Today’s invention is a sharpening steel for penknives.
As you put your main knife blade away, you engage a boss on the fold-out steel with a slot in the blade itself.
On opening the blade next time, the blade drags the steel along the length of its cutting edge and then releases the boss.
(The steel would need to have its sharpening facets manufactured so that their direction varied along the length and were thus always at the optimal angle to the blade’s edge).
I’ve seen plenty of videos which seem to show ordinary quadricopters comfortably transporting a mass of 1kg.
That set me thinking about a new kind of parachute.
Let’s assume that battery weight takes up say 90% of that 1kg.
Wire together 1000 or so individual quad rotors into a dome shape, like a parachute.
As a jumper falls, each of these spins, acts as a dynamo and stores energy in a central battery.
Near the ground, the dynamos switch to being motors and the battery drives them so as to break the parachutist’s fall.
With apologies to those readers of a nervous disposition who don’t like firearms, today’s invention is a visual indicator of how many rounds remain in a semi-automatic handgun.
One of the two pistol grips is made transparent, as is one side of the ammunition clip.
This allows the user to glance at the weapon and understand at once how many shots are left, without making that apparent to anyone else.
Today’s invention is a way for people to think about the future…specifically the future of their tattoos.
Before anyone committed themselves to such a longlasting embellishment, a program would show them a photo-quality rendering of their chosen design as if on someone’s body (in the very place they are planning to have it).
Then, a mathematical model, including the effects of blood flow, expected weight changes and skin aging, would simulate how the tattoo would look in say 25 years -after the influence of a lifetime of blurring by pigment diffusion.
With any luck, this might become a legal requirement before anyone signed up for any ‘ink’.
If you find yourself in a miltary vehicle with the ability to loft weapons into the sky, it’s a really top idea not to be around when they plummet earthwards again.
Today’s invention is a guidance system for such antiaircraft vehicles which predicts where the shells will go and then guides the steering so that, when travelling at high speed, you don’t drive under your own bombardment.
Another mode of operation would be to have the vehicle set a course and use that to dictate which directions you could fire in, but I suspect that might not be so useful.
On the spot fines are deeply annoying. Especially for traffic offences. Especially if you don’t have any form of payment available.
Today’s invention is a pump/flowmeter unit carried by traffic police. This could be used, with the driver’s grudging agreement, to safely and rapidly extract a fine in the form of fuel from a vehicle which had been pulled over for some offence.
This would be taken back to the station, checked that it didn’t contain any illicit or explosive additives and used to power cop cars.
Given the price of fuel, this approach could accommodate some pretty serious roadgoing transgressions.
Today’s invention is a small fan which can be fired up to ensure that raindrops or dust particles can never land on a camera lens whilst it is being used under environmentally challenging circumstances.
The fan speed would be set up so that the biggest, fastest everyday particle would be deflected away from the glassware.
This would probably require the airflow to be directed outwards along an annular tube centred on the camera lens axis.
Normally, such a flow would cause horrible vibrations and result in image blurring, but the fan motor would be controlled so as to blast out a burst of air and then stop when the shutter was actually open.
A cleverer variant on this would use the flash to illuminate oncoming particles and apply real-tme image processing to allow the air stream to change strength according to their size, direction and speed. The lens cover could be deployed automatically if the system sensed imminent damage.
Another development might involve actively heating the fan output in order to create artistic, heat-haze effects in the image.
If you, or someone you know, is a keen illustrator, then this may be of interest.
Simply choose one of the inventions below and create a presentation-quality drawing of it (as a high-res tiff). I’m looking for a combination of functional explanation and a cool, industrial-design look.
The best one received at pra@patrickandrews.com, by October 10th, will receive an Amazon voucher for £50 and a discussion about a future business opportunity (All entrants retain their copyright but allow me free use of the images, with attribution of course, on websites etc.)
Fame and fortune…(well some fame and the distant prospect of some more cash, maybe).
gamegoods
dronedome
tubetanks
scrollscreen
airanchor
racestation
speedshare
skyshuttle
spinsign
deckpods
gamesimulator
touchinglass
chasebots
I’ll also publicise the best 5 drawings here, so don’t forget to include a link to your portfolio.
It’s annoying that my toaster will pump out two slices together, since even my ravenous appetite can’t deal with more than one at a time.
This either results in one slice being left cooling on the plate or having to micromanage the start time for the next slice (when I’d rather be eating in peace).
Today’s invention is a toaster which has a timer for each slot which allows an offset to be programmed in.
This means that slice 1 appears with maximal speed but slices 2, 3 etc appear perfectly toasted at a user-specified interval determined by how long it takes you to butter and eat a piece.
The toaster might even learn that you tend to extract slices 3 and 4 after longer delays than 1 or 2 and thus match your breakfast eating pattern exactly.
Today’s invention is keyboard buttons which are capable of additional movements than merely in the vertical direction.
As well as creating eg an R on the screen by pressing directly down, these keys would allow a rotary flick to the left to erase the R character if created in error.
Pressing down any combination of buttons simultaneously with one hand, whilst moving the hand laterally across the keyboard, would provide easy, intuitive cursor control across the screen, so that there would be no need for a conventional mouse or trackpad (or ‘nub’).
Flicking each key in any of, say, the other seven major compass directions would allow additional functionality to be programmed-in.
This would also enable many more combinations to be recognised by the keyboard, providing for eg much more memorable log-in passwords in the form of patterns executed with a single, depressed finger.
