#714: Beanban

Having had way too much coffee during what I laughingly described as my working day, I found it hard to sleep last night. The upside of this insomnia though is that the following idea took hold.

Today’s invention is a coffee machine which contains a clock. Anyone ordering a double espresso after 3pm would be given a warning message: “Are you sure?”

This machine could also come supplied with a proper, ie plain ceramic, mug for every one of its users. They would be encouraged to draw a mark on the base -which would allow them to be identified by a small camera in the machine’s dispense chute. The system could then issue healthy guidance like “Hello John, how about some green tea, since you’ve had five coffees today?”

#713: Bladderoof

I was visiting an expert in energy utilisation recently whose office had a) a very high ceiling and b) a fan heater running full blast under the desk.

My irony indicator went FSD and set me thinking about the energy which is wasted in heating the upper portions of rooms which were designed in an era when their occupants wore multiple layers of tweed and rarely disrobed (bathing being a well known source of moral delinquency).

Today’s invention is a way to keep people in tall rooms warm in winter. It consists of an inflatable bladder attached to the ceiling. This would be filled with (low pressure) air and would thus temporarily lower the ceiling height of any room to which it was fitted. These bladders could be constructed of low-conductivity material using the carpet as a template.

It might be more convenient to simply supply a number of cuboid, air-filled sacs, each of which could be attached to the ceiling using eg velcro or double-sided tape.

#712: Ovenonion

I’m always a little disturbed when cooking things in an oven that the space heated is usually vastly bigger than the food itself and opening the oven door causes the whole waiting-for-dinner thing to take even longer (by evacuating all the heat and moisture).

Today’s invention is a range of nested, pyrex chicken bricks….a little like a set of Russian dolls or the layers of an onion.

To cook something, choose two adjacent bricks in the nesting sequence, just big enough so that the inner one will accommodate the food in question. All of the bricks’ top halves have two small ports. The brick in contact with the food will always have its ports plugged. The outer brick will have its ports connected, via an insulated chimney, to the oven’s heating element duct.

Hot air can thus pass through the space between inner and outer bricks, rapidly cooking the food inside the inner one and maintaining its succulence whilst heating only a small volume of cycling air. The food remains visible throughout.

#711: Loglife

I invested in a woodburning stove recently. One difficulty in using it is that it’s easy to forget to throw another log in until the decrease in room temperature alerts me to the need for one…there is then a delay whilst the stove (and room) gets back up to working temperature.

Logs last for a time which, roughly, depends on both their size and the current temperature of the stove. Today’s invention is a simple electronic device which would monitor both the decrease in weight of the logbasket and the stove temperature.

It would thus be able to calculate the stove-life of a given input of wood and issue an alert (preferably direct to my desktop) when that period was about to end.

#710: Obeseats

I read today that airlines in Canada can’t charge obese people for two seats even if they don’t fit into a single, standard size one.

(Aren’t there rules about having to wear seatbelts? I don’t really believe that these offer much added safety in a crash, but they might stop the wearer banging their head on a locker in turbulence -so what happens if you don’t fit a normal belt? What happens if you have trouble squeezing down an aisle?)

Today’s invention is to fit bench seats in a section of an airliner equipped with a sliding set of armrests which would allow people to accommodate their different girths. Inertia reel belts would extend to fit pretty much anyone (Having worked on airline projects, I realise this is unlikely, since they wouldn’t fork out £5 for even smokehoods -which are proven lifesavers).

People would be asked when buying a ticket if they would fit in a standard seat and if not, they could be allocated space on a flexi bench at no extra cost. They would thus occupy less than 2.0 seats each at the cost of 1.0 seat. Thinner than average people could be encouraged (eg via special meals or movies) to sit in this area and each occupy less than 1.0 seats at the cost of 1.0 seats.

#709: Chainge

Today’s invention is a chain-like structural component. Two of these are indicated in the diagram. As shown, the two parts are free to rotate, relative to each other, in any direction. When these are pressed together, so that the two pairs of cylinders bear on each other, the links together act as a single rod.

Using many such chain links would allow rigid structures to be quickly extended and collapsed -for ease eg of transport (imagine a bicycle frame made of these and collapsible into a carrier bag).

Corner units, consisting of multi-ended links, could also be created to provide 3-D arrangements as well as purely linear ones. The links might be connected by springs, in order to add tensile strength to the rods which they form.

#708: Dragger

I was told, when young, that a sharp blade was usually less dangerous in use than a blunt one. Higher, and potentially less controllable, force needs to be exerted if the blade is insufficiently ‘edgy’ -ie if the front edge is less tapered than it should be.

Many materials (eg crystalline ones), will have properties such that the cut faces spring apart from each other, and the blade surface, thus contributing no ongoing resistance to the passage of the blade. For other substances (eg viscous, rubbery or gelatinous types) the blade movement is further impeded by continuing contact with the just-cut surfaces.

To minimise the total resistance in these cases requires not just a sharp front edge, but minimal surface area of contact between blade and material.

Today’s invention is therefore a low resistance blade which is as slim as a razor blade but which is braced, by a rear-edge ‘spine’, in the direction of blade movement, to allow a comfortable level of cutting pressure.

#707: Balmypalms

As the manufacturers of motorcycles know, having cold hands leads to a lack of concentration and often results in accidents. I was watching some people playing hockey in very cold weather when the following, related, idea occurred to me.

The shaft of each winter sports stick (including icehockey, hiking, skiing, shinty etc) could be filled with a long, thin tube full of heat pad crystals. This tube would be extracted, pre-game, boiled and reinserted, providing at least one half’s worth of handwarming (reheatable at half time if necessary).

The volume and placement of the tube could be tuned, for a given size of stick, to maintain the normal sweet spot (centre of percussion) in ballgames, without affecting the held surfaces or the freedom to change grip.

#706: Dampdoor

I find myself frequently having to bash through multiple sets of firedoors en route down various corridors. These are deliberately made of massive material in order to impede the progress of a fire from either direction.

Today’s invention is a modification to firedoors so that they incorporate their own extinguishant.

The top, wall-side corner of each side of each door would have a reservoir full of water attached. This would increase the moment of inertia of the doors only slightly. From this, a pipe would run along the top edge of each door face. The pipe would contain perforations, plugged by wax pellets.

In the even of a sharp rise in corridor temperature, the pellets would melt, allowing water rapidly to permeate the doors’ interior spaces and adding significantly to the escape period which they provide. This might even allow lighter materials to be used in the doors’ construction.

#705: BankTank

Fed up with standing in a windswept queue waiting to extract your own cash from a hole-in-the-wall machine (which then promptly runs out of money or just malfunctions)?

Today’s invention is a mobile ATM. First, select a time window and a delivery address via your bank’s secure website (assuming that they bothered to test it using Firefox, Safari, Opera etc and not just tatty old, last-century IE).

An armoured van will then appear with an ATM in the side to allow you to extract your cash without having to trek around town. The usual precaution would apply about not allowing the crew to access the safe and also the van would be equipped with a prominent, armoured camera to reduce the incidence of post-use mugging. It would also have a booth-like structure around the machine to prevent shoulder surfing and getting rained-on whilst withdrawing.

Vans would be re-routed in realtime so as to attempt to minimise some product of the average wait time and the total distance travelled. This would also make criminal attacks less easy to plan.