Articles about creativity and invention
If I am a carpenter....
As I entered my private cabin room, I saw most of my tools strewn all over the place. There were containers that served as tool boxes, but due to my disorganized nature, most of the tools that I had taken out from there were not returned to their storage places. As a result, the whole place looked messy from top to bottom. Besides the tools, there were also the bits and pieces of my work pieces that were either left over from a previous job or they were part of an unfinished work piece. I had always wished that I had an assistant helper to take care of all the knick knacks, but like most hobby carpenters, I could not have afforded such a luxury. Then, I had thought, would it be wonderful if there had been a kind of cabinet that not only store the tools, but will also be able to maintain those tools like cleaning and oiling it when they were returned, and will also pop out of the cabinet when we gave a voice command for them just like using voice command with smart phones. You see, like my neighbors, I am a bit on the lazy side. Such an intelligent tool cabinet will have to be electronically wired to a central command data server so that it will be able to order parts (through the internet) that are running low, so that when I go to the workbench, I would not have to face a shortage of nails, screws and nuts whilst getting my work done on that dream piece of furniture. Ah, that would be a nice dream................or is it? It is definitely possible to design such a system, with today’s technology and some creative thinking. So I concurred. As I pondered on, I took another look at the half-finished wooden cabinet that I had wanted to put up in the hall to place my treasured antiques that I had collected throughout the years. The cabinet was a simple wooden design with a front glass covering. The idea of the glass cover was to prevent the antiques from being covered with an excessive deposit of dust, since daily dusting routines was a luxury that I can ill afford. Still, with the glass cover, there will still be a certain amount of dust hovering in the air when it is shut. Suddenly, I had an idea. In order to get rid of the trapped hovering dust (which will fall unto the antiques) when I shut the cabinet glass window, why not fix a vacuum pump to suck out the dust? It will be activated after the glass doors are shut and will probably last for a few minutes. The idea is to get the dust in the cabinet to a minimum and that will allow me to manually dust the antiques less often. This idea of fitting a vacuum pump into a closed cabinet is not a difficult task as most of the components are readily available. Besides vacuum pumps, other contraptions can also be considered, like dehumidifiers and ultra violet lights. Perhaps it is time to make cabinets more intelligent and more useful. Yes,I will do it. It was one of those lazy Sundays whilst doing some clean up of my car that I chance on the many half empty lubrication oil cans lying haphazardly around the car porch that had me thinking. Perhaps I should build a cabinet that will be able to house all those items that are part of my vehicle maintenance program. Yes, I will make the cabinet with some wiring that will tell me what is left in the cabinet, what things to replenish , and a program that will tell me what types of work to be done on the car and when. I would also make the data available to my house computer so that I could check on it whilst I am in another place. Some sort of automation will relieve me from thinking what to buy when I make my rounds at the shopping malls. Not only that, it might be useful if it can also show me what plant fertilizers that my garden is short on. It could go on and on, ah....I thought that would be nice. One of those useful cabinets that normally don't deserve a second thought is the shoe cabinet. People normally don't pay much attention to the upkeep of shoes, but because they are a part of our dressings, we should at least give them some maintenance such that they will better show our character, especially in the eyes of the public. In this respect, leather shoes should look spit and span and preferably with a coat of polish. Can we make the shoe cabinet more intelligent? Yes, we can and here is my shoe cabinet idea. How about a shoe cabinet that comes with receptacles that when we place the shoe unto it, it will give the shoe first a vacuum, then a coat of wax, and followed by a polish? Just like those car cleaning and polishing machines at the corner drive-ins. As you can see, a carpenter’s job is never done. As we are entering the internet age, carpenters will need to brush up their skills and contribute their share towards improvement of the society. Creating new ideas and inventing new products and things from the carpenter’s point of view will make our world a happier place to live. If you don't have to do carpentry jobs, maybe you can think about new items to help us poor carpenters?
Yap Tat Meng
Author of the invention book entitled “Inventing: The moment before the spark came.”