I was visiting the Intrepid museum in NYC (an aircraft museum housed in a retired aircraft carrier – a real treat!) and they had, as a bonus, a fifites-era submarine, the USS Growler, moored alongside the carrier. So I had to see that too (of course).
Submarines are always amazing from a design standpoint, given the intense constraints they have to accommodate. There were many complex pieces of machinery below deck, but one of them struck me with its simplciity. It was a “Ship clinometer, Type II – Heel”, and I snapped its photo for you.
“Heel” is the inclination of a ship sideways, and this device tells the submariners how far their vessel is heeling away from the vertical. No need to explain how it works, of course… it’s a cousin of the humble (and equally useful) spirit level we have in our toolboxes. I imagine that today more sophisticated instruments exist, bristling with electronics and digital displays; but actually, this pair of curved glass tubes must’ve done just as good a job – the Growler carried nuclear missiles, and I’m sure its designers preferred its captain to know which way was up…
We all know the paper towel dispensers that you crank to get the required length out. The more sophisticated ones dispense with the crank action and use an electric motor actuated by a proximity detector: wave your hand in the air in front of the machine and out comes the preset length of paper with a satisfying whirring sound. Hygienic, neat, and foolproof.
But even with this foolproof concept there are different designs. The device at the left in the photo tells you to wave your hand to the right of the paper outlet slot. The one at the right has the sensor centered above the slot’s middle. Why does this matter? because the average person will reach out for where the paper is expected; with the second unit this will trigger the sensor, whereas with the first, it will not. Then you have to start groping and try to figure it out, and maybe notice the frantic effort the vendor made to guide you: the picture of a hand titled “sensor”, the big blue arrow pointing to it, and the text captions that try to make it all clear.
All nice and good, but a towel dispenser is not a literary work, and should not rely on texts and explanations. Had they put the sensor in the middle all this would’ve been unnecessary…
Many small appliances can benefit from an off-device mains switch, and these are often put on the power cable, or – more rarely – on the wall outlet. But in a trip to Germany I witnessed a nice twist on this theme: putting the switch right on the 220V mains plug at the end of the cable. This was done without in any way increasing the size of the standard plug; and of course it means you could retrofit such switches to any device by replacing a plug, a simpler operation than replacing a wall outlet or messing with the cable in between the device and the plug. Nice product!
