When thinking about the world’s biggest inventions, examples such as the airplane, the Internet, or VR come to mind. But, apart from these game-changing technologies, there are thousands of other smaller examples that make the world a better place. By changing at least one tiny detail about how we use everyday objects, these fantastic inventions show that design-oriented thinking can have a positive impact and make modern life a little easier. Whether you’re a designer yourself and you’re looking for invention ideas, or you’re just a curious mind, these amazing contemporary inventions will definitely inspire you.
Hello Sense: the
easy to use sleep tracker
Sleep trackers are a
great invention, but not everyone feels comfortable going to bed wearing a band
on their wrist. This is what the designers of Hello Sense wanted to change.
This alarm clock/sleep tracker hybrid has a versatile, minimal design and can
be placed on your bedside table, where it will collect data about your sleeping
environment, such as noise, humidity, and brightness. It also comes with a
sensor that attaches to your pillow and gets information about your sleeping
patterns. When it senses that your sleeping habits or room ambiance are
suboptimal, Sense will send you a notification and sets the alarm so that you
can wake up well-rested naturally.
AddWash: add extra
load in your washing machine after the cycle starts
Don’t you just hate it
when you turn on the washing machine and one minute later discover that you
forgot to add a T-shirt? Normally, you’d simply throw that T-shirt at the
bottom of the laundry basket, where it will spend the next seven days waiting
for the next laundry day, but not with AddWash. This ingenious invention from
Samsung comes as an additional door that you can attach to your washing
machine, and you’ll be able to add extra load without interrupting the washing
cycle.
Nike HyperAdapt
1.0: the shoe that adapts to your foot
The futuristic shoes from
Back to the Future II are here! It took until 2016, but Nike managed to bring
the design to life. The shoes, called HyperAdapt 1.0, have special sensors that
detect the foot’s pressure, adapt to its shape, and tighten themselves for
optimal comfort. The shoes went on sale in the US and are especially popular
among athletes because they reduce distraction and provide a perfect customized
fit. The design was also received with enthusiasm by the disabled community,
who appreciated the ease of use and ergonomic design.
Cyclee: making the
roads safer for bike riders
Designed in Azerbaijan,
Cyclee is an innovative wearable sign projector that boosts biker rider safety
at night. Depending on the rider’s actions, Cyclee projects illuminated signs
on their back, such as stop or signaling. This way, other participants to the
traffic know their intentions, which reduces the risk of accidents.
Portable shelters
by the Ikea Foundation
The problem of
homelessness in underdeveloped and war-torn areas is complicated, but Ikea
designers offered a clever and affordable solution: portable shelters. Designed
as a safer alternative to tents, these shelters have 17.5 square meters each
and can be repurposed or combined to meet various housing requirements,
depending on geography and weather conditions.
The man who has created 100+ pointless inventions. What happened when one entrepreneur decided to share all of his crazy, rejected invention product ideas with the world. BY ZACHARY CROCKETT
At first glance, Matty Benedetto’s workshop in Burlington, Vermont is the typical inventor’s lair.Buckets of screws, springs, nuts, and bolts line the shipping-container-sized room. In one corner, there are 5 3D printers and a Glowforge laser cutter; in another, an assortment of spray paint cans and filaments.But the creations that line his shelves tell a different story. On Benedetto’s self-described “wall of unnecessary,” you’ll find a world of whimsy: Pants with transparent pockets that are designed to hold slices of pizza; a mini-bed for an iPhone; a solar-powered t-shirt; gloves fashioned to look like Crocs. Any serious entrepreneur knows that you shouldn’t create solutions to problems that don’t exist. But Benedetto has made a full-time living out of doing just that. Benedetto’s inventions are partly a critique of modern capitalism. But they’re also a call to action — a reminder that we should all put our ideas out into the world, no matter how zany they may be.A 14-year-old businessman Benedetto got his start as an entrepreneur back in 2004, at the ripe age of 14. A self-proclaimed winter sports nut, the New Yorker spent much of his free time on the popular ski forum, Newschoolers, where some posters formed a “crotchet cult” and encouraged each other to make their own ski wear.With some mom-assisted training, Benedetto started crocheting beanies for his friends. Soon, he was getting so many requests that he decided to launch his own business.
Matty Benedetto sporting some of his early ski wear (Ida Benedetto)
At 15, he gathered up his savings from a summer lifeguard job, formed an LLC, and built a website. Using Alibaba, he formed a manufacturing partnership overseas and began outsourcing his beanie production to China.“I remember rolling up to the seaport to pick up my first order,” he says. “It was just me and my mom in an SUV, surrounded by all these massive shipping containers and corporate trucks. We barely fit everything in the car.”Benedetto grew the company into a premier ski brand, which he ran out of his dorm room while studying marketing at Saint Michael’s College in Vermont.When sales eventually flatlined, he pivoted the company into a tech accessory brand. Capitalizing on his textile connections, he was one of the first retailers to market and sell those now-ubiquitous colorful woven iPhone cables.But in February of 2019, with his suppliers virtually shut down for Chinese New Year’s, the beanie bro began to ruminate on old discarded ideas.“Along my journey as an entrepreneur, I’d had all these completely crazy, out-there ideas I’d written down in the notes app on my phone — products that served no purpose whatsoever, and were so dumb that I’d never dared to make them,” he says. “But I figured, ‘Why not just put them out there?’”The useless invention influencerThe products on Benedetto’s list shared a theme: They solved non-existent problems.He started off with a pair of chopsticks that snap onto the bottom of Apple Airpods.Benedetto bought a 3D printer, taught himself how to use Fusion 360 (a 3D design program), and had the final product printed out in a few days. He posted his invention to Reddit, with the caption, “I like to design products for fun that no one is asking for.”Miraculously, the post hit the front page of the social site and garnered 54k upvotes.
Benedetto’s AirSticks — the first of many pointless inventions (Matty Benedetto)
Benedetto acted quickly on his front-page fame. Under the moniker Unnecessary Inventions, he launched a website, an Instagram, and a YouTube account and began building as many as 7 new inventions each week.More than a year later, Benedetto has cranked out 187 “unnecessary” inventions. Among his hits:The Hoverbrella: A mini umbrella attachment for a drone.The FurRoller: A device that covers your clothes with fake animal hair so you can pose as a dog owner/lover.The Sobbing Spectacles: A pair of glasses with built-in sponges to collect tears. The FingerBeanies: A set of mini beanies that cover just your fingertips.Avocado on a Stick: A more efficient way for millennials to make avocado toast.The Century Charger: A 100-foot iPhone cable.The Cuisine Curtain: A cloth that attaches to your nose and covers your mouth, allowing you to “eat in privacy.”StubStoppers: A pair of mini hardhats that protect your toes. The Kazuul: A vape pen that doubles as a kazoo.SuperSolar Shirt: A t-shirt with a built-in charging solar panel.Chip-Xractor: A suction device that retrieves the last chip from a Pringles can.The Mixer Mask: A face mask that doubles as a beer receptacle.A belt buckle that doubles as a bubble wrap popper. His process is quick and cheap: The typical invention costs around $5-$20 in 3D printer filament and takes anywhere from a few hours to a few days to produce. Once it’s done, he takes it out for a spin in public to make sure it’s functional.“I’m not an engineer,” he says. “I really just kind of hack it together. Sometimes, I have to stand still while taking a photo, or the whole thing will fall apart.”This small investment has landed him viral internet fame, guest appearances on talk shows, and more than 2m followers across his social channels. One invention — a pair of gloves fashioned to look like a pair of Crocs — even earned him a cease and desist letter. (He later had to change the name from “Croc Gloves” to “Gator Gloves.”)
Benedetto proudly displays a cease and desist letter he received from Crocs (Matty Benedetto)
On a typical day, he’s up at 5:30am and in his mad scientist lab by 8. He’ll spend the day mocking up designs, printing out plastic parts, and photographing the final inventions with a makeshift camera setup.When I called him on a recent Tuesday afternoon, he was working on his latest project: An attachment that allows you to use your shoe as a cupholder while sitting cross-legged. A few days later, it had 26k likes on Instagram.How does he come up with such ridiculous ideas?“These inventions are all I ever think about,” he says. “It could be the smallest little thing that happens in my daily life — walking down the street and seeing someone do something a very particular way. A lot of it is just observing human behavior.”The key, he says, is to find some tiny issue that people can relate to — something so insignificant that it doesn’t warrant any kind of innovation — and iterate an extremely overwrought solution.
An array of Benedetto’s inventions (Matty Benedetto)
A crucial aspect of Benedetto’s inventions is that they’re typically not for sale. He makes a full-time living primarily through brand partnerships with the likes of Call of Duty, DoorDash, and the Almond Board of California, who pay him to create custom unnecessary inventions. Recently, Bud Light requested an iPhone case with a fold-out cup holder.He says 2 of these deals per month comfortably make up a full-time living.“I’m more like a marketing studio than an influencer,” he says. “I make a standalone campaign around one specific item, rather than smiling with some gummy bears that make your hair grow.”He’s only recently experimented with parlaying one of his inventions — a coffee table that doubles as a jigsaw puzzle — into a sellable product. A Kickstarter for the project has raised nearly $100k so far, 10x his initial goal.“The key to this whole thing is just having fun and remembering it’s all a big joke,” he says. “But at the end of the day, I still have to take it seriously enough to pay my bills.”The art of chindōguWhile Benedetto introduced unnecessary inventions to a young, digital-savvy audience, he didn’t pioneer the concept. That distinction goes to one Kenji Kawakami.Back in the early 1990s, Kawakami was the editor of a Japanese home shopping magazine called Mail Order Life, a Sharper Image-esque catalog that marketed expensive gadgets to suburban housewives.In the blank back pages of the publication, Kawakami would jokingly include his own useless creations, which he dubbed “chindōgu” (roughly “weird tool” in English).The inventions — which included the likes of a solar-powered flashlight, a zen kitty litter box, and a precursor to the selfie stick — gained a cult following in Japan. With the help of an American journalist, Kawakami launched the International Chindōgu Society and spread the gospel of useless inventions across the world.
Kenji Kawakami demonstrates two of his inventions: A “Hayfever Hat” that dispenses toilet paper, and an alarm clock designed to keep users awake. (Photo by YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP via Getty Images)
Kawakami, who was a radical student protester in the 1970s, has said that Chindōgu is a rebellion against the tyranny of consumerism. “I despise materialism and how everything is turned into a commodity,” he once told a reporter.Over the years, he refused to capitalize on the success of Chindōgu, donating proceeds from books to charity. Profit was counter to his vision.Benedetto’s iteration of the concept isn’t as anarchist — but it’s still at least partially a critique of the stuff that clogs the arteries of the modern e-commerce landscape.“When people see my stuff pop up in their Instagram feeds, they often think they’re ads for real products,” he says. “But what I’m really doing is making fun of all the stupid products that actually exist — the type of stuff you see for sale on Wish.com and wonder, ‘Who pays money for this crap?’”But Benedetto also hopes that Unnecessary Inventions can serve as a call to action for gun-shy entrepreneurs.“None of this would’ve happened if I didn’t just put it out there,” he says. “Just start something and share it with the world. Trust me: Nothing is too stupid.”
A post-COVID-19 world may look very different thanks to the need to avoid unnecessary physical contact and mass gatherings. Coronavirus has sparked a rise in creative, weird and wonderful inventions to help us adjust to the ‘new normal’.
As we emerge from the pandemic, we face many new and unfamiliar issues. Finding reliable ways of keeping our distance from others, and ways of preventing the spread of germs will be important. From the highly useful to the bizarre, Blooloop has collected up some of the COVID-19 innovations that we’ve seen so far.
Top 7 coronavirus-inspired innovations
1. Lidl helps shoppers find quietest times
Budget supermarket Lidl is offering its customers in Ireland the chance to find a quieter time to shop, thanks to its new online chatbot. Customers simply send a message to Lidl through WhatsApp and the chatbot will reply with some useful insights.
“Just send a message with the day and time you intend to visit and it’ll instantly let you know whether that’s a Quieter/Average/Busier time to visit,” said the shop in a post on its LinkedIn page. “We’ve analyzed our shopper behavior over the past couple of weeks to find the quietest time to head into store.
“This innovative approach uses real-time data and customer transaction numbers to determine which hours of the day are quietest to visit and which are busiest, allowing for customers to plan their shopping trips accordingly.”
2. Keeping socially distant…with pool noodles!
This is one COVID-19 innovation that is sure to turn heads. Customers at the popular Cafe & Konditorei Rothe in Schwerin, Germany, were pictured last month wearing hats with pool noodles attached to them.
The cafe went viral on Twitter after pictures emerged of customers enjoying the sun at pavement tables with the colourful new headwear. These long foam water toys make it difficult for customers to get within six feet of each other.
However, it later turned out that the funny hats were the idea of German broadcaster RTL, who wanted to see how people reacted when asked to put them on by the cafe owner. While Germany has one of the lowest death tolls in Europe, under 9000, this shows that efforts to maintain social distancing are still underway…with sometimes amusing results.
3. Virtual holidays on Animal Crossing
Creative Agency BBH has come up with a way for guests to visit Singapore’s Sentosa Island virtually, using the popular Nintendo game Animal Crossing. The ‘Sentosa Crossing’ branded virtual experience allows people to experience the holiday destination while staying safe in their own homes. It includes landmarks and attractions from the island.
“Through our virtual offerings, we would like to encourage everyone to make time for an “island getaway” during these challenging times, as a break is important for one’s mental wellbeing”, said Lynette Ang, Chief Marketing Officer, Sentosa Development Corporation
The digital replica of Sentosa Island features specific details, landmarks and attractions. Visitors’ avatars can enjoy beach yoga, music festivals and beach bars. They can also go on nature trails and more as they explore the island.
4. PPE on the go
The availability of personal protective equipment has been making headlines throughout the pandemic. Now, Selecta, a provider of vending solutions, has come up with a new COVID-19 innovation to help people get their hands on these items.
The company’s new ‘Safety Stations’ are vending machines designed to supply essentials such as face mask and sanitiser. Zurich Airport in Switzerland and Brussels train station in Belgium are among the first venues to offer the machines. This enables travellers to access the materials that they may need to feel safe on their journey.
Managing Director of Selecta Belgium, Tim Goossens said: “As our economy is slowly restarting, it is important to us that we’re able to respond our customers’ changing needs. These products and services enable us to do that.
“The Safety Station is a great example, allowing consumers to access necessary equipment 24/7 in an easy and safe way. We are delighted to be able to support our clients and partners this way during these challenging times.”
5. Enjoying concerts at a distance
When the COVID-19 lockdowns first began around the world, several events such as concerts went virtual. But now that regulations are being relaxed in some areas, what happens when fans want a real-life experience without the crowds?
The answer that seems to be popping up around the world is drive-in concerts. Audience members simply turn up to the gig in their cars and park in rows. Then they tune in to their FM radio where the music is broadcast through a limited frequency. Instead of cheering and clapping, audiences have been encouraged to beep their horns in support.
One of the first big musicians to hold such a concert was Keith Urban. He held a secret drive-in concert near Nashville, USA, last month to thank healthcare workers. Urban spoke about the concept in an interview with Billboard: “The connections between all of us is the one thing we can maintain through this. We may do it a different way, but we can absolutely maintain a sense of connection.”
One restaurant in Maryland, USA, has introduced a fun new coronavirus invention. This is designed to help its customers maintain appropriate distances from each other. Fish Tales Bar & Grill in Ocean City is now using ‘bumper tables’, which use a large inner tube to keep diners apart.
The custom-built bumper tables are on wheels. This means they can be used by customers to enjoy food and drink as they socialise in the car park or bar area.
Owners Shawn and Donna Harman spoke to CNN about the innovative idea. “I mean, it’s a novelty, it’s cool. It’s a great photo opportunity for them,” said Shawn. “If you put the two tables together, you can’t get within 6 feet of each other — and it’s fun,” added Donna.
7. Taking distancing cues from the carpet
Global floorcovering company Milliken has also come up with a COVID-19 innovation: carpet tiles that aid social distancing. Its new Social Factor carpet tiles are designed to help people to maintain physical distancing while at work.
Image courtesy of Milliken
The tiles include eyecatching graphics such as arrows and footprints. These can assist businesses in keeping to social distancing guidelines and directing the way that people move around their venues.
“Social Factor brings safety messages to life with lively and imaginative design treatments created to promote a spirit of positivity and commitment to a safe and healthy workplace,” says the Milliken website. “Employees will demand a safe workplace. They felt secure and protected in their homes, they will want to feel equally safe when they return to the workplace.”
And finally…
Many attractions have also been grappling with the issue of face masks. There are many considerations to take into account. For example, should be compulsory? And if so, what should guests do when they need to eat or drink?
This was featured on Blooloop from author Charlotte Coates
More than 120,000 K-12 inventors from across the country competed, including 4,500 in Ohio as seen on 10TV
Author: Angela AnPublished: 7:01 AM EDT July 20, 2
COLUMBUS, Ohio — If you ever had an idea and thought it would make a great invention, meet five central Ohio kids who did just that. The annual U.S. Nationals Invention Convention held its awards ceremony on July 2nd. More than 120,000 K-12 inventors from across the country competed, including 4,500 in Ohio.
“Certainly, for our inventors, they are using those STEM skills they learn in school,” says Abby Fisher of the Ohio Invention League, who also goes by the nickname “Professor Prototype.”
“But they’re also activating social awareness,” Fisher added. “Their compassion and empathy and solving problems for the betterment and that is such a beautiful union of an application of those skills.”
Every day this week on 10 This Morning, you will meet some of the kids from the Ohio Invention League who wowed judges with their ideas.
“Our kids are really looking at the world saying how can we make it a better place, how can I help people.”
MONDAY:
Sam Owsley is a rising 3rd grader from Hilliard. He won 1st place in his grade category for the invention Sam’s Handy Handle Helper. It’s a device that allows you to turn on and off your outside faucet from a distance so that you do not need to lean through the bushes.
Credit: WBNSSam Owsley of Hilliard invented the Handy Handle Helper
“Every time I wanted to turn on my faucet, I got scraped by the bushes,” he said to 10TV morning news anchor Angela An. “They were in the way and I began to kill them so I didn’t want to. So I invented the Handy Handle Helper.”
Sam admits he had to try a few prototypes until he could get it right. His invention is now on its way to a patent and he hopes to sell The Handy Handle Helper in stores for $30.
TUESDAY:
Kristina Ma is also a 1st place winner in her grade category for a new app game she invented to help children with autism reach their full potential.
“It teaches social, emotional, and communication skills in order to make more friends,” she says of the game called SociEmoti, which also won Ma the Industry Award for Education.
The rising 8th grader at Worthington’s McCord Middle School developed after attending the birthday party of a family friend who has autism. But there was only one friend at the party.
“So, I did a survey and found out that children with autism struggle to make friends because they have trouble communicating and not being able to read facial expressions so I wanted to create an app to help them with that,” Ma explains.
The game has 3 multiple choice options that match color to facial expressions and emotions to improve recognition and uses dialogue between characters to teach communication skills.
“It was really cool to think he was my inspiration, that I created something that will not only help him but other children with autism in the United State or worldwide eventually,” she said with a smile.
