Go to an auto parts store and you can look down an aisle comprised entirely of air filters, or one of nothing but oil filters, not to mention hundreds of other items.  Each item within it’s category performs the same function, but for reasons of profit, the auto manufacturer changes to a new design every few years.  When I was a teenager, over 20 years ago I came up with the thought of making my own line of cars, each of which that all used as many of the same parts as possible.

Over the years I came to the understanding of the profit that was made by the parts industry, but in the end they have created hundreds of variations in parts, and made money, but shafted the consumer.  With repetition of the same part, on the other hand, you can actually improve on the original, instead of just spending engineering resources on making it a different size and shape.

My solution – universal parts.  Air filters, oil filters, and a host of other parts could easily be replaced by universal parts.  Take the air filter for example.  This has a circular or rectangular element and air is pulled through it.  The filter could be too small, but could never be too big.  The filter on a big V8 motor would never cause a problem being used with a small 4 cylinder motor.

The issue then becomes adapting a universal part to a particular application.  This could be accomplished with a simple adapter plate or piece that allows the universal part to fit into the individual car.

This concept doesn’t just hold true for air filters and oil filters.  Things like oxygen sensors in exhaust pipes,  temperature sensors, fuel filters, fuel pumps or coolant thermostats are all nearly identical in function, but are only slightly different in size and shape.  Indeed, you could easily use many parts on each and every car on the road, right down to the main computer.  You easily could adapt any wiring harness from most any production car in existence to a universal computer that would just need you know what car it was attached to, and in some cases could figure it out on its own.

This should really happen.  Then take the concept everywhere else.  Air filters aren’t just used in your car.  🙂

I was driving to NYC recently and considered the tire. I considered the loss of traction around a corner. Certainly due to more than one factor. You could address the problem in several ways, most of which are already being done. Moving air dams can adjust to push down on the outer edge of the car. Suspensions can also automatically adjust to keep pressure down on the tire surface. Tires can be made wider, and cars can be made with an ultra low center of gravity, both of these being obvious in a car like the Viper. That’s all great, but I think I came up with another method.

Imagine your tire is just a lot of rubber knobs. As they rotate, each row of knobs rotate down, contacts a point on the road and then rotates up. Parallels can be made to the surface of a runner’s shoe contacting the ground. Now consider your car as you go around the typical highway on-ramp or off-ramp. Your steering wheel is held in a particular direction and ( whether or not you aggressively test this out) you know that you have a limitation to how fast you can go without the car starting to slip and eventually spin out of control. This comes from the force of the turn on your vehicle. If you are turning around a right turn, the vehicle experiences G-forces to the left, and vice versa. This force could be likened to just driving straight down a section of road and having the road tilted to one side or the other. Pretty straight forward physics stuff.

Some times when I try to first get my mind around a concept I like to go the the extreme ends of the spectrum.   For instance the concept of a see saw – it’s easy to imagine the mechanical advantage of the thing if you simply imagine one that’s 50 feet long on one side and 5 feet on the other.  So in thinking of this loss of traction I went to the extreme, and considered driving as a tremendous wind storm was blowing across from one side of the road to the other, or perhaps driving on a road that was banked nearly 90 degrees to one side or the other. In either case, I imagined the car would start sliding off the road to the left or the right. What could be done? Well if you took all 4 tires and rotated them towards the wind, or to the high side of the bank you were on, and could power them all evenly, as with an all wheel drive car, you may not get our of your slide, but you would be maximizing what your tires could do about it. The downside to this of course, is that you would be going in a direction other than where you wanted to. Logically I conclude that ideally, you would just be able to drive straight in the direction you wanted, and in the worst case you would have to turn all 4 of your tires entirely 90 degrees to avoid sliding off the road, but in the process you lose all ability to go forward. Well we are never going to drive along the side of a building or through a 200 mile per hour windstorm, but logically I believe we can draw some conclusions.

My idea is simple, and I have not found any mention of the concept in even some of the advanced 4 wheel steering literature I found searching around. Simply, all 4 tires need to be turned slightly (I’m assuming around 1 to 2 degrees – probably 5 at the most) into the turn. This is not 4 wheel steering in the way it is used today, but rather just a small amount of turning.  Let’s call it “pivoting.” The rear wheels would be simply able to pivot left and right up to 5 degrees. The front wheels would be normally functioning, but have a similar pivot left and right up to 5 degrees.

My premise is that by turning all 4 tires slightly into the turn, you would be negating, to some degree, the force pushing your car off the road, while still keeping the bulk of your force going in the direction you desire to go. This pivoting / turning action would be computer controlled and could either be strictly math based or it could be accelerometer based. By that I mean that the computer could either just make the pivot adjustment by knowing that the car is traveling, let’s say, at 40 mph and the wheel is turned to X number of degrees to the left.  The computer could also just respond by pivoting the tires into the direction that an in-board accelerometer tells it to. The technology is already here to make this happen. For example, there is an accelerometer in your smartphone right now. In an iPhone 4 for instance, the accelerometer is so advanced that if you set your iPhone next to your keyboard on your desk, it can be used to accurately determine what you are typing.

I have no way to build an test this system out to prove that there are gains to be made with this method. This is, after all, some thoughts on the subject as I drive down the highway, concerning what is overall a trillion dollar industry. An industry that employs some of the most talented and well funded engineers in the world. Surely someone has thought of doing this? 🙂

Thinking of yesterday’s post (20) gives me a new spin on the concert.  What is it that you want at a concert?  Here’s my list.

I want sound quality.
I want to hear the song in a “live” way that is noticeably different than the album version.
I don’t want it to kill my ears.
I want to hear any dialogue the artist is saying.

Now, if you have ever been in a poor venue, or sat in bad seats, you know this is often a loss.  I have left concerts feeling ear fatigue and was not happy with the sound and couldn’t hear what they were saying.  Speaking of that, how often do you understand what a DJ is saying in a night club?

The fix?  Taking the app and headphones from post (20) and linking them to a direct feed optionally provided by the artist at the concert, or the nightclub.  The technology already exists for “real time” audio over wifi, but I would have to hear it to vouch for it.  That is the solution.  Now I know the gut reaction here is one of stringing me up for blaspheming on how a concert is to be properly listened to.  Sure, if you are listening at Carnegie Hall, or in good seats at the Santa Barbara Bowl or Red Rocks, then a case surely can be made for just listening.  That just isn’t the case most of the time.  The typical arena is made for maximum occupancy in observing sport contests.

If you can open your mind to trying such a thing, what do you get?  From any and every seat in the house?

You get sound quality.
You get to hear the song in a “live” way that is noticeably different than the album version.
Your ears are saved, and you can adjust how loud you would actually like it.
You will hear any dialogue the artist is saying.
You will now actually hear things you otherwise would not, and not hear unwanted things you otherwise would.  Think of small subtle details being delivered directly to your nosebleed seats.  Perhaps a funny dialogue between members of the band, or musical elements lost in the concrete and crowd noise.  Now consider the occasional feedback.  This could easily be reduced if not eliminated by the sheer fact that you are not listening to the amplified sound, rather you are direct from the main sound board.
Now let’s make a fun little twist.  Add a slider for adjusting the various concert specific elements, like crowd noise, or reverb modeled around the venue, or perhaps any venue you choose.  Nosebleed seats in the local sports arena, now with the sound of Red Rocks at center of row 5.

Truly a revolutionary idea in concert going, and one that would greatly increase satisfaction.

This is a departure from attempts at serious value.  A simple idea that would probably gain more traction in a viral YouTube video describing it, than in it’s actual release as an app, nevertheless, as an app it would be purchased on the sheer novelty value.

The app plays music from your music library to match the beat of music that you are hearing.  Upon installation, the app would analyze your music library and build a small database of the BPM (beats per minute) of all songs.  Later when the app is engaged, it simply listens to the music coming into the phone’s microphone and plays a song into the headphones to match the beat.  The headphones recommended would be sound blocking, of which there are various models already in existence, but from this device there would be a demand for more.  Separately, the technology for this already exists.

So, the basic premise.  You are taking your daughter to a Beiber concert, or perhaps  you are at a concert and the opening band is truly terrible.  If you were to just pop some headphones in you would certainly not enjoy whatever you were listening to.  With sound reducing headphones you can block the midrange and treble down to a bearable amount, but the bass would definitely bleed through, and make your song unlistenable.  Not to mention, even if you could completely block out the sound, you couldn’t really get into your own personal music.  God forbid you started bobbing your head or tapping your feet to a different beat than everyone else.  What a weirdo thing to do.

No need for that, just fire up the app.  In only seconds it determines the music you are being subjected to is 123 beats per minute, and quickly finds a Deadmau5 tune in your library of the same tempo.  Deadmau5 is now playing on your headphones, and it’s in complete sync with the concert.  If anything, the bass that makes it past the headphones and into your ear reinforces and adds a bit of flavor to your existing song.  Now the fun part, of course, is when your girl glances over at you to see you smiling and even bobbing your head to “her music”, and she thinks to herself, “yup Dad’s kind of cool, even he gets it!”