Patent Pending Blog - Patents and the History of Technology

Glenn Curtiss Just Needed a Little More POWER!

Glenn Curtiss had an early interest in bicycles, and opened a bicycle shop in Hammondsport, New York.  Not content to sell bicycles, he was soon building his own products, and designing new models.  When small, one cylinder motors were put on bicycles, he left the world of bycicles and entered the world of engines and motorcycles.  He designed his own lightweight engines, and the motorcycles they powered.  In 1907 Curtiss drove a motorcycle with an air cooled V-8 engine to a speed of 136 miles an hour.  The engine delivered 40 hp, and weighed 275 pounds.  According to a Scientific American article of the day, the motorcycle experienced a broken universal joint at 90 mph, which buckled the frame.  The record made him the fastest human on a motorcycle or car, until a car beat that speed 11 years later.  A motorcycle would not beat that speed until 1930.  Curtiss' speed was actually slower than an earlier Stanley Steamer that achieved 140- 150 mph, but that run was not an officially timed event.  Looking at the picture below, I'm not sure I'd want to go 136 mph on bicycle wheels.

Cutriss was drawn into the field of avaition because of his lightweight yet powerful motors, and competed with the Wright brothers as pioneer avaiator and airplane designer.  He designed the first float plane, aelerons, and many other new features in airplanes.  Curtiss airplanes served in WWI,  and Curtiss' company became Curtiss Wright when it merged with the successors of the Wright Brothers.

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Spring Driven Tricycle Vehicle

This is an environmentally friendly vehicle designed in 1891, because it uses no fuel at all.  It is driven by a clockwork of springs, which are wound up like a clock.  The spring tension is allowed to release by driving the wheels through some very intricate gearing.  The two balls act as a governor and keep the speed from getting out of hand.  The brakes set automatically when the vehicle goes too fast down a hill. 

The Game of Monopoly

In 1935, Charles Darrow was an unemployed salesman in Germantown Pennsylvania. At that time vast numbers of people in the United States were unemployed during the Great Depression, and there were no jobs to be had of any kind.

As Darrow got what odd jobs he could, he made a board game to play in the evening.  Soon friends and neighbors were playing the game, in which every player could buy and sell real estate with names based on properties in Atlantic City, New Jersey.  Not having any real money or chance to be real estate investors, the game gave the hard pressed people some diversion.  Soon he was selling a few copies of the game to neighbors and to local stores.  He was turned down by the large game and toy company Parker Brothers, because the game was critiqued as having 52 fatal faults in game design.

Darrow kept selling the game, and it was soon in department stores in the area.  One customer who bought the game was the daughter of the  founder of Parker Brothers, who recommened the game to her father.  Parker Brothers changed their mind about the game and licensed the patent from Darrow.  Darrow received a royalty for every game sold, and became a millionare from sales of Monopoly. Within a month of the licensing agreement, Parker Brothers was selling over 20,000 copies of the game per week. 

Multiple Geared Driveshaft Bike

Here is yet another way to achieve multiple speeds on a bike, by the use of a driveshaft and bevel gears.  This one has multiple bevel gears on the drive shaft, and multiple bevel gears on the wheel plate, so it could achieve a wide range of gear ratios.

Women Only Parking Lot

With the high rate of attacks on women in secluded parking lots, especially during evening hours, the Minneapolis  City  Council has established a "Women Only!" parking lot at the Mall of America.  Even the parking lot attendants are exclusively female so that a comfortable  and safe environment is created for women patrons.

Below is the first picture available of the world's  first women-only parking lot in Minnesota. 

Don't worry. To provide equal time for this gender based topic, refer to posts on why women live longer than men, and another reason  why women live longer than men.

Victorian Microscope

Allan Wissner of antique-microscopes.com has in interesting list of early microscope patents, with one of them shown below.  This microscope provides a focus adjustment by use of screw threads, instead of the previous friction grip of the tube.  More antique microscopes are to be found at Allan's site.

Brano Meres' Bamboo Bike

Brano Meres of Bratislava Slovakia has a site where he shows some of his creations that look very wonderful.  One that jumps out as being a little different is his bamboo framed bicycle.  He built this, and has ridden it for a year, with no problems.  It sure looks beautiful!  More great bicycle stuff at his site, BME.

Banner Ridge Winter Camping

I joined my friend Bryan Wilkins and his friend Bryan Oakes on a winter camping trip this past weekend, and we went to an area in the hills above Boise.  The area is called Banner Ridge, and it has many miles of groomed cross country ski trails.  We headed up the trail pulling sleds with our gear, and quickly were on top of the ridge from the car, at about 2 miles.  The ridge is open and flat topped, with incredible views of the surrounding area. 

Once we got on top of the ridge we left the trail to a secret clearing in the trees, and began building snow shelters.  Both Bryan O. and I snore, so we all made seperate shelters. I have been a bit nervous in closed spaces for the past few years, so my shelter had an open entrance and my head was right at the door. 

We started by stomping down areas for our shelters, then cutting blocks out of a trench with snow saws.  Once the trench was cut, we formed the blocks into a peaked roof.  After the roof was up we cut back the sidewalls to widen out the trench in a flare that widened towards the ground.  Inside the trench we placed a plastic tarp, a foam pad and our sleeping bag.  I also had a candle lantern, and a thermometer with a probe that extended outside the shelter so I could see how cold it was outside.

Our cooking was at a little bench where we sat on foam sitting pads, with a kitchen table in front of us.  It got down to 5 degrees F. and I was just fine in my warm sleeping bag.  I had a bad dream that featured my two worst fears.  I dreamed of being in an enclosed space with my ex-wife, and she wouldn't stop talking.  That woke me up at about 1:30 AM, and the whole area was bathed in moon light.

Bryan O. had freeze dried eggs for breakfast, and Bryan W. had canned corn beef hash.  He said that as he ate it he could feel his body temperature start to rise, from the fats and calories in it.  They both looked on enviously as I started frying up my frozen Jimmy Dean hash, with potato chunks, peppers, onions and sausage pieces.  When it was about done I added 3 eggs, and it was looking pretty good.  Bryan W. read the ingredients on  the package to find out some reason why it was unhealthy, but couldn't really find any bad things in it, and I didn't care anyway because it tasted so good. 

There are two yurts located on or near the ridge top.  They are operated by the Parks and Rec department, and anyone can book either yurt and stay there overnight year round.  This looks like a fun way to spend a weekend in the mountains in the winter.

One Speed Chainless Bike

One way to lighten a bike is to get rid of the chain.  But if the cranks are attached to the axle of the wheel, then the wheel has to be very large in order to get any speed out of the bike.  That is the  design need that drove the velocipedes to have huge front wheels, and that design presented serious problems.  Here is a design that does away with the chain, and has front wheel drive.  However the  crank is geared, and the power is transmitted via planetary gearing to the front wheel.

The Ptarmigan Traverse

In 1973 my college buddy Marc Dilley and I went on a famous mountaineering trip in the North Cascades of Washington, near the Canadian border. It is called the Ptarmigan Traverse. It starts at Cascade Pass, which is reached by one of the most spectacular hikes imaginable, spectacular because you are surrounded by incredible peaks on either side. From Cascade Pass, you leave the trail, not to see another trail for 5 or 7 days, depending on how fast you do the route. Most of the pics below are by Marc, and I have shown some of his other pics in posts on Lewisii tweeyi, Fall Trip to the Enchantments, and The Kayak, High Tech Watercraft of the Arctic.

The view below is by Marc, and shows me in stylin' red socks, wool knickers, and ventile cotton anorak, standard  mountaineer garb of the 70's, when wool was king and synthetic fabric was only a dream. We were camped with a view of El Dorado Peak, about halfway to the second pass of the trip, Cache Col.

Looking down at where the trip started we could see Cascade Pass and Forbidden Peak, and Sahale Arm, which leads to Sahale Pk off to the right of the picture below.

Our second night on the trip was spent at a small lake named Kool Aid Lake. There is usually no lake to be seen here, as its usually frozen and covered by snow. In the evening at Kool Aid Lake a cloud formed over us and swirled about in the golden evening sun. It had a real magical air about it.   

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The photo below is of me looking down at the valley floor from Kool Aid Lake.  I was trying a hair style called the "mountain man".  The route of the Ptarmigan is on the mountains above those big U shaped glacial valleys. The valley bottoms are impassible, with devils club and alder thickets, and no trails.  The valley walls are very steep, and level out on their upper part to a flatter profile, which is covered by snow and glaciers.  The glaciers have carved away the mountains until all that is left is a knife edge ridge between the glaciers on either side of the ridge.  The route of the Ptarmigan follows these upper areas high above the valley floor, and crosses the glaciers and the passes between the glaciers and ridges.

 

On the third day of the trip, you have to cross a rocky ridge near Mt. Formidible, and also this snow filled gulley. This is called "the red band", for the band of red rock that leads up to the snow gulley. I crossed first in this photo from my third Ptarmigan, cutting steps in the hard snow. Then I belayed my partner across. The run out below the snow crossing is not pretty, so your heart is pumping pretty good as you move your ice axe with each step, and concentrate on not tripping on your own crampons. Carrying a 70+ pound pack does not make things easier either.

The photo below shows the group after leaving Yang Yang Lakes, climbing a ridge, and approaching the main obstacle of the fourth day. The route is to head toward the dark rock wall, descend to the left towards the big scary glacier, then pick your way through the crevasse fields of that big mother glacier, and top out on a pass next to the pointy peak at the right of the picture. The crevasses were so incredibly deep, maybe 200 feet deep. Crossing the snow bridges was a little disconcerting.

The view below shows the glacier more clearly, and our route up the right side of the glacier, through the crevasses and up the slope.  The visible crevasses are easy, its the hidden crevasses that are dangerous.

Mark Gibson descending a steep snow slope with a big pack. The danger was in sliding down the snow and sliding right over the little rock ledge, below which were cliffs.

We camped on an flat spot below Le Conte Pk, and in the evening thought we would head up and see if we could climb it.  We took ice axes, but no rope.  It got pretty steep at the top, but we reached the top, looked around, and then looked down at our route.  We all thought "Oh Crap, that is a lot steeper than I want to downclimb!".  It was dang steep.  The fellow in the photo is standing about vertical, and you can see that the snow slope is right in his face.  It had to be 60 degrees, which is the steepest snow can stick to rock.  Plus if you got sliding you would be down in those rocks long before you could self arrest.  Do not ever climb Le Conte Pk without a rope or a helicopter, thats what I learned.

The view fromWhite Rock Lakes to Dome Peak (below) is pretty impressive, and its made more impressive by periodic calving of house sized chunks of ice that break off the glacier and fall over the cliffs below, forming a temporary white flow of ice pieces over the rock. That goes on all day and all night. 

The last pass of the trip is on the ridge between Dome Peak and Spire Point, and is called Spire Pass.  We climbed Spire Point, then rested at Spire Pass (below) before heading down to Cub Lake.  The slopes below Spire Pass on the southern side were so steep and slippery with grass and moss that we thought about putting our crampons on for the descent. Of course there was no trail

The photo below shows me in white and another guy approaching the top of Dome Peak, which has really breathtaking dropoffs on either side.  It is definitely not a "dome". It was tempting to get down on hands and knees and crawl out there, when you realized on either side was just about vertical for a long ways

The photo below is as we were rappelling down from Spire Point.  Spire Point is so sharp there is no place to sit on the summit, even for one person.  Each person gets to a ledge below the summit, pulls up to the knife edge ridge that is the summit, looks around at the view over your knuckles, maybe peeps down the other side, which is vertical, and drops back down to the ledge below.  From the ledge we rappelled down. Its about a 5.5 climb, which is enough for me when the exposure is like that. A rock was kicked down from above that came down the route like a cannon ball.  It didn't hit anyone, or they'd be dead.