Minigames inspired loosely by 3 of Danny's patents :)
System and method for removing surface particles from an object
The airport puffer booth. A sensor picks a spot on a person, a jet knocks particles loose, and capture jets herd them into a collector. We replaced the air jets with lasers, because it is a birthday. Four of them, crossing where you aim. The clock in the corner is the ten thousand year one.
PLAYLumen traveling device
A self propelling microrobot with wall gripping wheels, a sensor for a condition of interest, and an active portion that does something about it. You are the motion control circuitry. Drive by lamplight, chase a sensor bearing that fibs at range, dig the wheels in against the current, and burn the plaque out.
PLAYRadiofrequency particle separator
A radiofrequency field heats mineral grains until the water around them boils, and the bubble carries the grain up to a skimmer. Frequency sets the skin depth, which wants to land at about a tenth of the grain, so a big grain tunes low and a fine one tunes high. The rock has no band of its own, and lifts whenever its size happens to match yours.
PLAYUS 9,134,205 B2, system and method for removing surface particles from an object. Hillis, Hyde, Kare, Ishikawa, Wood. Elwha LLC, granted 15 September 2015.
US 7,857,767 B2, lumen traveling device. Ferren, Hillis, Hyde, Ishikawa, Jung, Leuthardt, Myhrvold, Sweeney, Tegreene, Wood, Wood. Gearbox LLC, granted 28 December 2010.
US 9,480,991 B2, radiofrequency particle separator. Baym, Briggs, Gilbert, Hillis, Hyde, Ishikawa, Kare, Myhrvold, Myhrvold, Pan, Tegreene, Whitmer, Wood, Wood. Elwha LLC, granted 1 November 2016.
These are games, not implementations. We read the claims, borrowed the arrangement of parts, and then did whatever was more fun. Dust Off swaps the fluid jets for lasers, which the specification nowhere authorises and we are not sorry about. Separator's frequencies are invented numbers, although the relation they obey, skin depth falling with the square root of frequency so a bigger grain tunes lower, is the real one off the page. Nothing here simulates the physics. If you are planning to build a mining plant from this website, that is between you and your investors.
The three figures above are drawn here, in the style of a patent sheet. They are not the office drawings, and the numerals are ours. Follow the links for the real ones.
They run on a phone, and they are happier still on a laptop with a trackpad.
Happy birthday, Danny.
Chrome and panels from scifi-ui.