‘Rotational spoon’ vies for award

Press, 7 August 1985, Page 35

‘Rotational spoon’ vies for award

A record intake of 226 inventions, ranging from political playing cards to a waterless egg boiler, have been received in the eighth UDC Inventors’ Award, which is to be judged this month. Eight finalists will be judged in a special television programmme entitled “Fast Forward” on August 10, and the presentation of the $5OOO award to the overall winner will also be televised at a luncheon ceremony at W'ellington’s Michael Fowler Centre on August 13. The range of entries, which includes high-tech inventions, automotive and road safety ideas, farming improvements and many energy devices, has also produced a record number

from women inventors. Their ideas include a clothing mannikin with moveable joints, a one-handed spinning wheel and a fishing rod with a rule on the side to measure the catch. Reformers want to simplify the English spelling system, write music a new way, change the currency and enable people speaking different languages to write to each other. Among the usual crop of agricultural improvements, the blue ribbon may go to a device for counting sheep. Five new types of wheelchairs, a muscle stimulator, and a bath and shower for paraplegics, demonstrate that inventors are also caring people. The fun-and-games inventiors reflect increased lei-

sure time. The games and puzzles include a simplified game of chess, a much more complicated chess game, what purports to be the successor to the Rubic cube, and an already outdated card game with four suits representing the political parties, with the Gover-nor-General as the joker. For tired players there is a device to pick up bowls without bending, a returning golf ball and a board-and-dice cricket game for armchair enthusiasts. Really original thinking is displayed with a “rotational spoon” for high-speed yogurt consumption, a hair brush with retractable bristles, a soap floater for the bath, and a gadget for removing unwanted air from water beds.