The Fun Theory

Downtown, there are many public places which have become so famous that they people use them as meeting spots. No problem so far. Every person who come here is waiting and doing things in order to make minutes pass. There is also no problem in the fact that the main activities people do while waiting are chewing gum and smoking cigarettes.

Offering your seat to elderly or disabled passengers has never been so fun. Just stand up, grab hold of your ‘handle bars’, twist the grips and race other considerate Tube passengers all the way to Ealing Broadway. Submitted by Chris Whitehead.

In cities we encounter the problem of drivers not stopping at pedestrian crossings if there's no red light. This idea will prove that encouraging drivers with a little fun test results for the better and many more will stop. The idea is very simple: drivers are encouraged to guess the right weight of the pedestrians that are waiting to cross the street. When a pedestrian is waiting to cross, a big sign could be read by the drivers. This will say: Guess the Right Weight. The driver will stop to see if he/she can guess the weight of the pedestrian or pedestrians that are about to cross.

We asked ourselves, how we can help people have more fun walking to work. We decided to play hopscotch. The video submission depicts the results of our game. We chose the busiest intersection in the Philadelphia business community. We have learned that from Ghana to Cambodia, Peru to Iran, hopscotch is universally played and loved.
Submitted by Evan Marcus

In the era when the energy of fossil oil will be less available, alternative sources are sought. The idea is to use the potential energy of the Archimedes spiral spring to run an individual transport means (like bicycle). The transport mean will use exchangeable cassettes containing a wound Archimedes spiral. The spiral will be wound with a winding device, which would enable winding during exercising at home, or while driving downhill, or when breaking, or manual winding etc. The fun part is that we do not rely on fossil energy.
Submitted by Blagoja Milosevski

There are symbols to almost everything: gay community, luck, breast cancer, aids and more. So, why not a icon to represent the Fun Theory? An icon to be seen everywhere, all the time: in T-shirts, sticks, stamps, magazines, outdoors, pins, signs, the moon!!! Something universal, clean, strong, inspiring, to really make a statement. Like the smilie face, but in royal blue. It is positive reinforcement linked to other subjects such as driving, eating, the environment, people, love, health or safety. The idea has been out there for years, but there is a need for a concrete message.

At work we have had a huge problem with recycling cans. The tech department consumed so much Mountain Dew that we didn't have time to recycle them all. A lot of them were thrown away. The solution: I built office chairs made from car seats, as comfy as can be. People could hand their cans to me for recycling and got a raffle ticket for every 10 cans, with a chance to win a chair. The results were amazing. I've had 42 people participate and one person even brought in 800 cans. A huge difference made possible through a little fun.

Submitted by James Crofts

Public washrooms are not generally places known for being pleasant or hygienic. Part of the problem is people neglecting to flush the toilet after they have finished their business. This device will encourage toilet flushing with prompts and a prize (of the non-tangible variety). When a person enters the stall, a screen above the toilet will pose a question. These can range from riddles to true or false questions. The answer to the question will only appear once the toilet has been flushed (triggered by a cord, attached to the device).

This recycling bin uses the sport of basketball to attract users. Everyone loves throwing trash at a trash can anyway, so why not make that the point of the can, rather than a side product? It will not only bring more use to the recepticle, but also make users more concerned about missing, and make them want to retry a bad shot, instead of leaving trash on the floor. The hoop, over the recepticle can also be oversized to help prevent missing.