Dreams on Display : Inventors’ Show: Toys for Everyone

In a show that would have delighted Jules Verne, the world’s inventors put their latest dreams on display.

There were ways of walking on snow or cycling on water you have never thought of and will probably never need. If you’re losing hair, there was “magic water” from China for making it grow again. And if you cannot live without the sound of music, there is now a toothbrush that also plays tunes.

About 550 exhibitors with more than 1,000 new ideas turned up this year for the Geneva exhibition, which ran from April 15-24 and has become the world’s biggest jamboree of inventions, some of which on past experience may make millions for their creators.

Swiss scientist Jean Fritsch says his lamp will provide lighting 24 hours a day until the year 2001.

Submersible Cruiser

French inventors have come up with a semi-submersible leisure cruiser, whose central section, when lowered, serves as a dining area with panoramic underwater views, and when retracted turns into a sleeping cabin for three.

There is also a home earthquake alarm, a computerized Bible, a toilet paper disposer with built-in deodorant, a pocket device that fends off purse-snatchers and a dog’s toilet that looks like a tree.

On one side of the exhibition hall, table-tennis balls were hurled at alarming speeds from an automatic-serving machine against a protective glass screen. The device was invented in South Korea for sports halls.

Bearded Swiss Heinrich Rebmann demonstrated a bicycle-like contraption that, fitted to a boat or rubber dinghy, produces a maximum speed of 7 m.p.h.

‘Must Be a Better Way’

He rhapsodized: “I was working in Brazil, and on one of the first river trips I made, the water was beautiful, the sky was blue--it was just like paradise, except for the noise of the gasoline engine. I told myself: There must be a better way, and one day I’ll think of it.”

At the U.S. stand, Darrel Wray of Indiana hoped to persuade homeowners that it is better to use his new retractable electric cords built into the walls. He said: “I’m working on four other inventions in my spare time. Luckily I’m not married.”

The Taiwanese brought about 50 inventions. Just down the hall, China had about 18 devices on display.

Among the Taiwanese was Philip Peng, 59, from Chung-Ho City, whose business card says simply: Inventor.

More Religious Than Work

The way he described it, inventing things is more like a religion than a job.

“I don’t need the money. I just hope I can do something for society,” he said as observers tried to figure out what the bubbling bottle attached to a small computer was all about.

It was actually a safety device for medicinal drops intended to make a nurse’s life easier and prevent overdoses. “I invented it after being in hospital myself. I could never sleep at night for fear the treatment would go wrong,” he said.

Wu Heng, visiting president of the Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said 5,000 inventions are registered in China every year and most of them go into production.

A Dying Breed

Israeli-born Briton Igal Topim, a farmer from Ongar, in Essex, believes that with traditional village blacksmiths a dying breed, there is a need for his do-it-yourself, nail-less horseshoe made of polyurethane instead of steel.

The Australians startle visitors by deliberately setting alight the pipe connecting a gas cylinder to an outdoor campfire, to show how the gas flow--cause of thousands of fires a year--instantly cuts off with their much-acclaimed device.

They also showed a “fish magnet” that works by flashing the sun’s rays around the sea. “It will turn mildly active fish into a feeding frenzy,” the brochure promises.

Do inventors conform to the old image of men working fanatically amid bubbling retorts, gauges or flashing lights, to the despair of their families? Judging by some of the inventors at the show--well, yes.

Five Other Inventions

“Inventors are different,” said Peng, who has also devised five other inventions in his basement. “It is very difficult to find someone to support you. It may take years of work, but if you like it you go on with it.”

Necessity, it seems, really is the mother of invention. The Canadians exhibited the “autoskate,” a sledge-like device with hard-rubber wheels, onto which a driver with a flat tire simply drives the wheel, then on to the nearest garage.

It all started when Raymond Tyler got a flat tire in the snow with only a piece of plywood and a chain in his trunk. He drove the car onto the board, which he chained to a bumper and drove off. Its Montreal developers believe the device will appeal to those who don’t want to get their hands dirty.

At the Beijing stand, Dr. Lu Fengsheng had written on the wall in a gush of emotion over his new submersible pump, “I have realized the end of a dream that lasted for 50 years.”