by: Steve Gillman

A few more new invention ideas. Read about them, laugh at them if you must, modify them, use them and call them your own if you want.

Air conditioning shirt. Backpacking in hot weather, I often stop to wet my shirt in a stream. The evaporative cooling as it dries is wonderful. Now if a shirt had little water "tanks" on the shoulders, a shirt could be kept wet and keep cooling for hours, perhaps. They would have to be lightweight, and they would have to release the water slowly. Even better would be tanks with an adjustable rate of flow, so you could have the shirt wetted at the same rate is was drying.

Motorskimobile. This is a motorcycle for snow. It would run on a track like a snowmobile, but it would be a different kind of ride. The user would be sitting higher, just like on a motorcycle, and would be able to maneuver tighter turns. It could also go down narrow trails more easily.

Wave power generators. As kids, we roped, chained and tried everything we could think of to keep our raft anchored. When the waves came, though, even the chains broke. Why not use this lifting power of the waves to run a generator? The whole unit would be anchored to the bottom of the lake, or ocean. A float would move up and down with the waves, lifting and dropping a plunger that turns a generator with each movement. Additional units could be easily added to a collection, and the resulting electricity wired to shore.

Caskets for possessions. A novelty invention, the idea here is to have something to bury your favorite possessions in when they are broken or otherwise "dead."

A wall that changes colors. You have probably seen those billboards that use three-sided rotating panels to instantly change the picture on the sign. There are three possible views, of course. The new idea here is to apply this invention to walls for homes. When you get bored with the color of the wall, you push a button and it changes to another color, or a mural, or whichever of the three choices you set it up with.

Paintings that change. This is the same concept as the above invention. It's just scaled down to a frame that can display any of three prints with the push of a button.

Disposable picnic backpacks. They are plastic, strong enough for a few days use, and come with the snacks and bottle water already in them. Buy one for each of the kids before you hit the hiking trail.

Chip dip tubes. No more messy bowls of stale, drying chip dip with broken chips in it. Instead, you just apply the dip from a toothpaste-like tube, directly onto the chip. You get exactly the right amount, with less mess. They could be sold in six packs, so everyone can have their own tube. Hmm... What else can be put in tubes? What size should the tubes be? Here's a concept ripe for some new invention ideas.