Hardware Projects

1. Temperature Display powered by thermistor

One thing that people don’t know very well when cooking is the temperature of a pan. Its easy to wait 30 seconds too long or 30 seconds to short. This isnt too bad with most foods, but it certainly helps. There there are some foods like sauces where specific foods and specific temperatures are paramount to consistency and taste. I have seen a few pans with thermometers build in, however, most people have a favorite pan that they would like to use. Also, most of the nicer pans in the world don’t have this feature. I think separate thermistors that you can add to your own pans would be great. You could put one on the pan you cook eggs with and learn more about what temperatures cook eggs the best. Note that its not “perfect eggs every time”. Rather its a tool to help you learn more about cooking and temperature. One possible concern is how the electronics may be affected by heat.

2. Electric Socks

These would run on AA batteries. Basically the same as an electric blanket. Nice for winter months :) It would be slightly tricky to figure out how to keep them clean…

3. Ear mounted Camera

I don’t take many pictures or film much, but Im surprised that you never see cameras like this. Something on your ear could be the size of a mobile camera, its the same level as your eyes (as opposed to helmet cams), out of your face/way (as opposed to google glass), and can be controlled with your hand and output noises into your ear to indicate that its recording or out of battery, etc. Im really not sure what case you would want to use it in. Im thinking like an adventure cam, or perhaps for interviewers/journalists. It would be a bit more discreet than sticking a camera in peoples faces, and they would be looking at it already (if they are looking at your eye level). This does face the same privacy issue that google glass did/does.

4. Panda Watch

This is somewhat dumb but humorous for Anchorman fans.

5. Magic Mirror

Video conferencing should be like the palantir from lord of the rings

Or actually more like the mirror from beauty and the beast:

Always a direct line to 1 other device in the world. This is basically already true with facetime, but thats an app on your phone. I think 2 devices, which can only communicate with each other would still be a very cool and useful creation. There would be no UI. You just turn it on and if the other persons mirror is turned on, you see what the mirror sees. You can only communicate with 1 other mirror in the world. What would be a good use case for this? 1. Significant others. It would be a fun gift - you would always buy two at a time, no more no less. The fact that its a separate dedicated device is powerful. 2. Non-mobile mirrors. Say you have 2 households for 1 family - perhaps because of divorce. As one link, there would be a mirror in both households that looked the same and you could always have that link back to the other half of the family. 3. Video Conferencing. In offices, video conferencing is incredibly helpful. But you always have to set it up. You are using your computer and you obviously dont want it always on. The fact that you have to set up meetings also adds friction to communication. What if there were two always on mirrors - one in each office. You could ask for help from the other office at a moments notice, start a conversation, etc, all just by looking into the mirror. Why not just buy two people ipads and a phone plan and be done with it? I think that this is a cool enough idea to have a dedicated device. And with a dedicated device you can throw out complications like extra software, hardware, UI design, features (such as connecting to more than 1 other person) to prioritize only this. I think you would rethink all the hardware and the software involved in the connection (satellite?). You would prioritize battery life and audio/visual quality and nothing else.

6. Single key

Wallet cases are the best thing since sliced bread in my opinion. I love only having two items to carry around. However, those pesky keys are still not all that convenient. This idea feels very outlandish but I want to write it down anyways so here goes. Every key is a series of bumps basically. It could be encoded as a series of bump sizes for each position on the key. The same way you use a solenoid to control the position of the starter coil on a car, you could control move-able bumps by running various amounts of electricity through every bump coil. This sounds pretty unwieldy, but I think with enough iteration, you may be able to contain every bump coil inside the space of a key (in order to fit in a lock). This would mean you would only need 1 key rather than 8 or whatever it is you carry around with you. Maybe 1 day it could even fit on your wallet case!

7. Calisthenics Camera

Possibly a drone, something that enables you to track progress with calisthenics, stretching, or any kind of exercise by taking regular pictures videos. As they say, what gets measured, gets improved. What would also be useful is an app that goes through your photos and videos and automatically identifies workout/exercise content, then organizes it by exercise and date, so that you can see your improvement.

8. Custom Band for my Casio watch

I love my but the strap is not comfortable enough to wear all day. I want a cloth strap - like what this person did:

9. Ionization Window Fan

Ion fans, which ionize air with an anode and cathode and thus create airflow between them, would be perfect window fans. They are already in the perfect shape with holes needed for the air to pass through. Also theyre silent which is a huge advantage. I dont know much about the power comparison, and I think it might be bad to breath ionized air all the time… but it would be a cool fan!

10. Big Water Tubes

For rafting big water rivers on a tube, without a paddle. what would it take? Is this possible?

11. Mile Time Improvement

Some kind of hardware to improve your mile time. I like to think of the ghosts in mario kart as the perfect way to improve your time.

You can simultaneously see how fast you are going and how much faster you need to go. It provides just the right kind of competition with yourself to push you to get better. Is there a way to replicate this with AR? You would need terrific gps tracking. Im also not sure that projection systems in AR frameworks can do this type of visualization especially if the ghost is right in front of you. In any case, because AR is not yet a reality, we may have to settle for other options. I still like the ghost idea. Im thinking a watch which can track a run, and then provide feedback on how far you are ahead of or behind your previous run would be a good start - this would all be necessary for the AR version. As I try and improve my own mile time I also realize that an even simpler watch could help - one that shows my current mile time pace at all times. This would still require a good GPS to determine my speed but wouldnt require any tracking of previous miles. This is probably the easiest first step.

12. Coffee Container

I want to make an airtight container for coffee grounds - so that you can grind as much coffee as you want and not have it get stale. Right now Im thinking like a cylinder with an iris mechanism on the bottom. When you open the iris and push down on a piston at the top of the cylinder, coffee comes out, then you close the iris.