Features and Innovations

For an innovator, noticing a novel feature (or relation) is a pathway to innovation. A feature is a site of potential differences. For example, if you notice a candle's color, then vary the color for new types of candles (not a very creative idea, but I think you get the point). From every feature you notice comes new innovations as you vary that feature. It follows then that the more features you notice, the more innovative you are! By this measure, the person who notices the most features of an object is really the most innovative.

Standard Features
Consider color, size, shape, and material. Vary these and you have various types of candles.

Internal Relations
Consider the relations between the two parts of the candle: wax and wick.

The wax keeps the wick straight.
Vary this and you have candles where the wick spirals, slants, zig-zags (or other patterns) through the wax.

The wax contains one wick.
Vary this and you now have multi-wick candles.

Combine: non-straight wicks and multi-wicks
Several wicks wind their way through the wax. Or, several wicks slant and converge into one wick halfway through the wax.

The wax of the candle consists of one piece.
Keep the wick as one piece and break up the wax into multiple parts.



To compensate for this change, a structure is built to hold the discrete wax sections in mid-air.














Causal Relations
A careful analysis of a causes and effects of a candle in action can lead to various innovations. Each cause has one or more effects. For each cause-effect pair, we can ask, “Does it have to be this way? Could it be different?”

The wax pools.
The heat melts the wax which then pools at the base of the wick before it starts to climb up the wick. What if we changed the candle’s design so that only some of the wax pooled? The rest drained away before cooling. Altering the amount of pooled wax would change how fast the candle burns. I do not know if this is a useful design, but it is one that is possible.


The candle is motionless when it burns.

Putting one side effect to work.
How can we get the candle to move from its own dynamics? The heat that rises from the flame is often considered a side effect because we are primarily interested in the candle’s light. However, the rising heat can be made “useful” and become the cause of further effects. The rising heat can turn a small windmill-like blade above the flame. The turning blade is connected to a gear system that slowly turns a stand that the candle sits upon.

Putting another side effect to work.
Another side effect of a burning candle is that is loses weight as it burns. Place a candle on a stand that is counterweighted to keep it in the same vertical position. Because a candle slowly loses weight as it burns, by placing it on this stand it will slowly elevate itself as it burns. Maybe it can elevate itself upward toward a candle snuffer and put itself out when it reaches the top.

Go to the next posting for more ideas to help you create further innovative candle designs.