foam, of the type used experimentally as a non-lethal weapon, is automatically sprayed from a small tank beside each wheel.
This expands in milliseconds and causes the wheel to slow further in a controlled way, due to its extreme viscosity and adhesion. This foam grips the ground as well as the rotating components pretty nearly equally on both sides of the vehicle and it will also serve to snuff out any sparks which conventional brakes may be generating.
