Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Invention Idea #101 - from archives

My good friend just taught me the word "blog." Ever since he taught me that word, I've been hearing it everywhere I go. It's amazing what an increased vocabulary can do. By the way, I just wanted to mention another invention idea I have. Hopefully you all can keep this on the downlow. Once you hear about this, you might want to stop all your social network sites and start looking more in this direction. It all started in Redding, CA where the summer days can hit the high 110s and hover just below 100 degrees at night. I would stifle for hours on my bed at night wondering how I could ever survive the heat. I would pretend I had really cold things on my face to make me feel better and help me go to sleep. The night of my epiphany occurred when I acted out on my nightly mental wandering. I grabbed three blue ice pockets you put in your cooler for road trips and set them on my pillow. I learned quickly that an insulating layer is required after feeling the "burn" of the ice. That is when I put them under the pillow and slept like a babe for the next 90 nights. It was awesome.

Now is the time to bring you in on the greatest of all secrets. I have a way to fight the evil Power Company's monopoly on our lives. It is this: Use ice to take the place of the air conditioning at night. You ask how? Let me tell you. They are called Ice Blankets. What you have is a sheet of ice cells that kind of looks like big bubble wrap. You can roll them up and stick them in the freezer (when the evil Power Company has lower rates - between 9:00AM and 12:00PM). At night you simply slip the ice sheet into my soon-to-be patented Ice Shell. The Ice Shell consists of a reflective top and insulating bottom. The top is nothing more than a very thin porous polyester sheet with a fused aluminum coating (like your typical space blanket, except with pores). The bottom of the blanket (the part sitting against your person) is a wafer-thin thermal acoustical insulation blanket that prevents frost bite, but still lets the right amount of body heat through. Let the ice cubes eat up all the thermal energy you can muster, while blocking heat from the room. Keep your thermostat at 90! After you get funding for this one, I'm moving on to Ice Pajamas.

Here is what the competition is doing!














Great idea except that is so cold it could give you frost bite.

2 comments:

LegoBoyEthan said...

Some tips on your invention:
1. Whatever you use for the top material, avoid any solid film that goes "crinkle, crinkle, crinkle" with every movement --that's a really annoying part of those space blankets.
2. Focus on keeping it lightweight, as most people don't want something heavy bearing down on them will trying to get comfortable. You could probably keep the quantity of freezing gel down to a minimum, as most bedrooms will cool a bit through the night.
An additional idea might be to have a small grid of flexible cable running throughout the inside of the blanket, all leading to a thickened area at the bottom (past the toes), where a larger reservoir of ice gel could absorb excess heat without making the overall blanket too heavy?
--Kelton, again

Jason said...

Good points, LegoBoyEthan! It has been really cold lately so I haven't thought much about this but trust me, when it heats up again, I'll be dreaming of the ice blanket again!