nine81 (Australia)
Star-wars style mosquito zapper
General Description:



I really dislike being woken by mosquitos during the night buzzing around my ears or biting me. The basic idea I have is to create a star-wars style laser based mozzie zapper that will work most effectively during the sleeping hours of the night. The zapper will be chemical free, which will make it safe to use in a babies room or for people with allergies.



To understand the method of implementation, a number of facts are required to be understood...



* The audio frequency created by the beating of a mosquitos wings is within a particular range of frequencies - This allows us to target that specific frequency range.

* An accurate point in space can be pin-pointed using triangulation.

* A laser can have it's output wavelength adjusted to effect objects of particular thicknesses (this works using resonant theory) and can have it's pulse adjusted allowing it to be most effective at a specific focal point.



Method of implimentation:



* Set up a room with four or more sensitive microphones - three of them must be evenly spaced around the upper circumference of the room and the fourth (and others added for accuracy to get around obsticles such as furniture etc) will need to be added to the lowest point of the room - at least four listening points are required to triangulate in three dimensions.

* The audio signal collected by the microphones is filtered to "listen" to only the frequency range that is emitted by mosquito wings.

* When the microphones detect a point source emitting audio within this frequency (ie - they "hear" a mozzie) the exact location in the room can be identified using triangulation.

* The correct pulse rate can then be calculated by the main system and the laser can be focused to the exact location in the room.

* At this point the laser is pulsed - which basically burns the wings off the mozzie. The mozzie will then die relatively quickly after the wings have been cooked off if not from trauma, then from starvation... Regardless, the mozzie will not be flying around any more.

* The mozzies can then simply be swept or vacuumed up in the morning.



Advantages:

* Due to the fact that the laser will be focussed to that point and the pulse width can be adjusted to suite, there is no chance of cooking your curtains or anything silly like that.

* No chemicals

* Safe



Disadvantages:

* Cost of manufactrue, and therefore cost to consumer.



Reward: free lifetime personal use of the finished product

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