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New Inventions Featured at the BIS

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the build-a-better...-oh,-okay dept.

kjh1 writes "BBC News is running an article covering the British Invention Show (BIS) and some of the (quite useful) inventions that will be on display there this year."

2 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Not so sure about the inventions... by jd · · Score: 4, Informative
    ...but Professor Heinz Wolff is absolutely phenominal.


    One of his more entertaining ideas was "The Great Egg Race". Build a machine out of ordinary household junk. Any household junk you like. The only requirements are that it be able to carry a raw egg across a course without damaging or breaking the egg, and to do so in the least possible time. The only motive power allowed was a tiny elastic band.


    The idea was simple, ingenious, and triggered several fairly successful (yet geeky) competitive tech shows and inspired The Power Game - a national contest between schools along similar lines.


    (The first "Power Game" was a simple variation of the Egg Race, involving dropping coins along a race track at specific points. Missing the target was penalized heavily. The following year, competitors were asked to build near-frictionless mobile platforms that could carry a person over the longest possible distance around a complex course. Oh, and the platform had to be made of cardboard.)


    To be honest, it matters little if the BIS, any geek television show, or any techie contest, ever shows anything much. What matters is whether they inspire people to come up with things that maybe are useful. Nobody could accuse the entrants of, say, the Great Egg Race or the Micromouse Championships of producing something fundamentally worthwhile. At the same time, I'm willing to bet that many more of those people who have built things that are useful have been inspired by demonstrations of how to do a great deal with very little, than those who are fed a diet of "nobody could do that, it's too complicated!" or "only big corporations can invent!"

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  2. Every "invention" listed already exists by Animats · · Score: 4, Informative
    Which is about typical for "invention shows". I went to the British one in 2002, when it was at the Barbican in London. The people who exhibit there have no clue how to check for prior art.

    The "expandable airport walkway" is found at smaller airports today. Santa Barbara, California, has several.

    Tilting-ramp mousetraps have been around for years and are quite effective.

    Retractable parking posts are widely used. Most are solid (there's now a big "security" market for the things) but there are lightweight ones that can be driven over.

    Everything else listed has been found by someone else, so I won't rehash that.