For every great idea that becomes a great invention, there are plenty of seemingly fantastic ideas that never, ever take-off. Here’s a round-up of five weird and wonderful inventions that failed to catch on.

Clever ferret locater: An inventor in Hertfordshire, UK came up with a device to supposedly help locate ferrets that chased rabbits down holes and got lost. The idea was that a small black box was attached to the ferret. It emitted signals which could be picked up by the ferret owner, helping him re-locate the ferret. It all sounded great in theory, but when the device was tested out the only signals the device could actually pick up and transmit turned out to be Radio Moscow! Not only was that not much use (especially in the UK), but the ferret was never found and the device was lost down a rabbit hole forever. Needless to say, a patent was not granted and the invention died a quick death.

Immobilizing foam gun: Recently released records from the Home Office in Britain show that they worked on inventing a gun that blasted a sticky foam at criminals. Although trials showed that it was effective at immobilizing people, it had to be abandoned when they realised the sticky invention would also block people’s airways.

Mining separator device: Thomas Alva Edison who was famed for successfully inventing the motion picture camera and the light bulb, but he didn’t always have quite such good luck with his ideas. In the 1880s and 1890s, he invested tons of time and money into mining, in particular into developing a separator device that would extract iron from low-grade ores. However, sadly he never cracked it properly and eventually gave up, having lost all his invested money.

Super power water gun: Another failed British invention was a huge water gun with a water tank that strapped on to the user. The idea was that it could be used to stop criminals in their tracks. However, due to the amount pressurised of water that was emitted from the gun it also, unfortunately, tended to knock the gun user to the ground, too. As a result, it was dismissed as a promising, but failed invention.

Solar powered torch: Some solar powered inventions are great, but the person that came up with the idea for a solar powered torch hadn’t quite got the hang of things! For solar power to work effectively, you need to be near light….and there’s rather a lack of that in the dark at night.

But, despite their attempts that didn’t work, many inventors continue to struggle on. As Thomas Alva Edison once said, “I haven’t failed: I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t work!”

By Rachel Newcombe