Friday, May 2, 2014

Ideas and Things



In my life I have had a lot of good ideas.  Many years ago, long before the days of ScentLok and those companies, I was doing an experiment in the lab.  One of my friends, a colleague, named Wojtek, was walking on a treadmill sweating for 4 hours.  As he walked, the rubber boots he was wearing wore out and began leaking sweat.  Yep, it was just that hot.

Once that rubber barrier was breached, the odor was horrific.  What struck me most was that BEFORE that point, we hadn't smelled at thing. I realized at that moment that the activated charcoal that composed the US Air Force chemical defense suit Wojtek was wearing was absorbing all the odor. 

Who cares?

Deer hunters care.  Deer are best able to detect hunters because we humans stink.  Wearing charcoal is a way to defeat the deer's sensitive nose, and this has become a multi-million dollar business.

How much money did I make from my discovery?  Guess.

I also invented, rather than discovered, a wearable ice cooling and drinking vest.  In industry, keeping cool in very hot situations is an issue of safety as well as productivity.  One way of doing this is to use ice vests that melt and cool.  However, wearing a vest full of melted water means lugging around a lot of extra weight.  I had a prototype built of a vest that you could drink.  Cooling plus drink!  When we began researching to file a patent, low and behold, these have been invented already.

There are other ideas that haven't gone anywhere, but there's still another idea.  Take a look and see if you can figure out what this is, and what the most recent idea is.




Anyone recognize this, or have any idea what we are in the process of creating?

Sorry, I can't tell you what it is... just in case it works and hasn't been invented already.


1 comment:

  1. I'll guess a treadmill that adjust speed based on heartrate or target heartrate settings.

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