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June 2012: Invent Your Own Anything
The 6th annual Invention Awards are here, from an inflatable tourniquet to a better lobster trap to spring-loaded hocket skates. This issue is all about the celebration of invention.
Plus: Making synthetic biology breakthroughs in a garage, building a constantly-moving ping-pong table, and a ridiculously overpowered barbecue.
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from Los Angeles, CA
The planetary gear in the corkscrew device can increase torque by six times, or it can increase the number of output rotations for each crank of the handle, but it cannot do both simultaneously as the article says. That would be a violation of the laws of physics. I'm sure that this cork remover increases the torque, rather than the number of rotations.
>The corkscrew multiplies force, not distance traveled [(not so)common misconception].
I think this is just poor communication across mediums... it probably increases the number of rotations being expressed on the screw (by a factor of 3?) but leaves the total number of rotations the same.
The Innergie Magic Cable Duo is the first device I have seen which breaks an unspoken law dating back even before the infamous "Ford vs. Chevy" debate, by being a product designed for use in two polar opposite camps.
As a former designer of corkscrews I feel qualified to say that this "planetary gears corkscrew" is about the most ridiculous gadget I have seen in a long time.
Just the thought of anybody using this with both hands high above the bottle freaks me out, not to mention how utterly awkward and inelegant an act this must be.
Plus, the amount of engineering which went into overcomplicating such a simple device just baffles me.
This is exactly why I stopped designing gadgets - nobody needs any more of them, and every new one is answering questions nobody asked.
Only geeks from planet Gear.