As a PhD student, this is my day-to-day 🥲

This is stupid, but I thought I'd invented a shape of cup bottom that wouldn't accumulate water in the dishwasher, but that was still stable while standing upright. Found an existing patent for my exact design after working on it for months.

egoism, then again i was a kid

also drones, i thought i was a genius for coming up with the idea of remotely controlled optionally weaponized vehicles with cameras, then again i was a kid

Maladaptive daydreaming. I didn't know the word for it until I was like 17 (like 8 years ago) but I did it my whole life and was very ashamed of it

I had the idea for a printer/scanner/copier/fax. Copier = scanner + printer. Fax = scanner + modem.

When I was a kid I learned how aircraft wings worked, then visualized one spinning so the airfoil was annular. Then I rememebered the frisbee already existed.

I was going through a lot of batteries at that time (hello, Radio Shack free battery punchcard!) and dreamed of wirelessly powering devices from a wallsocket transmitter. My TX looked like an upright toilet paper roll for some reason. A few decades later I was delighted to learn Tesla had been interested in the idea, too. Vindication, bishes!

The Square-Cube Law! I figured it out when M&M Minis were first released in my childhood 😅