Entertaining Appliances!

We all know that mundane household task's can be boring, for example, doing that bit of dusting or washing up that you've been putting off for day's, or the vacuuming. wouldn't it be great if you could somehow turn those mundane everyday task's into something fun?

Well, the mundane task that I've decided to focus on, is vacuuming, it's a job that I have a particular hatred for, and I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who would whole-heartedly agree that it's a very laborious and boring job. When I approached looking at how to make this more fun, the first thing I had to think of is why is it boring? Well I came to some conclusions:

1. It's monotonous - All your doing is pushing the thing around the room.
2. Vacuum's generally look boring. - Vacuum's aren't exactly fun things to look at.
3. It's just not fun! - Nuff said.

So, what could you do to make it more entertaining? Well, let's tackle the first problem,
pushing the silly thing around.

So how could you make pushing something around fun? Well for a start off, don't push it around at all! My initial idea was to hook up a remote control device to it, meaning that you could sit from the comfort of your chair, driving the thing exactly like a remote control car! You might be thinking, "Hasn't that already been done?" well I found out it has, but I'm proposing much more than just that, my idea is to also include a timer into the hoover, so that you and your flatmates or family can have time-trial races, and see who can get the best time hoovering the entire room. It will store your best time for each room, and your average times overall in your controller that will be displayed on an LCD screen, so you can try and improve on it every time you need to hoover up!

There is also the problem of it looking boring, vacuum cleaner's just aren't generally aesthetically fun things to look at, so the idea that I had was to have custom skins for your little hoovering buddy, for example a mouse, complete with tail and ear's, or a dust eating ravenous monster, or even a classic car design the possibilities would be endless, new ones could be brought out all the time, as there will be easy to use fittings to attach each one.

It will also be possible to have more than one running at the same time, because there will be a switch on the controller, for up to four different radio frequencies, meaning you can have a radio controlled vacuum races in your living room!

So in conclusion my idea is:
1.Radio controlled hoover.
2.Inbuilt timing device, with - best time and average time, displayed on an LCD display on the controller.
3.Enabling more than one to run at once, by being able to choose from four radio frequencies.

About Me

Hello world :P, my name's Dan Hill, I'm 20 years old, and am currently doing a game programming (development) course at UClan. I used to live in Carlisle, but am now living in Trinity Hall's of Residence, Preston.

I try to keep myself amused by surfing the tinterweb and programming random thing's in C++ with Allegro, I'm currently trying to make an RPG and a scrolling shooter game, but I'm having a bit of trouble getting the collision detection to work in the shooter, and the RPG was one of the first game's I ever tried to make so that could do with being re-coded entirely, assuming I go back to finish it at all. I also enjoy doing graphics for games/fun, I like to use the programs GIMP a program which is very similar to photoshop for those who don't know and Blender, which is a 3D modelling program.

I also play load's of guitar and used to play in two band's until I moved, one was a Thrash band, the other was a rhythm and blues band where I played bass rather than the usual guitar. I currently own three guitars, one is an Ibanez RG42 with a floyd rose tremelo, which I keep in standard tuning, another is a Jackson DKMG which I use drop tuned, generally in D standard, but sometimes C, and my other guitar is a slimline Ibanez classical, a really nice guitar in my opinion. As far as what I play on electric in my spare time I play Mettalica (BEFORE LOAD!!) Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert, Dream Theatre, and every now and then some Pantera. I also play classical guitar, stuff like Bach and Francisco Tarrega, I just do this as a relaxing thing and to keep my guitar playing from getting rusty.

As far as the games I like, I like a hell of a lot really, I'm into retro games and more modern one's. I've always played the Battlefield series right from 1942 up to Battlefield 2, I also like Gears of War (controversial choice I know). I like space exploration games a lot too, and really wish someone would make some decent next gen one's, but my favourite retro ones are Frontier Elite, I especially like the new OpenGL remake Oolite, and my other favourite space themed game is probably Star Control II ( the Spathiwa are hilarious ;) ) . I also like some online browser based games, I was addicted to a site called Funkypool at one point, which is just an online pool game, and blockles, which is a multi-player version of tetris, with what's called "items" which you use to add or take lines from you or an opponent, on a site called Iminlikewithyou.com (a wierd name I know).

So that's pretty much all I can think of right now, I'll keep this blog updated as and when I think of something else to put on it, or am bored ;)

New Blog

Hi anyone who reads this, this is my new blog that I'll update sometime soon.........