This is a short video my Grandpa made this weekend, as an entry for this BBC competition, demonstrating the system he devised for detecting whether my Gran’s car was in the garage or not.

This is far from his first invention; it accompanies his remote controlled garage door opener, for example, which long-predates the commercial kind. His system is, like the mauve car detector, made out of wire coat-hangers and other household stuffs. His genius even lent itself to one of my most reputable album covers, as I mentioned on this blog at the time, by offering me engineering advice on how to make the lights from the Now More Than Ever artwork.

When he sent this video through to the family this weekend, we were all taken aback by how brilliant it is. My dad hit the nail on the head: “It helps to explain so much about me, you, my life and pretty much everything!”.

And that’s why I’m posting it here!