When you are dumped in surf, the sand gets *everywhere*. Even after you've showered, you're still sandy, especially in sensitive and hard-to-reach places.

The solution has three components.

1. an open shell, about the same size as the cover of a butter dish, but made of something flexible (silicone?)
2. a gel, which almost fills the shell
3. a small electric motor, capable of inducing a vibration in the gel

First, press the shell against the sandy part of you, so that there's as much contact as possible between sand and gel.
Second, switch on the motor, whose vibration has the effect of turning the gel into a sol (like a gel, but runnier).
Third, allow time for the sol to trickle around the grains of sand.
Right, you can switch it off now. Ahem! I said you can switch it off now.
Fourth, allow time for the sol to turn back into gel, but with the sand grains now stuck in it.
Fifth, gently lift away the shell, gel and all.

I'm not sure how you then remove the sand from the gel, if you want to re-use it.

Please, nobody mention custard.
-- pertinax, Feb 01 2007

Douglas Adams' speech at Digital Biota 2 http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/
(1) telescopes (2) microscopes (3) silicon (4) fibre-optics [jutta, Feb 01 2007]

You want to press a soft, vibrating gel up against your "sensitive and hard-to-reach places"? I can imagine there might be a market for that.
-- hippo, Feb 01 2007


Well [hippo], I'm guessing that the gel in those devices might not be optimised for getting rid of sand.
-- pertinax, Feb 01 2007


Obviously, you don't have hair in 'those' places?
<Sings> "Pain is so close to pleasure.."
-- Ling, Feb 01 2007


Washable I hope
-- DenholmRicshaw, Feb 01 2007


Is this the first, second, or third age of sand?
-- m_Al_com, Feb 01 2007


Well, [Ling], I was hoping that hair wouldn't stop this from working; at worst, you might lose the odd strand, but we're not talking about wax here.
-- pertinax, Feb 01 2007


[m_Al_com], you've got me there: ??
-- pertinax, Feb 01 2007


pertinax, I was just splitting hairs. Actually, May I recommend a cheese sandwich? They seem to attract sand like a magnet.
-- Ling, Feb 01 2007


[Ling], remind me not to accept a cheese sandwich from you in future if I don't know where it's been. ;)
-- pertinax, Feb 01 2007


I think [m_Al_com] was referring to the "four ages of sand" article (speech, actually), by Douglas Adams. The first age of sand eludes my memory at the moment, the second one is making telescopes (glass lenses out of sand), the third one would be making microscopes, and the fourth one would be making microchips out of silicone (sand), and the fifth one would be the glass fibers used in fiberoptic communications.

Um, I may have confused the order a bit. And the second age of glass might be the first one. And I may be waaay off track with this interpretation. I don't suppose anyone would have a microscope in any of those hard to reach areas. But what do I know?
-- Veho, Feb 01 2007


Thank you, [Veho].
-- pertinax, Feb 01 2007


[bigsleep], [bigsleep], the object of the exercise is to get rid of irritating sand. If the process feels nice, that's a bonus. If you only want the 'feels nice' part, buy a different tool. I believe *those* tools are widely known to exist.
-- pertinax, Feb 01 2007


<pedant>

I'm pretty sure you mean silicone not silicon

</pedant>
-- webfishrune, Feb 02 2007


Thanks for finding the link, [jutta].
-- Veho, Feb 02 2007


// I'm pretty sure you mean silicone not silicon //

<d'oh>
You're quite right, I do.
</d'oh>
-- pertinax, Feb 05 2007



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