Often innovation comes though recognising a need that is not being met and adapting an existing product or service to meet that need.  Such was the case with Amanda Bennetts who was frustrated by the lack of boots to accommodate ladies with a wider calf.

Amanda had a passion for boots going back to her high school days and it was after a frustrating shopping expedition with her partner (now fiancé) to more than twenty shops that she came up with the idea of getting boots made.

With the help of her partner Matthew and good friend Cansion, Bennetts boots – Wide Calf Boots was launched.   What makes Bennetts boots special is the recognition that every women has different sized and shaped legs.  They just did not take the same one size fits all approach of traditional manufactures and simply expand the calf size.

Finding the right fitting is a very important part of a Bennetts wide calf boot.   Detailed measurements of all the styles in their range of Ravishing wide calf Boots are provided starting with the normal boot size, the top (Calf) and narrowest part of the boot (ankle).   Some of the boots will fit easily first time and others will need slight stretching in certain areas for that perfect fit.

The extra wide calf boots are high quality high fashion with most made in genuine leather which is more flexible and durable.  The design philosophy at Bennetts boots is to make boots that never go out of style and will suit almost the entire wardrobe.  Each of the boots in the Bennetts boots collections is made in limited numbers and comes with a “Certificate of Authenticity” with batch number and individual number signed by founder Amanda Bennetts.

Independent research found that more than 75% of Australian women aged between 15-to 55 have trouble or know a friend who has trouble fitting boots around their curvy calves.  The only option up until now was to pay a small fortune to have custom plus size boots made or order expensive wide calf brands from overseas that might not fit properly anyway.  With the launch of Bennetts boots – Wide calf boots, now every woman in Australia can access wide width boots fashion including wide calf knee high boots that fit and at a reasonable price.

This is the problem women with a curvy calf find with most available boots

Visit Bennetts Boots – Wide Calf Boots for more information

This plastic reacts to heat, handprints or heated formula will cause the reaction. This can be merely amusement for the baby or it can give a warning that there is hot liquid in the bottle and give the feeder some warning prior to exposing the baby to the heated contents.

The polypropylene plastic used is Bisphenol-A (BPA) free. BPA is a common chemical used in the manufacture of many plastic items however it is known to leech out of the plastic and contaminate the person using the plastic utensil. The manufacturers claim the bottle will change colours ‘thousands of times over and over for months on end’.   If you are looking for the best baby bottles then check out best baby bottles reviews to find out what is best for your baby

In 1883, Hugh Victor McKay, a 17 year old, tired of turning the heavy handle on his fathers’ winnowing machine in country Victoria, wondered if a harvester could be made to winnow as well. With the help of his brothers George and John, he built a prototype made of old metal scraps and farm tools.

It was finished in 1884 and called the Sunshine Harvester. It was an immediate success because it separated the grain, straw and chaff using a rotary fan making the entire harvesting process automatic.

He soon established a factory and was selling thousands of the machines in Australia and overseas. In 1904 McKay purchased land for a plant in Braybrook near Melbourne.

So important was the Sunshine Harvester to Australian agriculture that the entire area surrounding the new plant was officially renamed Sunshine in recognition of its contribution.

]]> http://aussiethings.biz/the-sunshine-harvester/feed/ 0 http://aussiethings.biz/aussie-chopsticks/ http://aussiethings.biz/aussie-chopsticks/#comments Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:30:00 +0000 admin http://aussiethings.biz/?p=507 The Aussie Chopsticks were invented for people

who had difficulty using real chopsticks.

The Aussie chopstick is a successful invention by Bill Allardyce. The story goes that one day, Bill was fiddling with a bent piece of wire and had the idea of joining two chopsticks together. Realizing how easy it was to manipulate the bent wire he thought that if he could use chopsticks in a similar way, it would prevent food from spilling onto the table and floor.

Satisfied his idea was marketable he decided to make a prototype. After several weeks he created the model which was basically two chopsticks connected by a bent piece of plastic and some car body filler. His next move was to attempt to patent his idea but his first attempt failed because the ‘tweezer’ concept was already available on the market and could not be patented.  He instead had to take out a design registration to protect the idea.

With the idea protected, he re-designed the Aussie Chopstick for mass manufacture which took several months at considerable cost. The first run was for 20,000 and within a short time orders came in from major supermarkets for 30,000 pairs. By 1990 more than 250,000 Aussie Chopsticks had been sold. In the mid-1990s the Aussie Chopstick was sold to a major direct selling company.

Like many amateur carpenters, George Lewin found it impossible to cut a straight line through timber with a hand saw or even an electric saw. in 1975 he gave up trying to make a table saw, instead he set out to invent a simple bench that would guide the saw and hold timber still.

Once Lewin had the bench right he demonstrated it on a tv program. It was an immediate success with hundreds of Australians clamouring to buy one. In 1976 he started to manufacture Triton Workcentres. George Lewin understood the problems of the amateur woodworker who wanted to make things and the workcentre was sold with a four hour video explaining how best to use it.

The product has since been copied by other manufacturers around the world but few retain the originality and quality of the Triton.

Ben Lexcen was an Australian yacht designer who longed to build a a world beating 12 meter  racing yacht to win the America’s Cup with. In the 1980s he spent several months in Holland at a ship testing laboratory where he was experimenting with a new idea; a keel with wings that flew though the water. Lexcen found that yachts could turn much faster and sail a little closer to the wind with his winged keel. It was built into his new yacht ‘Australia II’ and kept a very closely guarded secret.

In 1983 Australia II became the first non-American boat in 132 years to win the America’s Cup Race and the Lexcen design is said to have played a major part in this victory.

Wine is an alcoholic beverage that has been popular in many cultures for centuries. Wine goes ‘bad’ when exposed to air and so many methods have been used to try to prevent air exposure including; storing in glass bottles, wooden barrels, stone jugs and even animal skins.

In 1965 Thomas Angove of Angove’s Winemakers and Distillers, of Renmark in South Australia, invented a cask with a resealable plastic spout but stopped marketing it in 1971 due to unreliability. In 1972 another Australian wine company called Penfolds improved on the design by adding a tap and placing the plastic bag into a cardboard box.

The bag was placed in the cardboard box and an easy to press out opening was created so that the tap could be pulled through on first use. The tap then remained outside the box to allow for easy access.

The wine filled bag inside the cardboard box would collapse as wine was poured out maintaining the air vacuum thus keeping the remaining contents from being exposed to air. This greatly extended the storage of the wine and allowed larger quantities to be sold at one time without the requirement to immediately drink it all once it was opened.

The square packaging is also more convenient and much lighter than other available means of wine distribution. It is easier to store and not as prone to breakage as glass.

The Wine Cask became extremely popular and is used by every major wine producer and is also now being used for other beverages including orange juice.

A catamaran is a boat with two hulls, side by side. Catamarans are very stable and two slim hulls can support a wide deck with many passengers. However, in rough seas catamarans can be bumpy and tend to broach, or turn side on.

The wave-piercing catamaran is an Australian design, invented in 1984 by Philip Hercus of the Incat company. Wave-piercer hulls flow smoothly through waves instead of bouncing over them. Incat has built wave-piercer ferries that are in service around the world, as well as military variants for several navies. In the UK, Hoverspeed switched to a wave piercing catamaram after they took their hovercraft out of service some years ago.

In 1952, Mervyn Victor Richardson, a New south Wales engineering salesman, built a simple petrol driven lawn mower with spinning blades. Richardson’s mower, which he named Victa, was light, powerful and easy to use. The rotary action of the blades meant the motorized mower could cut far larger lawns than the conventional push-pull system then in use.

A Victa mower back then cost about 40 pounds at a time when most Australians earned about 30 pounds a week. Yet, so many people bought so many Victa lawnmowers that Richardson quit his job and worked full time to make mowers. By 1955 Richardson had 100 people working for him. By 1992 the Victa company had sold five million Victa lawn mowers in Australia and overseas.