Inventor's thread sparked my thoughts for this topic.

When I was eight years old I would sit in my room and draw and paint and dream about castles, um, ponies....ect, for hours and hours. I would also think up invention ideas. Most of them I discarded, but one day I drew a roller skate (loved rollerskating) with a line of wheels in a row, rather than four rollers in rows of two, like the ones I played with. That drawing I kept.

I decided that when I grew up, I would make a roll of wheels to emulate ice skates, rather than the current rollerskates I had (I lived in Florida and it annoyed me that I couldn't ice skate). Rollerblades came to fruition a few years later...they came out when I was about 13 or fourteen, before I could "invent" those things in the drawing I had kept.

Since then, I thought up another idea. Brainstorm! Take the sort of device they use to find cars in the parking lot, but attach it to a pin on the child's clothing, and have it play music. That way, if you lose track of your child at a theme park or something, you can find him easily with this musical tracking device. Invented a couple of months after I thought of the idea.

Has anyone else here come up with an idea that would/should have/has "made it"?

When in college working on my MBA, we had to do a case study for a company--these were randomly assigned to each group. Our team had Hefty--maker of trash bags. We came up with several ideas for new products they could come out with.... bags with holes cut in them to use as parkas at stadiums (which is what most students did anyway), different colors, and scented bags. Hefty came out with each of our ideas within a few months.

I don't think any of them are in current production, though. . Which just goes to show how fleeting a business opportunity can be.

Finally someone invented something actually useful:

Warm to icy beer in seconds

Can someone get this guy the Nobel Prize please?'

I am not very creative when it comes to new inventions. I usually just think of something that has already been invented. But I don't know...more things should be wireless. In fact, everything should be wireless. I want to live in a wireless world. Its up to the inventors to make that happen.

how about a dance club for deaf people? They could save money, by only putting refreshments and flashing lights.

I've done this sort of thing a few times....

Me: Wait, wait, wait... you get this daily number on this printer and then you input it into this computer? That's what you need me to do everyday?
Them: Yes. We do that everyday at 3PM.
Me: That's dumb. If you can get that number to this printer I can get it to this computer.
*time passes*
Me: Damn! I made myself obsolete again.

***

then there was the time I invented fuel injection... How was I supposed to know the idea already existed?

Me: I dunno, this carburetor thingy seems pretty fragile and pointless. What if you used jets to just shoot the gas in there and air too?
Them: You mean like a fuel injector?
Me: *lightbulb* That's a really good name for it. */lightbulb*
Them: Yeah... you do know it already exists, right?
Me: Oh... um... yeah totally. I was just trying to think up a cool name.
Them: Like fuel injector?
Me: Uh, yeah.

As silly as this sounds on the surface, consider perhaps a "silent bass" club, with with lights and bass pulsing through the floors, but with a minimum of actual audible sound. It might be a tricky engineering prospect, but I'll bet it could be done. People could talk, or bring their own music to dance to.

I had "gourmet ketchup" with various spices and flavors. That was out a few years back.

Also, and I haven't seen this yet, so remember me future millonaires, I had a sex toy idea that would connect to your PC via USB (via your junk), and then you could "interact" with people through chat rooms, allowing them to control the device remotely.

Maybe I'm strange.

and slightly creepy

but on the Club idea... I came up with a friend of mine a Club/Laundromat idea a few years back. He's got 4 of them now. Do your delicates and hook up. Then maybe your junk won't have to be hooked up to anything with any voltage.

I kind of wish I had more technical background to invent something, heck it might make me a richer man.

For inventions, I think society needs products that are built to last longer and not merely end up in landfills if some small part breaks. And for those wishing to boycott China and other countries that are taking American factory jobs, I think good inventions would be low-cost tools that would allow Americans to build different kinds of widgets with their own hands.

Just imagine if it were possible to make steel or do metal working without having smokestacks and large furnaces. Or if it were possible to build cars with handtools like screwdrivers and hammers. Small cheap tools that would let people build things for themselves would be a nice invention indeed.

It is possible to build cars with handtools...but they are very small.

Actually, my father-in-law has a machine that allows him to build his own tools. I guess they sell such things. He couldn't find the right sorts of tools he needed for his construction/electrician/plumbing/mechanics work so he made some of his own widgets to do those jobs. Never had 'em patented though....

Maybe I should have hooked up with your father-in-law, Mrs P. I'm actually currently working with a machining company out here to make a series of attachments for a home garden roto-tiller. I bought one a few years ago to put in a garden here at the house and while it worked pretty well, I kept thinking, "Gee, if I had an attachment that could do this or that...." So, I talked with a friend of mine who owns a small machining company and he told me, "If you can design it, we can build it" and so we went into business together. Five attachments so far, five patents pending and one roto-tiller company really interested in talking with us.

Not to mention a really cool garden!


Aquilla

One of my favorite baseball players was fellow Texan Nolan Ryan. In his prime his fastball probably topped 100 mph and it stayed in the mid to upper 90's until the end of his career. He also had a curve that came at the batter and then broke over the plate and down. In his later career he developed a change-up pitch called the circle change. From news reports, Ryan threw all three pitches with the same motion.

I have often wished I could build a simulator that would allow people to experience what it was like batting against Ryan. Kids particularly would love it.

'

Hmm...I didn't think anyone would take this one seriously. I thought it was right up there with the waterproof tea-bag. Ah well, innovation breaks all expectations.



I believe it is known as a video game. Children immerse themselves in a virtual world, and bat-off against real, or fictional characters, alive or dead. Unless, of course, you mean a full-immersion simulation, complete with motion-sensing bats, and whatnot. In that case, I suggest you move to Japan. Those geniuses are always doing something whimsical to integrate man and his technology.

I'm not a technical person, but what you describe here is what I had in mind.

Neither am I, but what the innovators are doing over there is enough to blow your mind. My personal favorite is something that came out a few months ago; the "hug suit". You wear one, and then you give one to a loved one, or spouse. Hug yourself, and a wireless communicator "transfers" that hug to the opposite suit, and vice-versa. Thus, you can feel snuggly-wuggly all day long.

Oh, I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.