Drumming your fingers and tapping your feet

Percussion gloves.

Another stroke of brilliance coming atcha.

Each finger has it's own sensor, and the whole thing is wirelessly hooked into the P.A. So the performer can drum his fingers on any old thing, i.e. the mic stand, his own body —— even while singing/rapping/vocalizing/chanting/screaming.


You customize the drum kit before each performance so each finger can be any sound you choose.

The set up on stage would be much quicker. Instead of moving in a whole drum kit, you just slip on some gloves.

This would be impressive as a one-man show. Especially when combined with...

Percussion shoes.

Remember those hi-tops from the 1980's that would light up when you took a step? These will be the percussive version of that.

The shoes could have two different markets entirely.

• The simple version for on-the-street or impressing your friends at school: the sound-maker is built into the shoes. The basic version wouldn't be as loud as the...
• Stage version, which would be like the gloves in that it would connect to the PA system for mega-volume. The performance shoes could have a separate sensor on the toe and the heel, kinda like tap shoes.

A skilled performer could really rock the house with this ensemble. It wouldn't have to be that expensive, either, compared to say, a real electronic drum kit. Probably a couple hundred dollars for a set of gloves.

Personal Mobile Percussion Station

Like every other drummer, I love to play drums on the wheel of my car. At stop lights, heavy traffic, or parked waiting for a friend, I'm tapping away on my steering wheel.

The potential product here so obvious, so simple, and so in-demand it's begging to be invented.




It's just a cover that goes around the wheel of the car. Inside the cover is some kind of trigger, like the kind used on electronic drum kits. The triggers are wired to some sort of sound machine, and that's wired straight into the car's sound system.

So, as you can sit there and drum, you hear the beats come right through your speakers. You can even play along with your favorite songs on the radio.

Every drummer I've ever talked to LOVES this idea.

The add-ons are endless: Imagine a "karaoke" track where instead of the vocals taken out, it's the drum section that's missing. So, you can play with your favorite music. Or, how about a "Learn Drums in Your Car" CD? As an advanced feature, it could even have accuracy-recognition software, kinda like Rock Band does.

I had the opportunity to pitch this idea to the president of BOSS. He just laughed it off like a joke.

But it makes perfect sense, really, a corporate electronic music manufacturer isn't going to create a nutty niche product like this. Especially because of legal issues: the potential for mis-use is so high (people playing while actually driving.)

That's why it's up to us basement inventors to come up with this thing and sell it underground. Here's an opportunity for us to come up!

Beepless Microwave

Why does everything have to beep? Beep-beep-beep-beep! Your food is warm! Beep-beep: There's a utility vehicle somewhere in a 50-yard radius that's backing up. Beep-beep-beep-beep: You're trying to open the side door to your Honda Odyssey when it's in gear (by the way, worst design ever, that car.)

Beep-beep-beep-beep: You're in a hospital, construction zone, school campus, city street. Pretty much anywhere, you're surrounding by a ubiquitous high-pitched chirp. It's supposed to alert you to something, but it's so ever-present that you've learned to tune it out, just to keep your sanity.

Furthermore, is it just me, but I have a hard time locating high-pitched sine waves especially if they are really short...?

So, here's my invention. It's simple really: A no-beep microwave!

Yes, that's it. Million dollar invention, right there.


1. You'll know when the microwave stops humming.
2. You'll smell it.
3. You put it in there 3 minutes ago. How short is your attention span?

Or how about this idea (at the risk of making microwaves even more complicated than they already are): Have a setting for how loud you want it to beep, or if you want it to beep at all. It could even be turned up really loud, like a foghorn, so you can let the whole apartment know that you're having nachos.