So many of our modern gadgets seem to come from teams of people working for multinational companies these days – but in the olden days it used to be the bloke in his shed, slaving away for years before finally revealing his idea to the world – stuff like the (Black & Decker) Workmate or Trevor Bayliss & the wind up radio. So what's the best idea to ever come out of a shed?

superstar brake pads

Ok, so on a much smaller scale that Dyson, Bayliss et-al…

Trouts Lights…
(no, I don't own any…)

posssibly not quite as required but I think this bloke should get a mention

http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/news/from_outside_the_box/may_09.cfm

the inbred 🙂

Bouncing Bomb.
Ok not 'best' as in particularly beneficial to mankind, but pretty memorable, and I think Barnes Wallis invented invented it his shed and tested it in his local pond.

Kirkpatrick Macmillan did something.

Jet engine – Frank Whittle.

Not sure any of the above really rate as one man bands and "inventions" other than Whittle maybe. Most involved small teams at least, and are really mostly just step changes from existing hardware.

Jet powered beer cooler.

If the "shed" is just some guy working away on a mad idea then Tim Berners-Lee should get a mention; especially given the mind-numbingly low power computer he had to do the development work on for the first web browser / web server…

Rachel

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1111_051111_junk_patent.html

This http://www.motosolvang.com/images_new/large/1995_Britten_V1000_02.jpg

An amazing piece of engineering very very special and it worked brilliantly as well.

An amazing piece of engineering very very special and it worked brilliantly as well.

Wasn't quite 'one man in a shed' though, was it? (I know several guys who worked and helped on the manufacture and design of them)

Robert Thomson invented the pneumatic tyre.

Fire. Man in a cave. or at least just outside it. Maybe the wheel.

Started off in a shed and it was one mans idea. 🙂

Ken Tyrell did his first few years of formula one building cars in a shed.

Where were sheds invented?

Beer?

it was one mans idea.

Same could be said of anything, everything has to have been first conceived by one person. And it's just a modification of an existing idea, not invention, more adaptation.

James Bowman Lindsay had an electric light bulb before Edison was born.
But who invented the light bulb?

I read the title and immediately thought of the mad Kiwi bloke who invented the Jet-Powered Beer Cooler in his shed.

You can probably close the thread now.

Britten in later days employed lots of people but it was started by him in his shed and was like that for a while.

jet powered beer cooler – it's funny but is it actually 'great'?

Where were sheds invented?

😆

Hovercraft?

The hovercraft? – altho many folk tinkered with the concept Christopher Cockerell made a breakthru in his shed using tin cans that paved the way for a really practical hovercraft.

Watson-Watt and the invention of radar was a pretty much shed-based one I think as no-one took him very seriosuly initially. I remember seeing some footage of him trying it out in the back of a lorry somewhere.

If it passes the shed-based criteria, i nominate that as it quite probably saved us in 1940

zip tie and velcro.

Cats eyes inventor Percy Shaw

Where were sheds invented?

In a shed. By one man.

Say when

Another vote for the hovercraft.

Although the car was probably invented in a shed. I don't think Daimler and Benz had a big factory.

IanMunro – Member

Bouncing Bomb.
Ok not 'best' as in particularly beneficial to mankind, but pretty memorable, and I think Barnes Wallis invented invented it his shed and tested it in his local pond.

Would argue that the tallboys he invented were more significant in impact than the bouncing bomb, however the are much less known, they managed to get though half a hillside to knock out a rail tunnel

read here

Where were sheds invented?

In a shed. By one man.

which came first, the shed or the shed?

The Wright brothers were bike mechanics so they presumably had a shed.
There was more than one of them though.

I'm building a time machine in mine.

The hovercraft. Agreed.

The world would be a much better place if we used hovercraft more.