Throughout my life, I have had a passion for inventing. That’s the good news. The bad news is I suck at engineering and manufacturing, so most of my brilliant ideas continue to swim around in my mind and not in the real world.
Others have found their way into reality. In a world of “only ifs,” I probably could have been wealthy right now. Or at least got credit for something others brought to market.
Case in point: Skydiving Tunnels. There’s one of these in Orlando and now one in Tukwila, just south of Seattle. Basically, it’s a wind tunnel turned on its end, allowing customers to experience the thrill of freefall with no need for an airplane ride or a parachute that may or may not open.
I thought this up when I was 16. And no, this is not a mostly true. I was hanging around the Issaquah Parachute Center back then and in the dreary skies of Seattle, skydivers often had to wait weeks for a chance to go skydiving. I was a big airplane geek as well, so I knew all about wind tunnels and how they worked. So I put the two ideas together and even drew a mockup of what it would look like.
Fast forward to today and there it is, my concept in working order. Of course, at 16, I had no idea how to turn this into reality or how to get funding or anything. I guess I was just ahead of my time.
I also built a working model of a human powered gyrocopter back then. It seemed so simple to me. All the machinations worked perfectly in model form, but for some reason my mother refused to send me to welding class at 14 so that I could build it in the backyard. We may never know if it would actually work. Thanks mom!
I also came up with an idea for a perpetual motion power generator that I am sure will really work. It uses train cars, batteries and a track. It cheats the idea of perpetual motion ever so slightly, only in that the train initially needs to be diesel powered to do its stuff, then suck energy from batteries which also generate additional power that can be used elsewhere.
During the disco craze I came up with the idea of putting lights in the bottom of shoes. Sure, kids have these today. But my idea would use a built in microphone that would sense the beat of the music and turn it into lit multicolored signals in the shoes, creating your own disco dance floor anywhere you were.
I actually made a working model of that idea, but then the disco craze faded out and I never made the jump to the idea of kids wear. As I said, always a day late and a dollar short.
I still have a working model of another invention. It is a parachute, much like the winged chutes you see skydivers with today. I added a pair of flaps to the back, like an airplane has, which should give the chute tremendous maneuverability without having to ever worry about stalling it out, which can increase its sink rate. It’s still in the “to do” pile as I haven’t actually tested it. If you hear about some guy jumping off his roof and dying, just figure that I finally got around to trying it out.
The reason it’s in the “to do” pile is that I always seem to have more ideas on my plate than time. I have a terrific idea for a personal sound device which would play theme music to go along with your life. Think of any soap opera or movie. Just before the big moment in the scene, there’s a little stinger of music that captures the mood of what’s going to happen.
So there you are – you are about to break up with your girlfriend. Rather than hit her stone cold with the news, you play the break up theme on your device so she knows it’s coming. There would be themes for every eventuality… I wrecked the car, I quit my job, I slept with your best friend, I am moving to another city, you name it. The entire spectrum of human emotions, each with its own musical snippet to set the stage. For instance, here’s one that is for when you have news you want to share: News. Or if you have something foreboding to say, try some Drama.
I still like that one. I know I could have used it many, many times in my life to soften the blow, even though I would be hard pressed to find just the right theme for “It’s over between us, I already packed my shit, I am sleeping with someone else and I want a divorce.” That one could be pretty hard to come up with. While it should be sympathetic and sad on the receiving end, I would want to pick something pretty triumphant and joyous.
Perhaps someday I will hit pay dirt. Increasingly, however, in our connected world, I seem keep thinking up things that already exist. Case in point. I was working on a client project yesterday and it dawned on me that one of the reasons we chow down our food so fast is because many of us hate eating cold food.
Aha! I think. What we all need is a heated plate. What a great idea! Well, it was and here it is – Heated Plate.
I just can’t seem to get a break here. Wait a minute! I got it! How about a daily humor column where I can rant and rave to my heart’s content. I’ll call it RaveandRantserrvations. Kind of catchy, eh?
In the Emerald City, thinking about what else I can come up with that someone else will make millions on,
– Robb