Anyone ever Invented anything successful?

lincroft1710

Horace wrote: »

I seem to have invented a purse that makes money disappear...money goes into the purse and within a matter of hours or days it completely disappears:(

This isn't a very original idea as I have a bank account which does exactly the same.

MDJO_2

lincroft1710 wrote: »

There is a device which I am certain someone could make a fortune from, if they could find a way to make it work (and for a variety of reasons it won't be me). Something which would melt ice/snow on the ground before the front wheels of a vehicle pass over it.

I often think this too - there must something that they can incorporate into tarmac that would melt the snow/ice (like embedded salt or something - don't know the science)

davross

I helped to develop a LED lighting controller for Aquariums that gives control over the colour and dawn/dusk etc. It is an opensource/non-profit DIY project and there are 100s that have been built now in several countries that Im aware of. It was my idea but I cant take much credit as I just gave the design brief and helped with testing and someone else built it for me but its good to see so many people using it.

davross

Googlewhacker wrote: »

Why didn't you want to make money of it?

It started as a project for my own aquarium and I posted the details on a fish forum. There was so much interest that the guy that built it for me fully documented it and we realeased it online. Never thought it would be so popular but its had nearly 80,000 hits. It was even featured on hackaday.

We werent interested in making any money as its a relatively small market and it would have taken a lot of effort so kept it free although other people have started making and selling them for profit. Just happy so many people are finding it useful.

paddyrg

davross wrote: »

It started as a project for my own aquarium and I posted the details on a fish forum. There was so much interest that the guy that built it for me fully documented it and we realeased it online. Never thought it would be so popular but its had nearly 80,000 hits. It was even featured on hackaday.

We werent interested in making any money as its a relatively small market and it would have taken a lot of effort so kept it free although other people have started making and selling them for profit. Just happy so many people are finding it useful.

Plus open sourcing/sharealike is just a nice thing to do! Without it, we'd have no Linux, Open Office, Android, Firefox, VLC, FFMPEG, Joomla, Drupal, etc. You rock.

lincroft1710

MDJO wrote: »

I often think this too - there must something that they can incorporate into tarmac that would melt the snow/ice (like embedded salt or something - don't know the science)

I was thinking of something fitted to the vehicle, but your approach may be more practical.

Savvy_Sue

lincroft1710 wrote: »

I was thinking of something fitted to the vehicle, but your approach may be more practical.

Especially as at some point we all have to get out of our cars and walk into buildings, and the pavement is often more treacherous than the road!

hcb42

I've just finished developing a product for an OU course. Submitted my final paper an hour ago.

Now I need to see if I can get it into production :P