Episode 3 My Genius Idea

Hello and welcome to My Genius Idea, the series that's looking for

the biggest, best and brightest ideas from all of you.

In My Genius Idea, we're looking for the next generation of inventors.

We received ideas from all over the UK.

Genius Ideas ranged from how to look after your pets,

robots to help around the home,

through to flying cars and eco-powered planes.

Only 18 ideas made it to the heats.

And they will now go head-to-head

to see who will be crowned the overall winner.

Our budding inventors will work with experts

to help their inventions come to life.

And they'll go behind the scenes

of some of the UK's most successful organisations,

to give them the inspiration needed

to progress their inventions further.

I used this to inspire what I did.

Deciding if they can progress in the competition will be down to

expert inventor and judge, Tom Lawton.

Tom has always had a passion for inventing.

I love it. There are so many ideas all around us.

Under everybody's nose, there's a solution that needs to be solved

or a problem that hasn't been addressed.

Tom started inventing when he was ten, and by the time

he was 21, he developed his first product -

the world's first recordable alarm clock.

You always have ideas, and being an inventor

is about actually seeing those ideas through into something that's real.

He's gone on to build a successful career as an inventor,

winning international awards for his work.

It's great doing a programme about young inventors,

because young inventors have a very fresh perception of the world

and so I hoped to be inspired by some of these young minds.

Hoping to impress Tom with their ideas today

are Michael, Robyn, and Shilan.

And here they are now. Welcome to the My Genius Idea nerve centre.

-How are you feeling?

-Excited.

-All right.

Yeah, pretty good? Excited. Up for it?

-Yes.

-Yeah.

-That's good to see.

Shilan, I'm going to come to you first. What's your Genius Idea?

Well, my idea is there's two gloves

that help deaf people talk to people who don't know sign language.

Shilan wants to help deaf people

communicate with non-signers, so maybe all her kung-fu moves

will come in handy for the development of her idea.

I had my idea because I've got a lot of disabled people in my family,

and then it just came to my mind.

What a great idea. Good luck with that.

Robyn, I'm going to come to you next. What's your Genius Idea?

My idea is a material that collects energy from sound

and movement to create electricity.

So, Robyn's idea is to use everyday sounds

and movements of people to make electricity.

If her invention works,

she could use it here in her dance class to power the lights.

My invention would be for schools

and hospitals, or shops and community centres.

I like inventing because it's my own ideas

that maybe could become something one day.

You're making energy, and saving the world. Brilliant.

OK, Michael, what's your Genius Idea?

A chip that goes inside a car's engine, that slows them down

in built up areas.

I came up with it when, one day, my auntie was in the car

and she was saying, "Oh, stupid speed bumps!"

And then I was just thinking,

"Right, what else can we do to stop that?"

Michael's idea is a chip to slow down cars in built up areas.

It's all about speed and control, just like his bowling.

When I invent something, it just makes me feel like,

"Yes, I've done something for the rest of humanity!

"I rock!"

In the My Genius Idea HQ, Shilan, Robyn and Michael

will each have one hour to develop their idea with a top expert.

Shilan's wasting no time on her sign language gloves with expert,

Rolf Black, a specialist in communication devices.

How can I make my invention better?

It's a very good question. We're going to look at

how we can fit the glove with the technology.

Then we need to look at the sign language,

because it's more than just gloves. We need to see how sign language

can be translated into something that technology can understand.

Her gloves will help non-signers

communicate with the deaf. But first, it's important for Shilan

-to understand how sign language works.

-And then "H"...

-Yeah.

..then "I".

And then "L".

Then "A". And then "N".

Perfect. So we need to break that down for technology,

because technology is really stupid

and it needs to find out what are the bits that make something an "H",

that makes something...

So, like, technology's a baby and we have to teach it to do stuff.

-Exactly.

-So, a handy start for Shilan,

but how well is Robyn getting on?

She's working with Neil White, a professor of electronics.

-Tell us about your idea.

-It's a piece of material

that looks pretty much like plaster board,

that creates electricity by using the vibrations of sound and movement.

Do you want to draw us the diagram, how it might work?

This is the board that would be vibrating and creating the energy.

And then the wires coming off, it would create the electricity.

Robyn's looking to find a material that will convert

sound and movement into electricity.

I think we've got some technologies that you can use

for that that we can demonstrate later on.

When I'm thinking about my idea, should I think of one thing,

like either sound or movement?

What we're going to have to look at is how much energy you can get

from movement and sound and compare the two.

It might be that the movement way forward is the best way.

If you look under the dashboard of the car...

Michael's racing ahead and has lots of questions for his expert,

Andy Millar, an electronics engineer.

So, is the technology for my idea available at the moment?

Let's start off by looking at some of the technologies

that are already used to control the speed of vehicles.

But not cars. Actually trains.

OK, have a go at driving it.

If you press the plus button, you'll start driving your train.

By using a train simulator, Michael is seeing first-hand

how computer technology can remotely control the train's speed.

And you're getting a warning now. But keep going.

And now look - it's put the brakes on.

So the driver's still got control,

but if he goes too fast, it slams the brakes on and stops it.

So, can this kind of technology

be used in Michael's slow down invention?

Shilan's pushing the limits to find

the technology that can help her idea.

What do you think we need to find out

if you have something like an "A"?

What could we detect? Have you got any ideas?

You have to detect, like, when the glove touches it...

because there's lots of little stumps and electric wires,

the electric wires can feel it and they translate it into a voice.

Perfect. So we've got some touching here,

-then we've got other things like movement.

-Yeah.

-We need movement.

So we need different sensors. Sensors for touch, sensors...

And like this one, it's not just like this, it's like this.

So it need's something inside

that can tell which way it...

-Orientation?

-Yeah.

-Perfect.

So we've got a lot of different sensors we need to put in.

A sensor has been attached to Shilan's wristband.

Will she be able to start sending signals by just moving her hands?

When you move it quickly to the side,

like you would for your "H",

the LED goes on.

Try it quicker again.

There you go. That's it. So this is one of the sensors we can use

to see there's a movement in this direction, that tells us our "H".

Robyn's also putting all her energy into her idea.

So what we've got here is just a coil of copper wire...

She needs to get to grips

with all the different ways of making electricity.

There are lots of ways to do this.

Using a copper coil and a magnet is one of them.

If we put the magnet inside this coil of wire,

it will actually generate electricity.

So, what we can demonstrate is, if we move the magnets

in and out of the coil, that LED will actually start to light.

You can just see little flashes of light,

which shows that we're generating electricity.

Another material that might be useful

is a material like this.

This is a very special material

and it's called a piezoelectric material.

As you squash it, it directly converts into electricity.

So this is something that potentially could be used,

because it's flat. What are your thoughts now about using a wall,

or perhaps using it on the floor?

Maybe using it in the floor would create more energy

by people's movement.

Robyn's got the low-down on the materials she could use.

But which will she choose for her idea?

Meanwhile, Michael is right on track with his invention.

Any ideas how this works as a system?

This bit is inside the driver's cab,

but there's got to be a lot more than that to make it work.

Are there are some things, like, maybe in the road?

Brilliant. Absolutely right.

In the middle of the railway track, there are what we call balises,

and they're big yellow boxes inside the track.

And as the train passes over them, it sends a signal up to the train

and tells the train how fast it's allowed to go on on that line.

So, could I use this technology in my idea somehow?

Which parts of it do you think you could use?

-The blocks on the track.

-Yeah.

And then you've also got the control computer in the train as well.

With only 20 minutes left, I'm off to see how the budding inventors

are coming along with their ideas.

What's going on?

Well, we've been looking at this sensor monitor,

so when we do certain movements,

the LED would light up.

So that's good for being able

to know that you can actually send these hand movements somewhere else.

How are you going to implement that into your idea?

To make my invention work,

we have to put loads more sensors on.

-So whatever way they do it, it will still understand.

-Brilliant.

Sounds like the first step's there. You just need to try and take this

a little bit further forward. So, brilliant work.

But will Shilan be able to find a way to fit in all the sensors

she needs on her gloves?

Next up, time to check in on Robyn.

-How's it going so far?

-Well, Neil has told me about

how I can improve my invention

and what sort of material I could use for it. This is copper

and there's just a small screwdriver here

with a magnet stuck to the end.

The magnet and the copper makes the LED light light up.

Neil, you're using metals there,

but can you create energy from things that aren't metallic?

Yes, there's materials like this, for example.

This is a piezoelectric material. It can convert force,

or mechanical pressure, into electricity.

It doesn't need a magnet and coil, it's the actual material itself

that does the conversion process. It's a special crystal structure.

So it's looking bright for Robyn's electricity making idea.

And is Michael still on track with his? How's it going?

There are little blocks

on the track

-which slow it down in certain places.

-Oh, so it's kind of similar

to your idea, then? You want to apply that to cars.

You've already got some ideas about how you could tell

the car what speed it's supposed to be travelling at, haven't you?

Yes, you could do it by satellite. The satellite can know exactly

-what areas the car goes at a certain speed limit in.

-That's brilliant.

So essentially, you're trying to apply this from the train,

-and also a bit of satellite navigation as well?

-Yeah.

So what does expert inventor and judge, Tom, make of the ideas

so far? You're going to get to see these Genius Ideas

in full later on when the young inventors talk you through them,

but what are your initial reactions?

Three brilliant ideas. And they seem to be addressing

some quite fundamental problems that we all face. So it's very inspiring.

And what's interesting about these three kids is that

they're touching on areas that are being currently researched

by some of the country's leading universities and institutions.

So I think the question is

-whether they are breaking new ground.

-These aren't luxury ideas.

They're looking at problems and trying to solve them.

Is that what it's about, often, with an inventor?

Absolutely. It's all about solving a problem.

And credit to these guys for seeing a bigger picture

and trying to solve some fundamental issues.

-Anything that's kind of jumping out so far?

-I don't know.

I'm impressed by the diversity of the ideas,

and I'm looking forward to investigating them further.

-Well, I'll let you go and do that now.

-Thanks.

-Good luck, Tom.

Tom will be judging all their ideas later on. He'll want to know

how well Shilan, Robyn and Michael

have understood the technology behind their ideas,

and how well they can sell their idea to him.

What's the mouse pad rigged up to?

Only one of today's inventors can win a place in the next round.

What's this bit of kit?

-Are you picking this man's brain for lots of expertise?

-Yeah.

Our budding inventors need to make the most

of their sessions with the experts

to understand how their ideas might work.

Often, the job of an inventor is to redesign or rethink their idea

to make it even better.

Every year, Formula One spends millions of pounds on

trying to make their cars go faster,

as the guys found out when they made a pit stop

at the HQ of the Williams F1 team.

MUSIC: "Motorsport" by Roger Barsotti

Formula One is all about trying to make cars better and faster.

Engineers are always changing their cars to improve them.

Formula One is about the pursuit of excellence.

Our car is constantly improving, every two weeks it must be better.

Excellence is something that can be pursued, is worthy of pursuit,

and is something that this business and the team here is built around.

If the children take away part of that mindset by the end of today,

then I think it really will have been a worthwhile exercise.

Shilan, Robyn and Michael are here to see first hand that ideas

need to constantly change in order to improve.

I'm feeling good today,

because it's going to be a great experience

and I'm going to get loads out of it.

I'm hoping there's going to be something

to inspire me for my own invention.

I'm feeling excited because I've never seen Formula One cars before

and I want to know more about them.

Here's one of our recent Formula One cars.

Now, the wing at the back of the car

and also the one at the front of the car here

has the effect of pushing the car down onto the track.

It's the opposite of a wing that lifts an aircraft into the air.

They have the effect of creating downforce,

which squeezes the car onto the ground

and allows you to drive faster round corners.

Our budding inventors make the most of the cars around them

and jump in to try them out.

I was surprised about they need wings, because they go really fast

and the wings help the tyres to pressure down,

so the tyres don't go flying up.

Now it's time for Shilan, Robyn and Michael

to put what they've learnt to the test,

with the help of test driver, Sam.

What Sam's going to do now, he's going to drive a lap.

It's your job to think of ways we can make him go faster.

'It feels a bit quicker in a straight line,

'and it's a bit harder to handle through the high-speed corners.'

Harder to handle on high-speed corners. Think about that.

-Right...

-'Oh! Definitely harder to turn here.'

He's spun. It's harder on the corners.

Something with the wings.

'What about the wings? What do I need?'

-More downforce! More downforce!

-'Well done, guys.

'Can I have more downforce, please, engineers?'

-Tell him to bring the car to a stop.

-Bring the car to a stop!

-OK.

After a quick adjustment to the wings, Sam's ready for another lap.

Can you give us a bit of feedback?

'The first corner, there's more front-end grip.

'I'm able to go a lot quicker now.

'Much better, thank you.

'You've sorted out my car.'

It's made me really inspired about my invention.

And I'm going to go out there and give it my best shot.

We're back in the HQ

and it's the last 10 minutes of their development session.

Now Shilan, Robyn and Michael will see if their ideas

can actually work. The pressure's on.

Now put it on to this little...

Shilan's been working on sensors

that could help her sign language gloves work.

So it's time to put them to the test.

If you have different movements, you get a different text.

So for different gestures,

-we get different whole texts at the moment.

-Oh, yeah!

So with just one sensor in Shilan's glove,

moving her hand to the left triggers one message,

and moving it to the right triggers another. Cool!

And obviously, when we do more, we want many more sensors on there

that pick up different things.

Now, we don't want to always read it.

-We want to hear it.

-We want to hear it.

So what we do, this text would be transferred

into this little program I've got here.

-COMPUTER:

-Hello. How are you? I'm Shilan.

Robyn's been working on ways to create electricity through movement.

As time's running out,

she's now got to choose the best material to use in her invention.

So this is a piezoelectric generator. Can you tap that?

Then we can actually see that there's a spike of energy

that comes out of this.

And it's that very short, sharp spike that's actually

generating the useful amount of energy that we need to use.

An alternative is to use a flexible device that we can actually flick.

And as we flick that, you can see that we're getting many more spikes,

so it's producing a bit more power that might be useful.

Which one is best?

I think this one would be better to use in my invention,

because it's a lot more flexible

and it's easier to make more electricity out of it.

And Michael is about to find out if his idea can go the distance.

Can the train technology cut it on the race track?

So it could be either mounted in the road,

it could be in satellite, sending a signal down to the car.

Shall we see if it works?

So first of all, we watch this driver

driving too fast past that school.

There he is, whizzing past.

-So take control and slow him down.

-OK.

Oh, yeah. That works.

With time up, Michael's been able to test his idea,

Shilan's been able to use a sensor on her glove

to send simple messages,

and Robyn's decided which material would be best for her.

But who will impress Tom the most

to win a place in the next stage of the competition?

All three of our budding inventors now have to pitch to Tom.

And it's Robyn to go first.

Tom can't wait to hear your idea.

He's waiting for you in the presentation den. Off you go.

Good luck.

Can she convince Tom to put her through to the next round?

Hi, Robyn. I'm looking forward to learning about your idea.

Can you explain it to me?

Well, my idea is a material which is made out of piezoelectric,

and it will be built under floors

so that the vibrations will be able to be turned into electricity.

To start with, the idea was to do with harnessing sound and movement.

Can you tell me why you decided not to harness sound energy?

Me and my expert found out that when we were finding the movement

and sound, movement created more energy than the sound and movement

put together. So we took the sound out and just used movement.

And that way, it creates more electricity

for the buildings to use to power any electrical items in the building.

Can you tell me about what you learned from your expert?

I learned about the sorts of materials

that would create more energy,

and the piezoelectric created more energy than any other material.

Whereabouts would you install this?

It could be used in schools and train stations

and hospitals and shopping centres,

anywhere where there's a big building and quite busy.

OK. So it would be something that fitted into the floors,

the walls, just picked up on the vibrations

and the movement and everything?

You seem to have thought it all the way through.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

I explained my idea as best I could, and he seemed to like it.

And I just tried my hardest.

Next, it's Shilan. She'll have to explain her translation gloves

really well if she's to book herself a spot in the semifinals.

-Can you explain your idea to me?

-Well, it's called Magic Gloves,

and it helps deaf people to talk to their friends

who don't know sign language.

Can you talk me through the diagram and explain exactly how it works?

Well, there's some hidden sensors,

and whenever the deaf person,

like, if they wanted to say hello to their friend, they would do "hello".

And then the sensors would translate the movement into a voice

that would then come to the speaker.

The speaker would then say hello to the person.

The person would say hello back.

Then the microphone, over here, will get the voice

and will send it to the flexible TV screen.

-OK.

-Then there would be an avatar

who does what they said back in sign language.

So it would translate backwards, so that the deaf person

would see an avatar doing the sign language of what the person said?

-They really are a pair of magical gloves.

-Yes.

Does the technology exist to make this happen?

I know that the sensors will work,

but I need a bit more work on the others.

In terms of perhaps integrating the whole thing together?

-Yes.

-You've thought about this a lot,

and you've done a really good presentation. Thank you.

-Can I say thank you in sign language?

-Of course.

It was quite scary, but I think I pulled it off.

I think I left a good impression on him.

Tom's not looking for a finished idea today,

he's looking to see which one has the potential

to cut it in the real world.

Also, our inventors are being judged on how well they can sell

and understand the technology behind their ideas.

I'm looking forward to learning about your idea

for GPS to slow down cars in urban areas.

It looks like you've got a presentation.

Do you want to talk me through that?

Well, the slogan I'm thinking of doing is "Go on, slow down".

The Slow Down is a marvellous piece of technology,

-bringing cars into the 21st century.

-OK.

As you already know, there are a lot of accidents involving cars speeding.

The Slow Down can stop almost all of them with its unique design.

OK. Can you explain it to me?

There is a chip in the engine of cars

that gets its information from a satellite, and a chip in the road.

The HQ tells the chip in the road and the satellite

what speed it should be in certain areas.

-OK.

-So, for instance, around schools it could be like 30.

Yes. Do you think that there could be safety issues that might arise

in having the speed of your car controlled remotely?

A car that isn't enabled will, if they are speeding along a motorway,

then they are more likely to crash into people who have the chip.

Because they will automatically slow down

and the other cars wouldn't have the technology to do so.

You've given a brilliant presentation. Thank you.

Thank you.

From what I got, I think it went really well.

He liked the presentation and the idea, really.

So for two budding inventors, the competition will be over shortly.

But who has won a place in the next round?

Will it be Robyn, with her idea of powering buildings

by making electricity through people's movements?

Shilan and her gloves to help the deaf?

Or Michael's invention to slow down speeding drivers?

-Tom, were you impressed by the standard of the ideas?

-I was, yes.

And really impressed by the passion they had

and that's all part of being an inventor.

So could you imagine these ideas working in the real world?

There's a couple that do have potential, yes.

You say a couple, but we're only looking for one person

to go through to the next stage.

-Have you made a decision?

-I have, Johny.

Well, if you'd like to take a seat, I'll bring in our young inventors.

It's crunch time. They've all spent time developing their ideas

and have pitched them to Tom.

But who has won a place in the semifinals?

Michael, Shilan, Robyn, you've all done so well to get this far.

But only one person can go through.

Tom has made a decision, so it's over to Tom.

Three brilliant ideas.

Robyn, it's a great idea

and you've taken on the advice that your expert's given you.

But I am concerned about the amount of energy

that could be harvested.

Shilan, it's inspiring

to see you thinking about the needs of deaf people.

But the idea makes assumptions about the technology

that's got to fit into this product, and how that solution works.

Michael, I think you've got a fabulous idea,

with a very grand vision.

But it does require large-scale implementation to make it happen,

and I think there could be some resistance from the users.

But I have made my decision.

And the inventor that I'm going to send through to the semifinal

of My Genius Idea is...

..Robyn.

So Robyn wins with her idea of powering buildings

by creating electricity from movement,

and is still in with a chance of winning My Genius Idea.

Well done, Robyn.

-How do you feel?

-Really good!

Next time we'll look for another idea

to join Robyn in the semifinals.

Join us next time as we look for another Genius Idea.

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