They're Young, and They're Restless
From: Scientific American - 12/30/2011 - page 84
By: Steve Mirsky

While we fret, some college students are busy creating the future 

For the National Inventors Hall of Fame’s 20th Annual Collegiate Inventors
Competition to come up with a kitchen product that would help elderly people
to remain in their homes longer, Nicholas Rocha, a Lehigh University
undergraduate, did a truly novel piece of research to put his team (Michael
Harm and Gregory Capece) on the right track: he spoke to senior citizens.
"I'm from Vero Beach, Florida," he told the audience at the awards dinner.
"Quite a few retirees. I talked to my grandparents and their friends to find
out what they had troubles with in the kitchen. And they said, 'I like to use
my blender, my toaster oven, my electric can opener, all sorts of things, and
it clutters the counter space to have all that up there at once.' So they're
constantly plugging and unplugging, which is a pretty big chore for them."
I'm still a far piece from Social Security, but even I sometimes think that
ripping three-pronged plugs out of the wall should be an Olympic event. 

Guided by the philosophy that a grandmother's necessity is the mother of
invention, the young men came up with a two-part cylinder they call the
MPlug. One part plugs into the wall outlet permanently. The other part stays
connected to the plug at the end of the cord of the coffeemaker or other
appliance. (You’d want a few of this second part of the cylinder, one for
each of the other appliances that will be shuttled in and out of the
available socket.) Simply bring the two parts close to each other, and, voilà
(or a trumpet fanfare if you dislike a word that looks like a string
instrument), built-in magnets snap them together. And there’s no preferred
orientation, as in a three-prong plug - as long as the two faces are flush,
the electronics will complete the circuit.  

The kids showed off a prototype, but they say that they need to fine-tune the
magnet strength - so that the two parts stay together, but your sainted mum
can still easily pry them apart to remove the coffeemaker after breakfast and
plug in the blender to start on the postgolf daiquiris.  

Read the entire article at:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=theyre-young-theyre-restless

Links:
National Inventors Hall of Fame
http://www.invent.org/

MPlug
http://www.invent.org/collegiate/csjc/2010_mclean.html