Walking on water would be loads of fun. Jesus started the trend, and since then everyone's wanted to try it. (Well I have at least). Trouble is, unless you're miraculously endowed, you sink.
But! using my special electrohydrodynamic shoes, you can try this fabulous new sport. The shoes look like basketball boots, with big, thick soles. Within these soles are a series of electrohydrodynamic engines - like the 'caterpillar drive' in Red October. These things actually exist, although they're not powerful enough yet to drive submarines. The engines suck in water from the side of the shoe, accelerate it across the sole, and pump it out in a downwards direction through a line of nozzles at the centre of the sole. They require large voltages(although just very small currents), so you are going to have to wear a back-pack full of the Halfbakery's latest Battery Flywheels.
Once kitted out with these shoes, you can just step onto the water. You will notice an agitation of the water as the pumps engage, and feel a firm upward pressure. Now you can just walk around as you would on dry land. You have no trouble stepping forward, because the pumps will provide a strong reaction force as your foot pushes backwards against the water. So just find some waves and wow the surfers with your God-like powers!
(NB Since posting this idea has been radically revised in the annos. Its still about walking on water, though)-- spacemoggy, May 22 2004 Walking on water competition http://www.swc.cc.c.../wow%209-27-03r.htmMy idea is nothing like this. [spacemoggy, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004] Hoverboard http://www.futureho....net/hoverboard.htmBuy yours today! [spacemoggy, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004] Channel your chakra to you feet and you can walk on anything.-- Knut, May 22 2004 We used to have a snivelling apology of a man working in our accounts department called Walter. Everybody walked over him.-- Fishrat, May 22 2004 Why was your accounts department called "Walter"? :-)-- Native Dancer, May 22 2004 I'm kinda doubting these things could work, but croissant for trying. Btw, Jesus didn't wear shoes, and certainly not basketball boots.-- DrCurry, May 22 2004 Not wear shoes? John the Baptist would disagree.-- ldischler, May 22 2004 Those were sandals.-- DrCurry, May 22 2004 Back in the day (early to mid 70's) there was a show called "Zoom". On one episode, a child demonstrated a pair of "water shoes" he'd invented. The "shoes" consisted of two largish styrofoam blocks with sandal-like straps on top. On the bottom, he'd rigged portions of two venetian blinds so that, as he moved his one foot forward, the slats on the blinds lay flat against the bottom while the slats on the blinds on the other shoe hung down, giving him something to push off with. With a shuffling motion, he could make it across a small lake. I imagine it would be a lot like cross-country skiing.-- phoenix, May 22 2004 When I was doing research for this idea (which I did, honest!) I found a website of a competition they hold for making walking on water shoes similar to what you describe, [phoenix]. I'll put a link up. The trouble with floatation devices for Jesus-style water walking is that surface tension makes them hard to pick up, and you can't really move easily because the water's no good for pushing against. *My* shoes solve both these problems. Could some of the people who've fishboned the idea tell me why? I'm not questioning a half-baker's right to fishbone at will, I'd just like to know what you didn't like about it.-- spacemoggy, May 23 2004 I don't see many kyakers, but it's a great sport. You wouldn't see many of these on people's feet, but it's a cute notion.-- dpsyplc, May 23 2004 I'm surprised our Ninja sub-community hasn't annotated the bejesus out of this one.-- ConsulFlaminicus, May 23 2004 I think the idea of annotating the bejeezus out of something related to Jesus is funny. Teehee.
On-topic, I think you may have a problem with the push-off...since man walks by pushing forward with the toes, you're going to have to find a way to really increase the waterflow out of the forward jets and cut it completely from the aft jets when walking, otherwise you'll just plunge into the water, leading with your toes (and your heels, too, when they strike the water first, which they do when we step). If you can include the idea of selectively using and closing the jets, you're golden.
Points for originality.-- shapu, May 25 2004 Jesus was a ninja?-- chud, May 25 2004 Good point, [shapu] but you're assuming that, Jesus-like, I will be walking on the surface of the water as if it were solid. In fact, being not the son of god but just a guy with some electric shoes, my feet will be sinking several inches into the water. So all the jets will be engaged throughout the push-off.-- spacemoggy, May 25 2004 Since a very early age I suffer something I describe as "feet claustrophobia". Hence, I hate shoes. All kinds of them. We weren't made to wear shoes. I'll fishbone anything that suggest people should trap their feet inside a dark, uncomfortably wet sacks of bad smell (in some cases).
(P.S. walking on water should be cool though, but not cool enough to cure my phobia )-- Pericles, May 25 2004 This is an interesting idea, but I don't like your borderline use of magic. As defined in the help section "magic - the author is using a technology they know very little about as magic."
For example, why are you using a caterpillar drive? (By the way, in Red October that was a magnetohydrodynamic drive, not a electrohydrodynamic drive, but that's not relevant to my objection.) I assume you picked this technology because you thought that conventional technology wasn't good enough. But I know of no information that would lead me to believe that a caterpillar drive would be any smaller, lighter, or more energy efficient for this application. I thought the primary benefits where lack of noise and moving parts in the water, neither of which is particularly important for this invention.
Secondly you invoke "the Halfbakery's latest Battery Flywheels" to power this. Your assumption that this would take a lot of power is probably correct, but I think it would be better to simply state your concern that current battery systems may not be up for the task than to "solve" the problem with some mythical device.
Put a couple hoses up the wearer's legs to a backpack mounted pump powered by a 2 cycle engine and see if that works... I'm still not sure if a powerful enough engine would be too heavy or not, but at least there's nothing magic about it.-- scad mientist, May 25 2004 You've certainly given me food for thought, [scad]. I originally chose e-h-d engines because I didn't think it would be very cool having a pair of rotor blades on each foot. However, I really like your idea of putting the pump in the backpack, and powering it with a petrol (diesel?) engine.
So! The idea now is: each of your shoes has some intake openings on the side. Water is sucked up through these by the back-pack pump, along tubes going up the legs, and driven back down different tubes to outlets in the sole of the shoe, in the form of a high-pressure stream. (Oh, btw, the back-pack has some sort of snorkel mechanism so the engine can start up again if you fall over.)
You now have in effect a water (rather than air) driven hovercraft on each foot. But hang on a second, I hear you expostulate, surely a hovercraft has a skirt, without which it is nothing but a hairdrier? Ah-hah, I reply, this also has a skirt of sorts - the surrounding water itself. This, being much more massive than air(in the sense of heavy, not in the sense of big), and also incompressible, will act to contain the high pressure beneath each foot in exactly the same way as a hovercraft skirt.
The final question is, can a small engine generate enough power to lift itself and a person in a hovercraft type situation? To answer that I refer you to [link] which shows a personal hoverboard (they're real! - but they're slightly crap)
Please note, I am not saying this *will* be a hovercraft, in the sense of floating *above* the water - I am saying that the way it contains the thrust is *similar* in principal. The shoes still sit in the water.
Finally, sorry for the extreme length of this anno. With [scad mientist]'s modification, I think this idea is really feasible. Thoughts, anyone?-- spacemoggy, May 27 2004 how about stilts that vary their length to match the depth of the water?-- mrmatt, May 27 2004 //Mayby if little pipes come out of your shoe when it senses water which pump the water though using compressed air or some other fuel //Isn't that what I was proposing anyway? It's so weird, I was just thinking about this idea this morning, and about how cool it would be to walk across the English Channel; I check the HB for the first time in weeks and it's popped up. Spooky. Has [jutta] implemented some sort of ESP alert system?-- spacemoggy, Aug 30 2004 That's the spirit, [contracts]! Why don't we just go back to living in caves while we're at it? Luddite.-- spacemoggy, Aug 30 2004 //Can I live in a cave with [contracts]?//No. [contracts] is going to live in the cave *by himself* until he learns to appreciate the difference between a dull, boring canoe and fantastic walk-on-water shoes.-- spacemoggy, Aug 30 2004 Anyone can walk on water.
Just wait until the lake freezes.-- DesertFox, Jan 30 2005 won't work, because the mass flow of the water into the shoes = mass flow out of shoes.
You would have to intake water from above. You could pull water from the clouds, a waterfall, or have someone from above pouring water into your machine. Good luck!-- thisispeterstanley, May 26 2007 I'm miraculously endowed, and I don't have that problem.-- nuclear hobo, May 26 2007 random, halfbakery