The Amateur Electrician

Edited by THEODORE ALLEN

Experimenting with electricity is a most fascinating and instructive pastime. This month, Modern Mechanics and Inventions presents to its readers plans for making apparatus with which both the practical and theoretical side of electricity can be studied. Editors of this department always stand ready to assist readers in any way possible.
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“I Can Whip Any Mechanical Robot” by Jack Dempsey

Picturesque former champion of world tells mechanical side of boxing. Challenges any robot.

I CAN whip any mechanical robot that ever has or ever will be made. Maybe that sounds a bit egotistical, maybe you will say it’s just the voice of a “has-been,” but I assure you that neither is true.

I was talking over old times with my friend Captain W. H. Fawcett and during the course of conversation he remarked that undoubtedly mechanical ingenuity has done much to improve the work of many boxers.

“That’s true,” I answered, “but nothing mechanical will ever be able to whip an honest to goodness boxer. Even right now, despite the fact that I am definitely through with the ring as a fighter, I wouldn’t be afraid of any robot or mechanical man., I could tear it to pieces, bolt by bolt and scatter its brain wheels and cogs all over the canvas.”
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Enterprising News Vender Trains Dog to Peddle Papers

CHICAGO has the ideal street corner newspaper vender. He can’t shout, because this “newsboy” is a dog—a well trained police dog that energetically goes about the business of peddling papers.

The dog has been trained by his master to carry a newspaper in his mouth in such a manner that the headlines are well displayed. The dog wears a little Swiss hat, which bears the legend, “Buy Your Papers From Me.” To a bit of harness is attached a tin cup. When a coin is dropped in the cup, the dog is trained to release the newspaper. As soon as one paper is sold, it is replaced by the dog’s owner.

Inflated Trunks for Safe Swimming

AN inventor from Vienna has figured out a way whereby non-swimmers who like to go swimming in deep water may do so with perfect safety. He has perfected a water wing device, shown in the photo at the left, which amounts to a pair of inflated, airtight shorts or trunks. They are blown up by the small air pump when the swimmer is about to take to the water.

Automatic Fountain Serves Soft Drink

Automatically mixing and serving a carbonated drink, a new soda-fountain dispenser is said to blend its product more accurately than could be done by hand. Within five seconds it delivers a paper cup holding the drink as shown above. A built-in cooling unit and a small but efficient carbonator give the beverage the right amount of chill and “fizz.” Another model of the machine, operated by dropping a coin in the slot, mixes drinks for self-service patrons and has a capacity of 220 drinks before refilling.

WARNING LIGHTS FOR AUTOS LIKE RAILROAD SYSTEM

Protective lights for the rear of automobiles, patterned after the railroad system of red and green signals, are a recent development. When the machine is moving, a green light shows constantly, but when the brakes are applied, the green signal is extinguished and a red one flashes a warning to following motorists. Two sets of green and red lights are used, one set for daylight driving and the other for night travel, the former being more powerful so that they may be plainly seen in the sunlight. Interlocking shutters are provided for each pair of lights and the signal has two 1-inch red side lights.

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Harnessing the Power of the Sun

Future Sources of Power, Described by WILLIAM J. HARRIS

When coal mines are exhausted, where is industry to obtain the power to keep its wheels turning? What sources of power are now lying dormant, waiting for some engineering genius to harness them? This important subject, of ever-present interest to scientist and layman, is fascinatingly discussed in this authoritative article.

DR. Georges Claude, brilliant French inventor, recently expended a million dollars and, after two unsuccessful attempts, succeeded in launching a mile long steel lube, some six feet in diameter, in the waters of the sea off Matanzas, Cuba. And most of the world is still wondering what he is trying to do.
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Nothing says “Professional” like a degree from the Eclectic School of Chiropractic!

Be a Doctor of CHIROPRACTIC

Earn While You Learn In Shortest Possible Time

Fastest growing healing profession, outstripping all others. CHIROPRACTIC is today far in the lead of all other drug-less methods. In greater numbers than ever before intelligent people are seeing the light; they know that CHIROPRACTIC is practical, sane and gets results in treatment of disease. Endorsed by leading educators. Demand for Doctors of Chiropractic now greater than supply. Splendid openings in every locality.
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ELECTRICITY MAKES MUSIC
Three new musical instruments, a guitar, a violin and a clavier, recently invented by Lloyd Lear, lecturer on the physics of music at Northwestern University, Illinois, produce their music electrically. The unusual instruments have no sounding boards and the strings when struck vibrate with little sound. The vibrations are caught by electric pick-ups and converted into current. Then the impulses are converted into music.

OFFICE CALL SYSTEM USES MORSE CODE

An office call system employed by officials in the traffic department of the Western Union Telegraph Company in New York uses telegraph code. Sub-ordinates are summoned by an official merely by tapping out the initials or call letters of employees on a key conveniently placed on his desk. Buzzers located on various columns carry the dot and dash message to all parts of the department. Since most of the employees are familiar with the telegraph code, none has any trouble deciphering the buzzing that to the average person would be wholly unintelligible. On occasion, the private telegraph system is used by officials to hold short conversations over distances up to 100 yards.

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Lung Power Test Determines Grid Star’s Food Quotas

THE modern football player, working on a full quota of energy, may soon know just what he may or may not eat at the training table. And perhaps he may thereby judge whether he desires to take his laurels on the field or in the rooting stand.

Dr. Francis Baldwin of the University of Southern California has inaugurated a method whereby he attaches an apparatus to the nose and mouth of a football player and has him run a specified distance. Air thus exhaled by the athlete goes into a special bag and after the run this is rushed to a laboratory for examination.

It is claimed that this examination will reveal whether the food being served at the training table is proper for a strapping football player. It is the belief of the discoverer that through proper feeding it will be possible to develop football teams even far superior to those of today.