This man Invents Glasses That Allow Short People To See The World From ‘Above’ (+6 Other Inventions)

I have a friend who’s 6’6″ (about 200cm) and every time we find a spot in the crowd to hear a concert I can hear people behind us tick in anger. Turns out, this problem is way more common than we assumed. Dominic Wilcox, however, has just created something that should help people overcome their height disadvantage — the One Foot Taller Periscope glasses. As you might’ve already guessed by its name, this device allows the wearer to see ‘one foot taller’ (30.5cm) than their normal eye level.

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“One Foot Taller Periscope glasses”

Image credits: Dominic Wilcox

“I was challenged by Microsoft Surface to think up some everyday problems and come up with some interesting or extraordinary solutions,” Dominic told Bored Panda. “It was for an exhibition in London in May. A few weeks earlier, I was at a gig standing near the back and I noticed a small woman dancing behind me who clearly couldn’t see the band because of all the tall people around. This gave me the idea to try to solve that problem. Also, I think we’ve all been at the cinema and someone big sits in front and blocks the view, this device could help, as long as you don’t block the view of the person behind you!”

Image credits: Dominic Wilcox

Dominic said that when he’s working on a project, most of the time is taken up thinking through the idea and designing it. “I did have about five attempts at making the finished object. I cut my finished design out of a sheet of mirrored plastic then very carefully heated and bent the parts into the correct angles to reflect the light from up high, down to the eyes. I quite enjoyed working out how to make this quite unusual and functional object from one single sheet.”

Image credits: Dominic Wilcox

“I’ve been designing unusual things for many years so that helps speed up all the little decisions you have to make on any design project,” Dominic explained. “It took about a week of thinking, testing, failing, more testing, etc to go from a doodle to the end piece.”