The Color Changing Car

Wouldn’t it be great if we had a car that can easily blend with its surroundings! We could shake off any pursuer and go anywhere undetected. Such a technology will give an edge in not only traveling anonymously, but also following others undetected (unless they are using it too). And what more, you can also change the color of your car according to suit your mood.

Here’s another of my wacky inventions. Now let’s see how this can be done.

The Principle:

We use powdered colors in Holi. Just a tablespoon of powder is enough to make a bucketful of color. But there are different powders available for each color. Of course, we can create different colors by mixing these powders. In an inkjet printer, there are four cartridges. All the colors printed are formed of these four colors. A combination of the same principles is used here.

The outer color of the chassis should be white (for better reflecting effect) and be smooth. Over the chassis, fit another thin transparent cover leaving about 2 mm uniform gap between them. This is a very tricky job, but machinery which can manufacture such a contraption is available today. Let’s call the outer cover as ‘cloak’ as it’s being used for a disguise. The outer part of the cloak should be glossy and should give the feel of any painted car to an observer. It should also be tough and not break easily on impact. The inner part of the cloak (towards the gap) should also be glossy. We’ll be filling this gap with the fluid that changes in color. So, there should be tiny apertures present for inlet and outlet of this fluid. The fluid should have a good dissolving capacity and should be viscous enough to freely flow in the given gap. It should not get evaporated easily.

The main purpose of the car is to change color, and we’ll need a pretty large space to accommodate the working setup. The best idea is to cut the fuel supply by half. This’ll leave a plenty of space for our setup.

The Setup:

The setup consists of two filters, a mixer (blender) and a powerful pump. A chamber containing a fluid will also have to be provided. Also various slots should be present for storing the primary colors in the form of powders. These powders should blend with the fluid with uniformity in the mixer. Also it should be possible to easily separate the two using filters. Another set of slots can be provided to store the filtered colors (so the can be mixed again if we want the same color in the near future). Extra fluid can also be stored here.

The Working (as seen in the Block Diagram):

Fill the gap between the cloak and the chassis with the fluid (devoid of any color). The car will thus be white. Now mix some fluid with a combination of powders to create the color Brown. The fluid in the gap can be drained and be replaced with this Brown color. Thus our car looks Brown now. To change the color of the car, we simply need to drain the working fluid and replace it with the mixed one. The drained fluid is purified using filters and is used again and again. The filtered color is stored for future use.

Thus we now have a Color Changing Car!

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