#2927: TarmacVac

One of the problems with airliners with low-slung engines is that they are vulnerable to picking up trash when taxiing or on the runway.

Today’s invention extracts some benefit from this.

Imagine a bank of jet engines which have been withdrawn from flight service mounted on a vehicle with their intakes pointed towards the tarmac.

The engines have their intakes behind a strong mesh screen, which can be slid away for cleaning, when stones, rubbish or stray metalwork have been collected.

The vehicle, which could be made autonomous, drives around an airport cleaning all the flat areas where planes go.

A smaller version of this would be useful for the flight decks of aircraft carriers.

These jet engines may need to be rotated out and repaired, but they would not be subject to any flight regulations and could therefore be operated relatively cheaply.

#2926: GlideRide

Scott Mansell recently sent out an email describing the 1980 Williams Racing F1 team’s attempt to improve their ground effect car, by removing all the suspension.

This, he says, resulted in

    –Perfect aero platform stability
    –Minimal weight transfer
    –Lower possible ride height
    –Maximum ground effect efficiency

Alan Jones, the driver, found that the car was faster without any springs, but it was shaking him to pieces and couldn’t be used.

Today’s invention repeats this experiment but isolates the driver from vibrations, by fitting a heavily sprung and damped driver compartment.

This would contain the seat, steering and pedals, but the connections between the compartment and the rattling chassis could all be, these days, electronic.

Sensors would detect the steering column and pedal positions but without mechanical contact between these and the ground. Drivers would hate the lack of feedback -until they started to win races.

#2925: Wi-Fee

When you take a seat in a coffee shop, the wifi strength you receive via their network will vary, sometimes significantly, depending upon where you sit (try working behind a stone partition in an Edinburgh Starbucks, for example).

Today’s invention is an attempt to enhance and exploit these differences.

A coffee shop could invest in localised hot-spot and shielding technology, so that some areas would have multiplayer games capability and other areas would be deliberate deadzones.

People could choose a seat in a ‘hot’ or ‘cold’ area (which staff could determine from a behind the counter screen. These areas would change dynamically, depending upon the network usage of current customers).

The price of the products they buy would be made proportionate, in realtime, to the popularity of their chosen location.

#2924: Inkerface

I like electronic reading devices (although the Kindle is an interface disaster).

Today’s invention is a small upgrade which consists of an extra e-ink screen on the outside cover.

This could be used to display useful information such as:
-do not disturb
-a brief CV
-the title of the book being read…please discuss with me
-the title of a different book you want to be seen reading
-an email address on which to contact you later
-illustrations from the story, or a suitable cover picture (chosen by the reader?)
-a flashing request to train or flight staff to bring a gin and tonic
-a flashing request to train or flight staff that you feel under threat

If you were feeling altruistic, the page you were reading, so that somebody sitting opposite could also read it.

#2923: DeTerrier

People often have dogs as deterrents against burglary. Large dogs, however, tend to eat a lot.

Today’s invention offers a way to achieve the deterrence which a large dog provides, if you only have a tiny terrier.

It consists of a neck-mounted loudspeaker which boosts the bark volume of a small dog, whilst also lowering the frequencies associated with its yapping.

(This would probably require a loudspeaker horn, so that the noise would project forward so as to not scare the dog with its own bark).

#2922: ScissorStoppers

Even my humble Transit van has parking sensors which beep when I’m getting too close to a bollard or a kerb.

Today’s invention is to apply these sensors to the doors of all cars. Instead of beeping, though, when the sensor detects something in the way of the door, it simply applies a brake to that door, stopping its movement.

This would stop damage being caused to a vehicle and also all other vehicles that it might park near, by careless door opening.

It might also be useful to the tiny number of folk with gullwing or scissor type doors which are notorious for opening upwards into low garage ceilings.

#2921: BlimPointer

Imagine a hot air balloon with a basket suspended from it using a low friction bearing.

Inside the balloon a number of radio controlled vehicles are driving at speed in horizontal circles on the inside surface.

The vehicles all go in the same direction and cause the balloon to rotate about its vertical axis, whilst leaving the basket not turning.

If there is wind blowing across the spinning balloon, the Magnus effect will generate a lift force roughly at right angles to the wind. This would allow the balloon to be steered, just as sailing boats are, rather than just bobbling about at the mercy of the elements.

(My calculations show that, for a wind speed of 2ms^-1, balloon rotation rate of 1 turn per 2 sec (perhaps too fast) and a balloon radius of 5m, the total lift force generated would be about 1.2 kN per unit height of the balloon. For a 10m tall balloon, this gives 12kN, which would be reasonably significant compared to the (approximately calculated using Cd=0.9) drag force of approximately 200N at the same speed.

#2920: ForeWarmed

Today’s invention is long motorcycle gauntlets which have copper wires woven into the palms.

These wires extend across the backs of the gauntlets so that a rider’s forearms are covered by a mesh of them.

Most motorcycles with heated grips are capable, even on a frigid day, of making one’s palms so hot as to be locally uncomfortable.

These gauntlets use the extra heat to stop the forearms becoming numbed on the stagnation surfaces, which is a major contribution to loss of rider concentration on a very cold day.

#2919: PenguRing

When a group of people is walking in a very strong wind they can get seriously chilled. They might be polar explorers, Royal Marines on a yomp or plane crash survivors in the Andes.

Penguins it seems, know all about this problem. They will stand against the Antarctic blast for long periods, but exchanging positions between those who are upwind and those who are in the centre of the crowd. It’s a kind of peloton with the aim of reducing heat loss rather than drag.

Today’s invention is a belt which a group of people can surround themselves with and which is intended to avoid hypothermia. The belt can be tightened to force them to stand closer than normal social rules allow, so that heat is retained within the crowd, but walking as a group is supported.

The ‘buckle’ area has a fixed, small radius corresponding to the width of a human torso. This area contains a temperature sensor. As people pass the belt in a clockwise direction, the sensor will beep when it reaches the point of minimum temperature. This will place the buckle at the point where the wind speed relative to the people is greatest (and the people coldest).

As the group walks in its chosen direction, arrows light up on its surface showing the people adjacent the direction and speed of circulation they should adopt.

This results in a convection current in which cold (blue) people on the windward side, move along and back up through the crowd, where they become pinker (warmer).

#2918: SodaHose

I’m in Southern Spain at the moment and I’ve noticed a couple of things:
There are large numbers of soft drinks bottles strew around many urban areas.

There are large numbers of black plastic pipes draped across the countryside, in an attempt irrigate the otherwise dry land.

Today’s invention is a plastic drinks bottle which is designed to be recycled into irrigation pipes.

When the contents have been consumed, the bottles can be punctured in the bottom end and then screwed together tightly, using the moulded-in thread.

(I discovered yesterday that the multi-lobe base of the standard 2 litre bottle, which allows it to stand up and still have a thinner wall, was 20 years in litigation before it could be used. We need to stop allowing lawyers to live off the back of innovation asap).