Category Archives: Inventions

Mousetrap

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Mousetrap

Snap goes the mousetrap.

  • Mousetraps, also known as ‘mouse traps’, are devices typically used to catch, and sometimes kill mice.
  • Mousetraps are generally placed inside human shelters to remove mice that cause a nuisance, often by eating human food supplies.
  • The classic mousetrap is typically rectangular, and catches mice by using a weight trigger and spring mechanism to set off a crushing bar.
  • The first deadly mousetrap said to be patented, was invented by New York resident American James Keep in 1879, although previous traps for mice existed, and earlier patents included traps that were not fatal.
  • The traditional spring triggered mousetraps were first patented by American William Hooker in 1894, and later in Britain in 1898 by James Atkinson, and John Mast from the United States improved Hooker’s invention in 1899, by making the trap safer to set.

Mousetrap, Classic, Modern, Snap, Bait, Set, Tunnel, Alive, Ten Random Facts, invention, Flickr

  • Mousetrap bait options include cheese, peanut butter, bread, chocolate, oats or meat.
  • In addition to spring loaded traps, other mousetraps include devices that electrocute, drown or glue, although the latter generally are illegal under the animal cruelty act in some areas due to the slow death of the mouse.
  • There are a number of mousetraps that do not kill the mouse, often in the form of a cage, and simple ones can be made from household supplies.
  • Mousetraps are typically made of plastic, metal and/or wood, depending on the style of trap, and some are designed for single use, so that they can be easily disposed of with the mouse.
  • Disposal of a mouse caught in a non-fatal mousetrap can be tricky, especially if there is a desire to keep the mouse alive, as they have a natural instinct to return to their original dwelling, and are easily preyed upon in natural environments.
Bibliography:
Mouse Trap, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mousetrap
Mouse Trap Exhibition, n.d, Dorking Museum and Heritage Centre, http://www.dorkingmuseum.org.uk/mousetrap-exhibition/

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Highlighter

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Highlighter

Only the highlights appear in these highlighter facts!

  • Highlighters are stationery items in the form of a pen, used to highlight, or mark, text.
  • Highlighter ink is typically brightly coloured, often fluorescent, and see-through.
  • Highlighters typically come in colours of yellow, blue, green, pink, orange and purple, although the most prevalent colour is yellow.
  • Highlighters are similar to a felt-tip pen, except they contain a different ink.
  • Highlighters are believed to have been invented by the United States’ Carter’s Ink Company in 1963, and were called a Hi-Liter, soon after Yukio Horie, from Japan, had invented the water-based marker the year prior.

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  • Yellow coloured highlighters are generally not visible on a photocopied document of a highlighted original.
  • Different colours of highlighters can be used to organise groups of ideas or texts.
  • Highlighters can be stacked together, waxy, retractable, three in one, take the form of a pencil, or have non-seeping ink.
  • A dry line highlighter is a tape that is applied to the page, and has the advantage that it can be erased without much difficulty.
  • Digital documents can be highlighted by selecting text, in a similar way to standard highlighting.

 

Bibliography:
Highlighter, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highlighter
Greenbaum H & Rubinstein D, The Hand-held Highlighter, 2012, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/magazine/the-hand-held-highlighter.html?_r=1

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Shoelaces

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Shoelaces

Shoelaces are handy items for securing shoes.

  • Shoelaces are lengths of cord used to fasten shoes or boots around feet, and are usually purchased in pairs.
  • ‘Shoelaces’ are also known as ‘shoestrings’ and ‘bootlaces’, and they come in a wide variety of colours and decorative patterns.
  • Shoelaces are typically woven through numerous holes, hooks or loops, most often in a criss-cross pattern, and tightened, to narrow the opening of the shoe over one’s foot.
  • Shoelaces were originally made of leather, cotton or rope; while today, most laces are made of or include synthetic fibres.
  • Shoelaces end with a sheath called an aglet, that is typically made of brass, plastic or copper, that enables ease of threading through the holes in the shoe.

Shoelaces, Multiple, Loose, Packaged, Colours, White, Black, Blue, Brown, Ten Random Facts, Clothes

  • To complete securing, shoelaces are usually finished with a shoelace knot or a bow knot.
  • Shoelaces range from 45 to 200 centimetres (18 to 79 inches) in length, and the lengths generally vary according to the quantity of holes in the shoe.
  • Shoelaces have been used as early as 4000 to 3000 BC, to tie leather around one’s foot.
  • There are accessories available for shoelaces, typically a decorative metal or plastic tab that is threaded onto a lace, and is known as a ‘shoelace charm’.
  • Shoelaces are sometimes elasticised so that the shoe is easily slid off one’s foot without untying or loosening the laces.
  • Bibliography:
Shoelace, 2014, Know How, http://www.madehow.com/Volume-6/Shoelace.html
Shoelace, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoelaces

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Cork Stopper

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Cork Stopper

With cork stoppers, you will not spoil your wine.

  • Cork stoppers are generally small cylinders that are placed in the top of containers to block and seal in the contents.
  • ‘Cork stoppers’ are also known as ‘corks’, ‘stoppers’ and ‘bungs’, and are typically made of cork, but stoppers can also be made of rubber, metal, glass or silicone, depending on their use.
  • Cork stoppers are most often used to seal bottles, particularly those containing wine, and are occasionally used to seal barrels or tubes.
  • Cork stoppers are generally manufactured from the outer bark of the cork oak tree, that has the scientific name Quercus suber, and whole corks are usually cut from the bark, although cheaper corks are manufactured from amassed cork particles and are known as ‘agglomerated corks’.
  • Cork stoppers were used in wine bottles as early as the first century BC, in Ancient Greece in Ephesus, located in today’s Europe.

Cork Stopper, Many, Patterned, Brown, Wine, Bung, Ten Random Facts

  • Cork stoppers are environmentally friendly, stable, water resistant, compressible, flexible and are able to seal liquid and gas in the container, and these properties are almost impossible to replicate in the cheaper man-made stoppers or screw caps that are sometimes used for similar purposes.
  • The first machine to make cork stoppers was invented in the 1800s in the United Kingdom, Europe.
  • Europe’s Portugal, is one of the largest producers of cork stoppers in the world, and in 2002, 13 billion corks were produced throughout the world, 8% of which were synthetic.
  • A corkscrew is often required to remove and properly install cork stoppers, and their use was documented in 1681.
  • Cork stoppers are recyclable, and can be made into shoes and apparel, sporting equipment, incorporated into aircraft and building designs, as well as various other forms.
  • Bibliography:
Bung, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bung
Corks – Past, Present, and Future, n.d, Beekman Wine and Liquors, http://www.beekmanwine.com/prevtopap.htm
Cork, 2011, Cork Forest Conservation Alliance, http://www.corkforest.org/history_of_cork.php
Amorim, n.d, Amorim Cork, http://www.amorimcork.com/en/natural-cork/recycling

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Golf Ball

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Golf Ball

The golf ball sails through the plains.

  • Golf balls are balls that are used uniquely in the sport of golf, some of which are manufactured cheaply for casual play, but are not great quality.
  • Golf balls are usually tested to make sure they meet the standards of the US Golf Association or the Royal & Ancient governing bodies, and to be legal, the balls must never weigh more than 45.93 grams (1.62 ounces) and must be at least 4.267 centimetres (1.68 inches) in diameter.
  • Golf balls were originally made of wood and used from the 1300s to 1600s, and later spherical pouches made from leather were produced that contained boiled feathers, known as ‘featherie’ balls, and were used until the 1800s.
  • Featherie golf balls were costly and were worth two to five shillings, or what would cost USD $10 to $20 today.
  • Between the mid 1800s and the mid 1900s, golf balls used materials including gutta-percha sap, rubber and rubber thread, and during this time, it was discovered that balls with a textured surface were more reliable in the air than smooth ones.

Golf Ball, Old, New, Two, Some, Sport, Ten Random Facts, Grass, Srixon, 3, Callaway

  • The modern style, resin covered golf balls were developed and produced in the 1960s, and they usually contain a rubber-like core.
  • The spherical dimpled design of golf balls was invented by the Englishman William Taylor, an engineer, in 1906, and the dimples increase the distance and height the ball moves, due to a decrease in drag.
  • Golf balls typically have 250 to 450 dimples, although one has had up to 1,070, and they are traditionally coloured, but not limited to, white.
  • Golf balls are often personally marked to prove easier finding and retrieval among other players’ balls, and since 1973, some balls have contained a radio transmitter so that they can be easily located, but they are not tournament legal.
  • The fastest recorded speed of a golf ball via a golf club in the world, up until mid 2014, was 378.35 kilometres/hour (235.1 miles/hour) by Ryan Winther, a champion golfer, from the United States.

 

Bibliography:
Golf Ball, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golf_ball
History of Golf Balls, 2014, OnlyGolfBalls.com, http://www.onlygolfballs.com/msg10.htm

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Nutcracker

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Nutcrackers have many uses: nut cracking, displaying, starring in ballets…

  • Nutcrackers are items used to break nut shells to access the nut, using combined mechanical and human power.
  • A nutcracker in ancient times was a partially hollowed stone that held the nut, and another stone was used to crack the nut shell.
  • The oldest nutcracker known to the world and made from metal, was found in the Taranto area in Italy, Europe, and dates back to 300 to 200 BC.
  • Modern nutcrackers are generally similar to pliers, except the ends near the nut are pivoted, causing a different lever action, and they are typically made of metal or wood, but ivory, china, bone, silver, and brass have been used.
  • From the 1400s, nutcrackers were very decorative, resembling a person or fictional character, and were commonly made in France and England.

Nutcracker, Old, Black, Macadamias, Ten Random Facts, Invention, Culinary, Food, Tool

  • Nutcracker figurines today are used more often ornamentally, notably during the Christmas season, and for this reason they are becoming a Christmas symbol.
  • The nutcracker has been depicted in the famous book and ballet of the same name, and the English term was in use as early as 1481.
  • Some nutcrackers have a screw type mechanism which is wound down on to the nut to force the shell to crack, and these can be useful to crack very hard shelled nuts like macadamia nuts.
  • In the early years of German nutcrackers, the crackers were believed to be protectors based on their appearance and stature.
  • Decorative nutcrackers are popular items to be collected, particularly those from the remote mountainous region of Sonneberg, in Thuringia, Germany.

Bibliography:

History of Nutcrackers, 2014, Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum, http://www.nutcrackermuseum.com/history.htm
Nutcracker, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutcracker

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