Moore’s Law suggests that we get a doubling of computing power on chips of a given size every couple of years. Do we really need an ever increasing number of CPU cycles?

Yes of course. In future, tasks that currently take weeks of supercomputer churning will be accomplished in near real-time by relatively common equipment.

Today’s invention is an example. Imagine a drill press which has access to a massive database of engineering components. It also has a supercomputer built-in that can grab or generate a 3-D mesh of the barcoded component currently on its table.

A laser shines down the drill axis and is imaged by a camera so that the system knows where and how big a hole is about to be formed.

In under a second, it calculates the stress distribution of the part, post drilling, under typical loading conditions, and projects that onto the surface as a ‘heat map.’

Too many stress hotspots generated? Move the drill to one side and recalculate. Similar things could be done for fluid flows as part of the process of engine tuning.

When one vehicle in a motor race drives behind another, the trailing one benefits from a reduction in drag.

They can lurk in this position and use the power reserve and fuel saving it allows to perform a sudden overtaking manoeuvre when the timing suits them.

This represents an unfair asymmetry in such sports -with very powerful vehicles able to slipstream the less powerful but not vice versa (since the fast cars or bikes can more easily pull away).

Today’s invention is therefore a sensor which detects when one bike for example is travelling directly behind and close to another.

In this instance, the following machine’s rev limiter kicks in, in order to make the race more about driving skill than vehicle design/tuning.

Conventional racks for the rooves of cars never look part of the vehicle -they always seem like some kind of ugly afterthought.

Today’s invention is a bike rack which is actually a part of the bike itself…and which leaves the car looking as its designer intended.

Here we see a bike placed on its side on the roof of a car. The normal rain guttering ridges or integral rails on vehicles are indicated in red.

The bike would have four padded fixtures built in: one on the handlebar, one on the seatpost and two on the wheel rims.

Clipping the first two onto the rails first would allow both of the wheels to be rotated so that their fixtures could be clipped in place on the opposite rail.

This would provide secure, low-drag attachment of a single bike to vehicles with different widths. A similar approach would allow bikes to be attached to each side and the tailgate of the car.

(What do you mean ‘another bike invention?’ 😉

It’s been all of a day or so since last I thought up a new bicycle design.

Today’s invention is a bike frame consisting of three, box-section aluminium beams.

Each of these members has slots in its edge through which the other beams can pass and be secured by a bolt through both of them.

The saddle attaches to the diagonal bar, as indicated, using the same type of joining technology…which allows it to be repositioned. The steering column runs from handlebars to the front wheel down the inside of the foremost beam.

This configuration would be comparatively simple to manufacture and also allow a frame to be re-sized conveniently to fit a large number of different people.

Today’s invention is an adaptation of one submitted to my Inventors’ Inbox column written with Mark Sheahan.

Imagine a lean back-type bicycle in which the triangle formed by the frame tubes between steering head, seat and pedal axle (dashed) could be replaced by three tubes with a shorter total length (shown in red).

It turns out that there is some mathematics which allows this total length to be minimised (although the tubes themselves might have to be a bit wider).

(I tried to use this technique in laying down a garden path, but was overruled on aesthetic grounds).

I have always loved museums.

It amazes me that most simply don’t have space to display the vast majority of their collections.

Today’s invention is a recommendation engine which drives an automated display system for museums.

Visitors would sit in booths and enter the subject of their search on a screen. Items from an unseen automated warehouse containing the collection (perhaps multiple different collections) would appear on a conveyor belt behind a glass wall.

Information would be available on the screen about each item, together with a way to store data which were interesting/relevant -for use in current projects. An overview would contain links which, if followed, would cause various other items to appear on the conveyor.

Each artefact would be accompanied by a set of tickboxes on-screen. These would allow a visitor to specify the extent to which the current item was interesting and to help recommend the next one to appear (rather than a like/dislike choice, the engine would be able to form a view about the reasons for one’s recent preference, the better to suggest increasingly satisfying exhibits).