August meeting

At this meeting, there was Jed, me ( Dan ), Ian, Robin, Guy, Malcolm White, Barry, Gordon, Mike Dean, Mike Redman. Ian told us how he had been to a meeting of "Transition Malvern Hills" ( transitionmalvernhills.org.uk ). They wanted to know if we could help them save the world. They gave us a list of questions, like "Could we invent a chemical to dissolve plastic" and other ideas they had had to make the world better. This caused a lot of discussion, although we agreed we should come up with some numbers for them, to help them make decisions. Later we went round the table each getting a turn to talk. I talked about my free CAD software ( HeeksCAD ). Jed Marson told us about his business as an agent between inventors and investors ( www.idea.st ). Mike Redman had some ideas for new products using his inventions. Mike Dean use his scientific background to add some useful comments about a variety of things. Gordon told us about his wind tunnel that he is making to test the sails on model ancient boats. Barry showed us a variety of light bulbs. He has been experimenting with using good quality LEDs to make superior indoor lighting. I can't remember what Malcolm White talked about. Guy told us about his Toastabags promotional flag visible from the motorway. Robin discussed flywheels as a method of storing energy in poor countries. Gordon, Barry and Mike Dean saw some problems with these ideas.

July Meeting

Ian was unwell for the June meeting, so I ( Dan ) agreed to chair it. We had a few new members. There was about 16 of us. We went round the table talking about each of our projects. Sorry, I didn't write a blog entry for it.

For the July meeting, Ian was back as the chairman again.
A man called Steve told us all about his rat trap invention.

Marcus showed us his developments for making drawer partitions.

Guy showed us his awards and his flower vase, made of welded plastic, which was quite pretty.

April meeting

I didn't go to the March meeting, but there was one and it was on the first Friday of March.

At the April meeting were, Ian Browse, Marcus Cleaver, Charles Penny, Malcolm White, Mike Dean, Gordon Heeks, Mike Redman, John, Geoff Hawkesford, Dan Heeks ( me ).
We decided that future meetings should all be on the second Thursday of the month, as usual. The experiment with the first Firday was a failure.

Mike Redman showed us his microphone cable.
Charles showed us a piece of glow-in-the-dark fibreglass scafolding pipe.

Someone, I think it was Charles, suggested the club starts a problem solving team, possibly as a business.

When it was time to go home somebody had locked the gate and the combination number we had was wrong, so we had to phone someone and get the right number.

February meeting

The meeting this month was held at The Malvern Hills Science Park, as usual.

This month we had a presentation by "Roar Forensics" www.roarforensics.com

Dr Simon Elliott (Consultant Forensic Toxicologist) enlightened us on their work here in Malvern, John Seviour (Co Director) from "Roar Particles" at Sedgefield presented us with new and innovative applications.

Simon told us about the work that they do, which gave us an insight into what happens when the police send samples off to be tested. It was quite interesting to know that there is a proper forensics lab, here in Malvern.

John ( the one with the beard ) is lucky to be working at the cutting edge of the industry. He has been playing with a machine which can detect drugs and explosives from a finger print! Some special dust ( made with nano-technology ) is dusted onto the print. Then some sticky tape is put on it and then unstuck and sent to the machine. The machine makes a vacuum and then burns the finger print with a laser, which ionises particles of the finger print. Big electro-magnets fling the particles up a tube. Different mocules take longer to fly up the tube, so looking at the finishing times of the particle flinging race, you can make a guess at what kind of molecules there are. You can then selectively trap out only the molecules you are interested in, with a well timed gate ( the times are only nano seconds, I think ), and divert them to a more comprehensive test in another tube. This could be used to tell whether someone is an old, drug-taking woman, or not.

Charles Penny was there, in case we needed a spare projector.

We decided that future meetings will be on the first Friday of the month

January meeting

Guy Unwin showed us various information he had collected from an inventors show in London, including an interesting electric generator driven by an electric motor which was powered by the output from the generator, thus providing an continuous free supply of electricity. This was presented by an Iranian man, although unfortunately there was no working demonstration.
Mike ( sorry I forget his full name ) told us about progress on his toilet odour extracting invention, for which he has a patent application for. John commented that his back mounted salt grit spreader would have come in handy the last couple of weeks, with all the ice we've been having, but apparently organisations are reluctant to take up the idea, as they consider themselves more liable to injury claim if someone slips on a gritted path, than on an un-gritted path. Marcus asked the group for advice on injection moulding companies regarding his invention of a tiling aid. Guy was able to provide the names of several companies in Malvern. Franics told us of his idea, which he probably said was not to be in the public domain yet. Mike Redman told us about his work on a product, but said that if I put it on the blog, I might be getting a visit from MI5. I told everyone about my recent programming efforts and showed them the mouse trap I have bought, which although is not my invention, is quite clever. Ian chaired the meeting and extracted £10 from most of us, as it's the beginning of the year again.

December meeting

Tonight, we had a new member attend; Mike, a scientist and inventor, who has moved back to Malvern, this year. Guy prompted us to discuss the inquiry for a lifting device from Mrs Watson. There were various ideas. Gordon suggested she could use a vacuum cleaner to transfer her compost to waist height. Mike thought an auger could be more cost effective. Guy suggested some kind of pneumatic device, or a long lever. Someone, maybe Geoff or Ian, suggested a lifting platform, human-powered with a rope and pulleys. I suggested Mrs Watson could buy a pickup truck. But in the end we decided that none of these ideas would be low-cost, like Mrs Watson implied. Hydraulics are generally quite expensive, so we dismissed that idea. Guy has plenty of 16mm thick cardboard boxes, that he is trying to get rid of. There was tea and mince pies. Geoff showed us a drawing of an idea he has for making it easier to drill holes in wood for doors hinges. We discussed the existing Malvern Inventors Club web-site, but no decisions were made about it.

Enquiry for lifting device

Guy received this letter asking for help recently, I have typed it out, so the spelling mistakes might be mine ( Dan ):

Dear Mr Unwin,
I was reading about you and your inventors club in this weeks amateur gardening mag. and I wondered if you or one of your friends could make a hydraulic lift to enable me to lift a 80l. bag of compost up to waist height? I cannot lift one up alone and if I open it up, upright, I have trouble bending down as it empties. It would need to be small enough to fit in my shed. Apparently there is a commercial version, there is not a domestic one. So if you can put your heads and spanners together I would be very pleased
Yours Mrs R. Watson.