Parent/Teacher/Kid Communicator

If you're a parent, this is a familiar scenario:

Your child comes home after a long day at school, kicks off his shoes and parks in front of the TV. Later on, you ask what homework he has. He uses his "phone a friend" option to find out, because he forgot to write it down in class. Friend tells him (if friend wrote it down himself, if not a network of phone-a-friends ensues...), he goes to do it - only to discover he's forgotten all the necessary books/dictionaries/calculators/whatever at the school. Of course, you didn't check on this when you picked him up, and the school building closed hours ago, so the kid doesn't do his homework and ends up in detention.

Next morning, as he rushes out the door, he informs you that you were supposed to send something or do something or sign something that has to go with him now. Or he rushes out the door and leaves his PT clothes behind, or some other essential to the day's education. And ends up either in detention again, or writing lines until kingdom come. Which makes him all the more grumpy and school-hating the next day, the teacher p'd off at his (your) lack of competency, and turns the educational experience into one huge hate-fest!

So here's the plan.

Each kid gets a student ID card. Within that a microchip is embedded, identifying each kid as who they say they are (fingerprint recognition based). At the entry to the school and to each class is a scanner through which the card gets swiped. This tells you excatly who is where, and can also block access to those who don't belong. Call it "automated roll-call" if you will. And that saves on paper and ink and calling out who's present. Electronic record stored of attendance, no problem.

Simple enough, you say, these things already exist.

Ah, but add in a few extra features. As each kid swipes out at the end of the school day, homework is noted on his card-chip. With a couple of barcodes/chips on his books, the scanner may also be able to check his bookbag for appropriate material to complete the day's tasks. Deny exit if it's not there, so the kid can go pick up what he needs from his desk before leaving.

And then add in a centralized communication system. The school can communicate important info via that chip - just load it on the system during the day. The parent has a small scanner at home that reads it, perhaps linked to their home computer, or stand-alone. Individual notes from teacher to parent can run the same course. Reminders to take this, do that, upcoming events - all loaded electronically and accessible.

All good and well, but how do you know the parent's seen it?

Simple. Return-marking each item by the parent, using a pin number, fingerprint recognition or other non-copyable method. Back at school, as the student scans in, the data is collected and centralized. Teachers can see who has had their homework "signed", who has handed over "notes" to be read, and if there are any comments back from the parents.

Nice, hey?

Of course, in the real world kids lose their ID cards, use them as weapons and/or toys, and have learnt how to hack into the computer systems....

But a system like this would make the school/parent/kid system a whole lot easier.

Fuel-Free Car

I'm still researching possibilities on this one, but it doesn't hurt to dream. Does it?

With the rising fuel costs and the planet rapidly running out of fossil-fuel options, the obvious choice is to look at alternatives for transport and all those things we currently require coal/oil for. Main culprit? Our cars. Commuters. Hours in the traffic jams. And don't even get me started on greenhouse gasses and environmental damage!

So a fuel-free car would be the ultimate ideal. And here's a way we could perhaps manage to do just that.

We've all seen solar-powered cars. Those low, silent types that cruise the Outback on their annual race. Looking a bit like large insects, and coated in the maximum carrying-capacity of solar panels. All good and well, but hardly practical for day-to-day travel.

One guy's stuck some solar panels on his Prius's roof. Good start, but the car still needs regular fuel to run. There's a lot of car surface going to waste too, but I'm not going to be picky! ;)

But what if we can cover the entire surface of the car in solar panelling? A bit like this handbag - a mass of solar-collecting technology. Or, even better, will someone please invent photovoltaic paint??? I don't know about you, but my car spends all day outside, and all it collects is a darned hot steering wheel and butt-burning seats. Imagine if that energy could be harnessed, just like solar roof panels do, and stored to be used later.

Now imagine a light-weight car, the body made of plastic instead of metal, so you wouldn't need that much energy to get it in motion or keep it there. Minimal electronics, which don't require power to run (sing instead of listening to music!:) ). Maximum efficiency in tyre design, seating, windows (didn't someone have windows that also collected solar energy, somewhere?).

And finally, the clincher. Add in a nice little wind-power turbine at the front, where you'd usually put your radiator. The faster you go, the more wind-power you generate - all of which adds to your solar power collection, storing up the energy required to get from point A to point B with minimal fuss.

So it may not go very fast. No problem. Less accidents. You save on medical expenses, and you get to actually view your scenery as you pass. Besides - who really wants a car that goes 0-100 in 6 seconds or less? Where the heck are you going to use that other than an airport? Practicality, people, practicality!

I'm pretty sure that all this energy collection would mean you could run the car on nothing but the sun and the wind. Both of which we generally curse instead of actually using to our advantage.

So there you have it. My brilliant idea for a fuel-free car. And if you actually create it, and in turn it makes you millions, be sure to give me both credit and good part of your profits.

Deal?

Renewable Fuel/Energy: Part 1 - Wind Power

The UK government is putting into place measures that ensure their future in energy & fuel is secure. And I have to wonder why more governments aren't doing this.

There's a whole lot of political talk about climate change, and the urgency of adjusting how we use the planet - yet that's where it remains. Talk. No real action. The government is complacent, sitting back in their comfortable chairs and waiting for disaster to strike before they do anything. Or so it seems.

They could be doing things a whole lot differently.

Take wind-power for example.

Here in the Cape area of South Africa, we get a very strong wind that blows from one direction in the summer, and the opposite direction in the winter. Without fail. Generally, it wreaks havoc in winter and irritates the heck out of us in summer - but what if we saw it as a huge opportunity, not to be missed?

There are plenty of open tracts of land in the wind-swept region (one right behind my house, convieniently situated for both wind directions!). It's a simple matter to put up wind turbines at strategic spots and harness all that moving-air power currently going to waste (the one behind my house could take at least 5 of these, but is currently not used at all, for anything).

And yet, our short-sighted government has seen fit to stamp out attempts to do this. I know of only one farmer who has finally gained permission to put one up, as an "experiment", but other initiatives have failed.

There is a huge drought gripping the land - many farmers have given up and gone away, leaving dry, dust-blown, empty lands behind. What about turning those into clean power for the nation? Don't wait for rain - simply harness the already-there wind!

Granted, there are wind-free days, and cities use up a lot of power (fodder for a later post) - we may have need for a few alternatives (and those will be blogged on soon, you can count on it!) to cover the gaps. But wind-power is a viable alternative.

Sure, marching columns of huge windmills across the landscape might not be to everyone's view-fancy - but if they are benefitting from cheaper, cleaner, more efficient energy supply, it's likely to convince them pretty quickly to reconsider.

So what's stopping us, other than short-sightedness? Well, the inevitable red tape. Some days I wonder what would happen if we removed the red tape from government. Would they still have a job?

::update::
More from the UK. Home windmills can make you money! But better if they're produced at a cheap enough price, and made easy to self-install.

::update 2::
...and if you run out of land-space, you can always put your windmills in the sea!