The OrbSys green shower
Showers are great for morning ablutions, but people do not realize they may be harming the environment. A 10-minute shower could set you back by about 100 liters of water, while brushing your teeth and flushing the toilet could take up another 50 liters. Multiply by the number of people in your locality and you get overwhelming figures.
Concerned by this abuse of a scarce natural resource, designer Mahdjoubi addressed the problem with his patented design – the OrbSys Shower. Basically, the arrangement consists of a water purification system and a pump. When you take a bath, the system purifies the water, while the pump recycles it.
The advantage is reduction of water usage by about 90 percent, which means you consume as little as 15 liters every morning. Apart from reducing consumption, the filtering process also heats the water, which saves a lot of energy. As the system purifies to the specifications of drinking water, one is actually taking a bath in pure water. Imagine the value of the system in places that hardly offers access to clean water.
According to Mahdjoubi, it is about time people started making smart uses of the scarce resources of our Earth. He gives the example of astronauts in space stations, who have very limited supply of water they had started with from earth and must recycle every drop. In fact, Mahdjoubi drew inspiration for the OrbSys Shower from space stations.
Vein Viewer
Physicians and nurses often have to collect blood samples from their patients for a variety of reasons, for example, intravenous administration of drugs and more. Often, their attempts at locating the vein are not successful, leading to painful multiple pricks of the needle.
This procedure proves more painful and stressful to the patient if he or she is a child or an elderly person, because their veins are narrower as compared to those of a healthy grown-up. Additionally, for cancer patients who have undergone several cycles of chemotherapy, the veins tend to shrivel up, making it extremely difficult to locate the vein. The nurse may require 5-6 attempts at pricking before they locate the vein.
Vein Viewer makes use of an infrared camera to highlight the flow of blood and show the exact location of the veins under the skin of the patient. Since it projects the image in real-life on to the skin, finding the specific vein becomes very easy. Finding the vein is thus possible in the first attempt, making the process of collecting blood samples more comfortable and safe.
Power Plants that float
Whether thermal, hydroelectric or solar, power plants tend to take up a lot of real estate. This gave rise to the concept of power plants that float – not on water, but high up in the atmosphere. These high altitude power plant drones will harvest solar and wind energy, transmitting it back to earth wirelessly.
Although still a concept, the floating power plants are likely to be 20×20 m devices with solar panels on the flat surface and several wind turbines on the edges. Floating at a height of 50 thousand feet above ground, it can change its place to take advantage of uninterruptible solar and wind energy.
