Home Posts tagged "safety" (Page 2)

Tag: safety

#1341: Collarelease

The advice when one’s dog is attacked by another dog is ‘simply’ to let it run away to safety.

This has a couple of associated difficulties.

First, if you let the lead go, the dog may well trip over it or get itself tangled as it scrambles away. Second, if you try to release the lead from the collar, you risk bending down and putting your face between two fighting dogs…usually considered a bad idea.

Today’s invention is therefore a lead which can be detached from a dog’s collar whilst the animal is straining to escape from its far end.

This would be achieved by running a Bowden-type cable from the lead handle/loop to the catch where collar meets lead. Press on a recessed button and the normal lead-collar catch is opened, freeing fido.

#1338: SinkSiren

It seems that most people’s imagined view of drowning is mistaken…victims don’t thrash and yell, they simply go motionless and sink.

Todays invention is a way for anyone getting into serious difficulties in the water to draw attention to that fact and thus summon help.

Swimmers could purchase a light, quoit-shaped ring, to be worn around the neck. This would include an elastic section to make it easy to put on, without being obstructive to swimming. It would also be brightly coloured and slightly buoyant in fresh, and therefore salt, -water.

When the wearer found themselves about to drown, their face would descend through the ring floating on the surface. Biting the ring anywhere would activate a bright flashing light within the ring and a loud squawking noise, audible even over the roar of breakers.

#1327: Rearflection

When a back-seat passenger gets out of a car, they usually find it impossible to make use of any rear view mirrors -or they may just forget to.

The door can easily be jabbed out into the traffic stream with obvious dangerous consequences.

Today’s invention is therefore a mirror fitted to the inside of the rear door of a car. As the door catch is released, this mirror pops up, drawing attention to itself and anything approaching from behind the vehicle.

#1325: Bakeshaker

Today’s invention is a device which can be used in any oven to minimise the amount of time for which the oven door is open. Every such opening wastes huge amounts of energy and makes the kitchen more like a sauna.

The device is in the form of an insulated hinge device which grips the bars of one of the horizontal dividers. The other end of the device clips onto a baking tray. A small radio-controlled motor opens and closes the hinge (reflecting user-selected amplitudes and frequencies).

This has the effect of repositioning the food items in the tray in order to achieve uniform cooking, without the potential for burning one’s wrists.

A more advanced system could be equipped with a temperature probe capable of oscillating the food in response to the readings taken.

#1324: Scrumtunnel

These days, young people aren’t allowed to do cross country running beside my local river “because they might fall in”. I’m even told that certain education authorities are considering banning many aspects of school rugby because they are too dangerous to be effectively insured.

I spent 9 years of my life playing rugby and I recognise that there are some real dangers here…especially when big and small players collide.

Today’s invention is a two-way scrummage tunnel which allows two junior packs to push each other but without the danger that either front row will crash into the ground and damage their necks or spines.

Made of tough foam, it would accommodate the heads of players comfortably and allow them to push with their shoulders whilst supported from below.

The tunnel would have many slots parallel to the push direction to enable players to see inside the tunnel and contend for the ball.

When a scrum was over, the tunnel could be rolled to one side of the pitch.

#1323: Sublimatic

Conventional bullets are designed to be weighty, so that they can be aimed successfully over long distances without deflection (and also so that they will inflict great damage on impact).

Today’s invention is non-lethal, long distance round…a bullet which is heavy enough to accurately carry far but on reaching its target, its mass has decreased so that it delivers only a warning sting.

Bullets would be stored in an insulated magazine and made of dry ice. Solid carbon dioxide sublimes to vapour at a fixed rate (which is increased by friction with the air) so that the impact will decrease sharply with increasing range -and in a predictable way.

#1322: RivuLights

It seems that crowds behave in ways that can sometimes be predicted by physics.

Today’s invention is an overhead panel for walkways which consists of a diffusing screen behind which an array of green and red leds is located.

Each led unit is connected to a motion sensor which can detect coarsely the direction of movement of someone walking (or running) beneath.

In order to smooth the passage of a crowd moving both ways in the walkway, each person looks at the colour over their own head and then walks towards a patch of that colour on the ceiling.

This tends to coalesce individuals into a small number of streams (eg 2) which pass each other with less interruption.

#1319: SafeSmoke

Today’s invention is an anti burglary device which consists of an insert to one’s chimney.

An electrically activated, slow release smoke cannister is inserted high inside the chimney breast.

On leaving home, this is operated by setting the domestic alarm so that potential thieves are deterred by the sight of an apparently active fireplace.

#1316: Highsign

When a floor is being mopped, signs appear saying, effectively, ‘if you slip, don’t sue us.’

These actually introduce a trip hazard, especially when placed at the top of stairs, for example.

Today’s invention warns people of wet floors, but creates no such trip problem.

A lightweight sign with a clamp type suction device is attached to the ceiling, instead (this could be done using eg a balloon, but would probably be too fussy and shortlived). The sign might be mostly transparent, so that collisions between passing pedestrians could be minimised.

Also, an extendable neck version might be made to help with varying ceiling heights.

#1314: SeeSnake

People trip over cables all the time.

People also have peripheral vision which is very sensitive to movement (something to do with spotting dangerous beasties lurking in the long grass).

Today’s invention is a device which plugs eg into a USB port on a laptop and which flicks the power cord every few seconds.

This allows passers by to become more aware of the moving cable and step over it safely.

(A better version would be incorporated into plugtops in general, but that would require somewhat more complex design).