14 DAY TRIAL // The Intellectual Property Office (IPO), formerly the Patent Office, is, let's say, a peculiar organization. Recently, it became fond of the idea of constructing a space capsule, to be opened no sooner than 2020. For its enterprise, the IPO asked about 85,000 children and young inventors to set their ideas on paper, and to submit them for review. The best ones will be entombed for the next 11 years, the BBC News reports. Some of the ideas that the children had are really interesting, the Office announces.
Oddly enough, many of the inventions that the children propose, such as a robotic chef that can cook any meal you ask of it, or a shoe that can play iPods, are hypothetically made out of renewable or recycled materials. This shows a clear concern that the small ones have for the environment, which brings a ray of hope in our fight to combat the growing phenomenon of global warming. If future generations are convinced we have a problem, then maybe they will see to its solutions, given the fact that current leaders don't seem too inclined to.
Other devices imagined by the small ones include a pedal-powered television set, as well as a solar-powered lawn mower. Fourteen-year-old Tyona Higgins proposes a novel solution for traffic jams, namely water. Her flotation device is password-activated, and features “super-vision” lighting systems. The aforementioned Billy the Chef is envisioned made out of tin cans, with arms constructed from disposable, stacking cups. But one of the main themes that occurred throughout the sorting process was children's arduous desire to find quicker solutions to having to write their homework.
For instance, some envisioned intelligent pencils that could be nicely asked to write the homework instead of the kids, while others designed paintbrushes that were able to create masterpieces all by themselves. “We'll dig up the time capsule to see how the cracking ideas shape up in a world that's sure to be different from today,” the IPO Head of Education, Lawrence Smith-Higgins, said, adding that the time capsule would be buried at the Office's headquarters on October 14.