When we have guests to stay in our small house, I don’t like to flush the toilet during the night because it wakes everyone up.
Today’s invention is a yellow coloured toilet liner which allows me to leave pee in the bowl without anyone noticing, so that I can flush the following morning.
These could be made in a biodegradable material (with a hygienic retrieval loop), maybe even in a flushable paper.
To lessen the arm strength required to use cordless tools with a heavy battery, today’s invention is to put the battery in a pocket or on a belt hook and then run a short cable to the tool.
Imagine a guard dog’s collar and chain.
The collar would have embedded sensors for sweat/temperature and pulse rate.
If the sensors indicated a high level of stress in the animal (as when an intruder appears), the chain could automatically be extended in proportion to the stress it was experiencing.
When you fire eg a pistol, the recoil makes your arm move all over the place (so the next shot can be way off-target).
Instead, the gun user should wear a series of electrical stimulators embedded in a long thin glove on his arm.
As trigger pressure is sensed, the stimulators jab the arm in a pattern across different muscles.
These cause reflexes to fire which get the muscles to exactly counteract the motion of the arm caused by the recoil.
Thus even the first shot can be better targetted but subsequent shots can be improved hugely. This could be adapted for 2 handed weapons.
Since this works by provoking reflexes, any conscious concerns of the gun firer, causing eg tension, are simply overridden (related technology has been developed to lessen spinal pain).
Today’s invention is a new form of hybrid tartan which has the weft of the husband’s clan and weave of the wife’s.
(Unlike this one).
It’s sometimes difficult to get workers and tradespeople to wear their safety equipment.
Today’s invention is a dust mask which reacts to the presence of dust in a workshop or room under construction (or demolition) and beeps until you put it on (like a smoke detector).
A sensor in the mask would detect the pressure of breathing and disconnect the speaker.
I’ve been inspired by watching ‘Sink The Bismarck’, an ancient movie in which biplanes contribute to the defeat of Nazism.
There aren’t many modern aircraft with this configuration…mostly because adding wings doesn’t work well in high speed flight.
In an application where strength and manoeuvrability are important (such as training) I can see a return to biplanes occurring, especially using modern materials.
Today’s invention is therefore a biplane whose upper wing can be detached in an emergency and which acts as a hang glider -to save the pilot in an emergency. This can be better than a parachute, because it can operate even when deployed at very low altitude.
This might be applied to high-wing monoplanes, but their extra speed might make things more difficult (to say nothing of fitting planes with a single, pilot-removable wing unit).
Surprisingly, autistic people tend to have multiple crowns in their hair.
Today’s invention is an overhead camera system which spots this as people walk into eg a shop and alerts the staff, via say a smartphone buzz, that they have to turn the music down and communicate much more clearly.
All those flashing lights and digital displays could also be subtly muted automatically. I’d certainly benefit from this.
Today’s invention is a grass collection box for a lawnmower that allows you to park the machine inside it, and leave it outside, thus keeping the machine dry.
This could even be textured to look like a rock in the garden.
I’ve been a bit perturbed to see the state of my friend’s hot tub.
This is entirely wooden and is kept outside, so it develops a scummy surface film -nasty.
Today’s invention is a wiper blade which periodically scrapes the internal surface clean, so that a recirculating pump can filter out any debris.
It’s probably a good idea for the wiper not to operate when bathers are in occupation.
