#2777: Autoptions

Many people envisage their ideal car online by using a manufacturers’ ‘configurator’ -even if they sometimes have no way to actually buy the car in question.

Today’s invention takes the data from these online tools and uses them in different ways. This is especially aimed at companies who are attempted to sell cars without dealerships.

1. The manufacturer gets to understand what features many people like and which ones are almost never adopted. This helps prioritisation with future designs.

2. If someone has configured a new car, but then left the website, they could be sent a link automatically to a secondhand or lower-price model, which they might consider buying…with a specification as close as possible to the one they set up.

3. For each choice made, the design interface could say eg ‘98% of people choose this’ or ‘2% choose that’. In this way, the manufacturer could influence, using ‘nudge’ techniques, which variants actually get bought, since it’s in their interests to be selling many examples of a smaller range of elective components.

4. When someone selects eg a carbon fibre wing mirror housing, some celebrity influencer could pop up on screen and say ‘good choice, I went for that too…have you also thought about…?’

#2776: RaceFace

Racing drivers make a brave attempt to promote their personal ‘brand’ at every possible opportunity.

This is thwarted a bit by having to wear a helmet which hides their face.

Some of the ‘special’ helmet designs are seriously ugly and most are almost unrecognisable, especially with the drivers seated so low in their cars.

Today’s invention seeks to help poor, underexposed racing drivers. It consists, for each driver, of a large scale caricature made of skin-coloured foam rubber, stuck on the outside of their helmet.

This avoids obscuring their view any more than the various visors and cages currently do.

It also allows the crowd to recognise drivers by their face so that whatever they are selling, in the paddock, or on TV gets better identified with them as a personality.

#2775: MineMat

For people who genuinely feel that their home may come under attack, today’s invention offers some extra support.

It consists of a regular car airbag (cost: £200) which is placed under a foot scraper outside the front door.

Anyone who appears brandishing a weapon or acting aggressively can be blown off their feet by the homeowner remotely triggering the pyrotechnic element in the bag.

This would almost certainly be non-fatal but would be very disorienting for the would-be assailant. Several such devices could be buried under the gravel on a driveway and thus the need for gun ownership would be lessened.

#2774: SuitsYou

Today’s invention is a way to help shops sell clothing by letting window shoppers see themselves apparently wearing the outfits on display.

People (pink), walking by a shop, step onto a ramp (red) and face the window (blue).

Inside they see some (headless) mannequins (turquoise), facing outwards, as you might expect. A pressure pad that a person is standing on, rotates the mannequin in front of them, so that it faces the mirrored back wall of the window display (green).

The ramp allows a person to adjust their face’s reflection height, so that it appears directly above the reflection of the outfit they are interested in, so that they can imagine themselves wearing it.

#2773: FireFlock

In a fire, it’s often very difficult to get a crowd of people to act calmly and escape effectively (from either a building or an aircraft).

Today’s invention is to use some robot sheepdogs to herd the people into making an orderly departure.

These synthetic animals, acting as a coordinated team, would be equipped with jaws capable of growling and nipping at people who were slow or getting in the way or heading in the wrong direction.

#2772: SoundSteps

People are highly attuned to sensory cues. This means that they are influenced, at an unconscious level, by things they see or hear.

Today’s invention is to equip a pair of boots with a speaker system which is connected to pressure sensors in the soles.

As each foot hits the deck, the corresponding speaker issues a recorded footstep sound. This allows someone to send the subliminal message that they are much heavier than their normal tread would suggest.

I could imagine eg a small security guard in rubber shoes wanting to communicate that he had a massive body supported by hobnailed boots. Or perhaps an actor on stage would want to emphasise a simulated limp or the noise of walking through mud.

#2771: Glowindow

I’ve been searching for this idea but still not found any examples in eg patent databases….so here goes.

Today’s invention is replacement glazed units for small windows which contain extra bright daylight lamps, shining inwards.

For a small window, this gives the impression of a much wider opening and makes the atmosphere in a darkish room brighter. The brightness level could be computer controlled to mirror (or compensate for) the external daylight level. It could also replace existing SAD lamps.

Keeping the aperture size small also controls heat loss via the window.

#2770: Droptank

Parachuting tanks onto a battlefield makes sense (leaving aside the fact that warfare should be everybody’s last resort).

Even light tanks require numerous parachutes and tend to damage themselves when they crash into the ground.

Today’s invention allows ultra heavy armoured vehicles to suddenly appear where they are needed.

First, each tank is made of separate modules eg turret, left track+suspension, right track+suspension, ammunition payload, main hull and perhaps even a separate crew module.

Each of these is mounted on its own shock absorbing ‘skid’ with its own chutes, so that it lands separately.

The skids are motorised, so that they can bring modules together very rapidly to form a huge armoured vehicle.

Each skid has a ramp and winch to help assemble the vehicle autonomously.

If a part is broken on landing, say a turret, it communicates that fact and is replaced automatically with another one from the same drop.

The skids can then be reused as shelters or perhaps light troop carriers.

#2769: Couplink

Many belts these days are fitted with rather effective, lightweight, snap-together plastic buckles. The female end of these is almost always permanently stitched to the belt.

This means that, if you need to cope eg with an increase in waist size, you really only have the option of buying a whole second belt.

Today’s invention (in orange) is a secondary male-to female insert which can be used to extend one’s belt (by using several of these, if necessary).

Make these small and/or flexible enough and the whole belt might be made of them.
A similar approach could be used eg for watch straps.

#2768: DeliveRise

There is a very old toy which takes the shape of a monkey climbing a rope.

You pull repeatedly on the end of the rope and the monkey shins upwards.

Today’s invention uses this principle to allow mountain climbers or scaffolders a way to send each other tools, food, messages rapidly upwards over long vertical distances.

It would require climbers to let down a length of slack rope to which the ‘monkey’ (carrying some item) would be attached.