Entrepreneuring

by sophlightning305 on Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Hey everybody, on a more serious note than the $20 auction, does anybody have any ideas for entrepeneurship? There is something on the 15th at Northwestern University called Entrepreneur Idol where winner gets a 25k 10% investment to start up their idea...at UofI. So, if you come up with one, you will definitely be included in the project although possibly not in the presentation/pitch of the idea on the 15th. But we must also come up with well-rounded teams to show to the sponsors that their 10% commitment is worth it. So please just brainstorm and bounce ideas around. Here are a few of mine.

New Plane "Seats"-
Background:
Airplane seats are heavy, they give you not much leg room and they are terribly annoying to sleep in.
Invention:
A light weight board like structure that shapes itself to your body. It is vertical during the plane ride and you strap yourself in, so instead of sitting, you're standing but with not much weight on your legs. Instead, your weight will be supported by things both under your armpit and legs (need help on other ideas to support weight of standing/slightly reclined person). The "seats" or "stands" shall also be positioned back to back so that you have maximum room between you and the next person, although you will be looking at someone the whole ride. The extra people that can fit into the middle aisles mean that some of the sides can be left open. Here I propose things that will hold these stands horizontally, that are attached to the walls. Essentially, when you get tired, you will attach your board to the wall and climb up into your new bunk bed. Benefits are that you have more legroom during the ride and more comfy i think, because you won't feel really weak after your trip, and you can actually lay out in economy class.

Swimming Start Helper-
Background:
There are tens of thousands of swim teams all across the world. Add that up and there are easily a few million club (mostly pre-highschool), highschool and college swimmers along with the countless millions who swim recreationally. As a swim coach, the most time taking skill, yet a skill that is crucial for competitive swimming and just looking like you know how to swim...is the start. Learning to not belly-flop takes most swimmers about 3-4 years to develop and at least 100+ hours average. It also unfortunately often takes individual coaching to develop since most of the problems come from confidence and it is difficult to pause and think in the half second it takes to enter the water.
Invention:
So, I propose a pair of rails that will allow a person to be suspended (after they jump off the block) and moved forward (by ball bearings on the rail and a harness around the person) and into the water. The shape of the track guides the person through the path and feeling of a correct start. A biiig benefit is being able to feel the actual speed that a real start should feel like. Similar object can be created for divers who (if you add more friction) can go through their diving procedures in slow motion, and can learn the feel of their dives just by following of the track. (design idea thanks to jake)

Breathalyzer-Key (TAKEN ALREADY by SAAB)
Background:
No more drunk driving
Invention:
So basically, you have a key that's retracted in a little tube and cannot be used until you blow into the breathlyzer that's attached. So if you're drunk, your key will not be accessible.

Please criticize, comment and provide other creative ideas.

7 comments:

Comment by snakesaywhat on October 29, 2008 at 8:56 PM

1st idea
I think we've talked about this, great idea, but lots of engineering challenges that needs to be addressed.
2nd idea
Very good idea, but why not just have someone else blow your key and then drive home drunk? A better idea is too have sensors in the car, in the drivers position. Like sensors on the steering wheel or a camera to detect pupil dialation. I guess this system will not address that, but still a very good idea nevertheless.
I think we should make a small safe box to store the keys, this way we don't need to built it into the key directly, so old cars can have this too. This is actually not hard at all to build, at least I think it is doable.

 
Comment by sophlightning305 on October 29, 2008 at 9:56 PM

hmm, would you like to actually work with me on the engineering challenges jake? and anybody else who's interested obviously... open invitation :)

this second one...hm, i've thought about the other person blowing in, but you know, if that person's sober, why doesn't he/she just drive lol? also, the other person should understand the legal trouble he'd get into if he/she is found...aiding drunk driving. Oo and i do like the small safe idea, but then you would have to carry it around, otherwise you can't get into your car. Possibly the thing around the key is all encompassing...so like a safe, but smaller in concept? Because I feel like you're right about it being awesome to be built in the car...but that's long term =P.

 
Comment by sophlightning305 on October 29, 2008 at 9:56 PM

o and by engineering challenges i mean on the swimming one...and i totally agree with you jake on the comments about the backpack. Still thinking about how to revise it.

 
Comment by snakesaywhat on October 30, 2008 at 12:02 AM

So I was thinking about these new car key fobs that uses RF and RFID to start cars. It seems it would really easy to integrate into.... however with some digging I found that one already exists... Dam you Saab.
http://www.i4u.com/article2873.html

 
Comment by seoj on October 30, 2008 at 8:45 PM

hey about the new plane seats, I don't know if that will be very comfortable actually. If you're in the standing position there will always be pressure on your feet, and if the straps are supposed to alleviate that problem by suspending from the armpits and legs, I think those would cut off circulation and we'll have a lot of numb limbs :P

 
Comment by eohcnrk on October 31, 2008 at 10:14 AM

Well you never know until you build a protocol

 
Comment by ThankTank on October 31, 2008 at 4:54 PM

Those "seats" sound like the chairs on the Iron Wolf ride at Six Flags and those are PAINFUL when flying through loops and hills.