Home Posts tagged "transport" (Page 2)

Tag: transport

#1353: Hingebike

I’m always impressed by people who make working technology using junk.

Today’s invention is a bikeframe that can be built using a few planks and a hinge or two.

Three wooden triangles (blue and grey) made of planks, or whatever else is lying around, are bolted together and hinged where they meet (blue/grey interface).

You get some odd handling but your cerebellum will solve the dynamics problem quickly and your wallet will appreciate not having paid out £2k for the latest highly-stealable, magnesium/duralumin, hand forged sculpture from Cremola or whoever.

#1331: Eccentricones

Today’s invention is an autonomous central barrier on a motorway -except that it’s not central.

Sensors count cars moving in either direction and adjust the barrier’s lateral position (a set of linked, mobile robot cones, shown in red) so that whichever side of the road currently has the bigger traffic flow gets the wider carriageway.

This smooths the movement of vehicles and reduces any tendency to tailbacks and jams.

#1330: ChopperSwopper

The twin-rotor Chinook helicopter is a remarkable design. If anyone suggested having two sets of counter-rotating interleaved rotor blades they might well be criticised for optimism bordering on naivete…my speciality, in fact.

Today’s invention is a Chinook upgrade in which each rotor blade engages its outer end with the distal rotor hub, driving that hub’s rotors around until it slows enough so that that end then becomes the inner end of the blade rotating about the distal hub.

This stresses each blade more evenly and lessens the overall sweep of the blades as shown in the diagram -in which the helicopter is flying up the page. The single blade shown swaps from hub to hub, providing drive for one rotor from the other without any need for a drive shaft (difficult, but not impossible to achieve).

#1329: Tardisub

I know that submariners are supposed to be made of stern stuff but today’s invention is a low-tech way to help improve their living conditions.

Interior designers aren’t supposed to be made of stern stuff, but they do know about how to make small spaces seem much bigger. One way is by using mirrors.

Today’s invention is to fit mirrors (plastic, impact-safe ones would be fine) to the inside surfaces of some bulkheads and cabinets on board submarines. Although the Captains Nemo wouldn’t necessarily want to view their stubble close-up, the occasional reflective patch would provide much better light distribution and an increased sense of space for people in cramped conditions.

(I imagine a windowless Mars-bound spaceship would benefit similarly).

#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.

#1320: PipeDriver

Digging trenches for underground piping is so Victorian (not that I’ve got anything against Victorian construction: most of it is still standing).

These days, if you want to lay down pipes without closing the roads and building a trench network, directional boring techniques can be used, but it’s all pretty elaborate, costly and short-range.

Today’s invention is a way to build underground conduits without disrupting the streets above too much.

A hammer (orange) is used to drive a stiff, thin-walled curved pipe underground. The hammer arm length and pipe bend radius can be selected beforehand according to the required distance to be piped.

Segments of pipe are attached together in a sequence (using different bend radii can provide extra directional control).

When the pipe surfaces, it can be driven backwards by the hammer, attached to a reamer of slightly bigger diameter. Finally, a conduit (perhaps containing fibre cables) can be driven through the arc-shaped tunnel and cemented in place.

#1309: LowRoad

When traveling from A to B it seems that people tend to prefer roads which lie south of a line joining A and B (maybe because North feels ‘uphill’).

In an attempt to redress this cognitive bias and redistribute the traffic levels on alternative routes, today’s invention involves representing such southerly roads by thinner lines on a map.

The impression given would be that these are less easily passable and thus help equalise the number of journeys via northerly and southerly routes.

#1307: Orbitube

Last week I was asked by someone about weightlessness and it sparked a curious train of thought. A body travelling around the Earth will be in orbit if its velocity is given by v^2 = rg. What if this occurred not in space, but at sea level? A velocity of sqrt(6.4E6 *9.81) = 8km per sec (Mach 24) would be hard to achieve due to air resistance.

Today’s invention is therefore a pipeline joining cities which are far apart. This is in the shape of a perfectly circular arc bolted to the ground and made of sections of pipe which are sealed so that the whole pipeline can be evacuated.

Airlocks allow a capsule to be inserted and a series of external railguns accelerates this to huge velocity (and brakes it again at the far end).

During transit, the capsule will experience microgravity (possibly useful for in-transit materials processing). This arrangement would allow a small payload of cargo to get from New York to Melbourne in 35 minutes.

(Suddenly opening the downstream end would provide a way to inject satellites into a higher, conventional orbit).

#1302: SmokeSkin

Today’s invention is a set of light, transparent, hollow panels corresponding to the body panels of a particular car.

To the narrow space within each is attached an inlet pipe at the front edge and an outlet pipe from the rear edge. These are used to pump smoke through the narrow space from a central reservoir.

The smoke can be made to change colour rapidly (as happens with eg a distress flare or firework). This provides something close to programmable colouration for the vehicle.

Streaklines in the smoke flow can also create the illusion that the vehicle is travelling faster than it really is, thus adding drama to driving slowly and perhaps reducing accidents.

#1300: FallSpring

A friend of mine recently had a minor bike accident in which the small passenger in the child seat at the rear might have been hurt.

Fortunately, everyone was fine, but even when wearing a helmet and properly strapped in, there remains the danger that a child will automatically extend its hand(s) as the bike is toppling onto the ground.

Today’s invention is a springsteel band which is normally compressed at the back of a bike seat, as shown.

When a tilt switch is activated by the machine toppling, the band is released and forms a round spring, restrained at two points. This cushions the impact with the road and prevents any damage to extended hands.