Home Posts tagged "transport" (Page 4)

Tag: transport

#1260: Divertrack

What happens when a runaway train is careering down the track into the path of an oncoming engine?

Derailers are devices which can be carried to a place on a track and installed so as to protect eg people working in the vicinity. If a train approaches without warning it is automatically derailed (usually onto a fairly safe, flat patch of ground).

Today’s invention is a derailer which is carried by trains themselves and which, in the event of an impending crash, is rapidly lowered into place to allow the train to leave the track.

It takes the form of a pair of curved rail sections normally carried above an engine and hinged so as to be able to drop down in front of the engine’s front wheels rapidly and detach from the vehicle.

These could be made of some comparatively expensive but lightweight material and be long enough to direct the engine off the track, whilst leaving the rear section still on the rails.

#1259: Atissue

Sitting on public transport frequently involves me in being blasted by the sneezes of neighbouring travelers.

Fortunately, it turns out that there are now antiviral agents which seem to work in limiting the development of cold infections.

Today’s invention is a handkerchief which contains this anti-rhinovirus in powder form.

When you sneeze into the hankie, a wave of antiviral particles is projected off the other side and fills the space between passengers, limiting the power of the virus to make people ill.

#1256: FareShare

Most people have an aversion to car sharing. Most people also have an aversion to fuel price-induced poverty…not to mention the damage which road transport does to the environment and our health. So we will increasingly have to choose to travel with other people (whom we may not know).

Today’s invention is therefore a modification to the electric urban vehicle of the future. We can get away with about 1/4 as many of these roaming the streets by building them so that they will only move when occupied by four people.

This could be detected by a hard-to-fake combination of bodyweights in seats, heartbeats recorded via seatbelt sensors and fingerprint-reading door handles.

To make a journey in such a vehicle, you would go to a stop and indicate your destination on a touchscreen. If you hadn’t bothered to coordinate with three friends, others waiting at the stop could then join you for parts of the journey along a designated route.

If someone got out before your end-point, you might have to wait at that stop until someone else wanted a ride on the same route. This alone would encourage people to finish an increasing proportion of journeys on foot.

Once these vehicles were in place, it might be possible for say two occupants to agree to pay a hefty surcharge to be allowed to travel without others on board.

#1255: Holdsmobile

Today’s invention is a new intuitive driving interface -something like a mouse moving on a mousemat.

A car driver grips a model car and moves it across the surface of a model rolling road inside the fullsize car. As the model car is turned, so the axial direction of the rolling road turns relative to the real car.

As the speed of the model is varied so the rolling road accelerates and the speed of the real vehicle responds.

A crude version of this could be achieved using eg an iPhone or Wii attached to the base of a model vehicle. It would be particularly good for people with a problem reversing or for those with physical disabilities (since there are no pedals etc required).

#1253: CarrierBarrier

For all the clever electronic systems on board, naval ships are still vulnerable to attack by torpedo and by small, fast boats.

Aircraft carriers in particular have a turning circle the size of the equator. Today’s invention is intended to help such large ships resist attacks.

It consists of a mobile palette which can be rolled into position to secure a jet plane rigidly to the deck of a carrier. In the event of an attack, palettes would rapidly swarm under parked planes, turn them to align axially with the direction of approaching threat and fire up their engines.

Given the massive power output of a deckload of jets, this would cause the vessel to roll severely. Firing of the engines several times in synchrony with the roll rate would produce waves of huge amplitude -big enough to sink or deflect many forms of near-surface attack.

#1250: n-ike

If we can have bikes and trikes then why not an n-wheeled vehicle called a n-ike? (just waiting for the ‘cease and desist’ letter from the world of humourless chinese trainer manufacturers).

Today’s invention is a simple way to make a bicycle frame using wheels. Two would be used to hold the rear axle and the seat. One more would be clamped between these to hold the drive sprocket. A fourth would be clamped to this one to hold the steering yolk.

With the two on the road that makes six wheels in total. This arrangement offers lightness, ease of manufacture, a way to reuse old wheels and the possibility of personalising the riding geometry by changing the clamping positions.

#1243: BaggageBand

I was recently intrigued by a movie of someone breaking into a locked, zippered suitcase with only a ballpoint pen.

There are numerous ways in which baggage could be made to resist such (casual) attack. Today’s invention is one such approach.

A case would be made of tough, flexible plastic (one or both sides could be made transparent, to lessen the need for a full search before eg boarding a plane).

The top half is pushed down on top of the bottom section until the chamfered lugs (I love that engineering talk) engage with the holes in the lower part, as shown.

Then, a steel belt (like a carpenter’s tape measure) is threaded through the lugs and secured by a padlock (not shown).

This is pretty inexpensive and makes it almost impossible for anyone to access the contents quickly and without using tools to inflict serious damage.

#1233: RampAmps

I share my surname with the designer of the Titannic, so watching the launch of big ships has a special fascination for me.

Today’s invention is a way to retrieve some of the massive amounts of potential energy stored in a ship under construction on a slipway.

Ships, when the bottle breaks on their bows, currently have to slowed down by various means, including drag chains, in order not to knife across the dock channel and run aground.

Instead, I’d suggest holding the ship in place with chains which are wound around an onshore axle. As the ship descends, the chains turn a giant flywheel attached to a generator. In this way, not only is the ship’s launch more controlled, but some of the energy can be converted to eg light the yard or power its machinery.

#1231: Incendascent

Glider pilots won’t hear tell of carrying any kind of motor aboard their craft which might be used to save them in an emergency (a parachute is just about acceptable among engineless aviators).

I talked yesterday to a gliding enthusiast and she mentioned that when trying to find a landing site, she will routinely seek out any sources of warmth on the ground, as even the sun-warmed wall of a hut can provide a lifesaving updraught.

Today’s invention is a magazine of high intensity flares which are dropped on the ground when a glider pilot runs out of lift sources and landing sites.

The pilot flies in a circle and and drops the flares at intervals. These have a brightly coloured casing and when returned to the owner, provide the retriever with a payment. They have an insulated base so that heat can escape only upwards.

On a second circuit, this time over the flares, the glider picks up enough altitude to hedgehop home.

#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).