Home Posts tagged "tool" (Page 3)

Tag: tool

#1268: Bladebank

Today’s invention is a small clamp which allows two (two-blade) disposable razors to be held together to simulate the shaving performance of a multi-blade razor.

I’m not sure I believe that anyone ever needs more than two blades, but for those who are into multiblade razors, this could offer a significant cost saving.

If the clamp were designed so that each razor was at a small angle to the other, this might have the beneficial effect of decapitating a cylindrical hair from two different directions, so that any remainder is noticeably thinner.

#1265: FlexiFlex

Today’s invention makes use of ‘plastic zip’ technology in resealable plastic bags. The insulation on each conductor also embodies a C-section side channel which can accommodate another wire, as shown.

This allows the formation by a user of ribbon-like cables. These can be very flexibly made into different combinations, and routed through multiple separate spaces or very flat apertures.

Cutting away parts of the C-section, allows the cables to link together to form conductors with a closed ring structure of three or more cores (in a triangle, square etc arrangement). This provides the resulting wiring with some added strength, as well as the ability to act as a conduit for other cables.

#1261: UnPencil

In olden days, people used to make marks on paper using pencils. Some arty folk still do.

Today’s invention is an eraser, made of stiff white rubber, in the form of a pencil.

Since erasers are always getting dirty with graphite, and you want to be able to perform precision rubbing out using a sharp eraser tip, the pencil-shaped eraser can be kept pointy using an ordinary pencil sharpener.

#1257: SawSlots

Today’s invention is intended to lessen the effort required when cutting wood with a handsaw.

The side surfaces of the saw blade have slots machined into them so that a uniform, constant flow pattern can be set up in the narrow air passages between sawblade and wood.

This forms a ‘street’ of vortices in the slots which act as air bearings, reducing the drag in both forwards and backwards directions (air having low inertia, a reversal of this flow pattern is not particularly hard to achieve).

#1254: Entropen

New Scientist’s column ‘The Last Word‘ is often a great source of questions just waiting to become inventions.

I was inspired by it today to think about a pen which maximises the lifetime of its ink supply, without greatly diminishing legibility.

Today’s invention is therefore a pen incorporating a tiny inkjet printer with one printhead and a small camera.

As the pen is moved across the surface of the paper, it spits out dots at a uniform rate.

When the camera detects that the pen is changing direction or printing near other dots, it increases its print rate. In this way, sections of straight line, where the information content per dot is low, are represented by small amounts of ink -and vice versa.

(You might build a version with the background dot rate proportional to the acceleration, as determined by a small on-board sensor)

#1230: CooledTool

Machine-assembled glazing units are inherently hard to break through -even when one is fortified by adrenalin in an emergency.

Today’s invention is an update to the standard glass-breaking escape hammer often found on public transport.

It takes the form of a conventional hammer, modified by the inclusion of a small, very high-pressure gas cylinder. When the hammer impacts the window surface, this breaks a seal on the cylinder allowing the gas to rush out. This expansion can be arranged to be sufficiently energetic that the glass surface becomes rapidly cooled locally and therefore embrittled.

This in turn allows the hammer to penetrate the window much more easily (a similar system might be used instead of detonator cord in the canopies of fighter jets with ejector seats).

#1222: Bottleblunter

I sometimes see young men who have been facially disfigured in a brawl with someone using a broken bottle or glass. This is a problem significant enough for pint glasses themselves to have been redesigned.

Today’s invention is a simple device to be used in pubs. Before a bottle is de-capped and handed to a customer, the bartender inserts it into a circular aperture and turns it through 360 degrees.

This aperture contains a small diamond glass cutter which scores around the neck of any bottle, 30mm from the cap.

It’s exceptionally difficult to break any bottle cleanly, so the effect that this scoring will have is that the bottle, held by the neck, will snap, when it is struck on a table top to make a weapon, in such a way that the potential attacker is left holding a very short, painfully jagged piece of glass.

Not only is this hard to hold and therefore pretty useless as a weapon, it also makes them look rather ridiculous.

#1221: UnSticker

There is an entire industry devoted to helping people get the tops off jars.

Today’s invention is another such kitchen device. It consists of a thin square of recyclable plastic material with a strong sticky pad on one side.

This is perforated along a wiggly line so the user can break it into two pieces. One is pressed and stuck to the jar cap as shown, the other is attached to the jar bottom. The fingers protruding on one side of the jar allow for a massively improved grip -even for those with dexterity or finger strength difficulties.

The pads stay in place and don’t affect the glass recycling process much more than the labels on the jar.

#1216: FeatureFocus

The web is full of sites which provide a shopping function like this, in which a chosen region of a product image can be shown in close-up.

So, the bits people look at can be used as a way to discern what they want to buy. If they pay attention to the fur collar, the zip, the pricetag, that tells you something about their interests. Whether they buy or not, you get a wealth of information about their priorities.

Today’s invention is a tool which simply monitors the close-up window’s placement sequence and spots patterns which enable enhanced product development decisions. If a number of people leave the page without buying, having just seen the details of the leather grain, you know something needs fixing.

The tool would also do some tricks like issuing messages such as ‘was it the [leather]? Maybe look at these items instead…’ It might even be possible to offer realtime, personalised discounts: ‘Maybe it’s not exactly what you were looking for -so how about 5% off?’