One of the things I like to do in my campaigns is to come up with some applications of
technology which people might use in everyday life (rather than just a More Bigger
Pointier Stick (tm)).

Here's a little gadget that I whipped up for my current campaign. If you like it, feel
free to use it. If you don't, ignore it. Redistribution rights granted, providing correct
attribution is maintained. Please note that I am not a gearhead so any questions to me
about design sequences are pointless. (If anyone else wants to do this, be my guest.)
Also I only use the canon TU as background, not as gospel. My TU is... highly variant.

A Grav Handle is a pocket-sized device designed to carry objects which are bulky, or heavy,
but not large/massive enough to need a full-sized grav floater. It also allows you to carry
items while keeping your hands free for other uses. It's a great thing to have on you when
you're doing the weekly shopping. (How many times have the crew of the tramp freighter in
*your* campaign had to pass up a great deal on 50 kilos of frozen groat steaks because they
didn't have any way to get them back to the ship on time? :-) ).

It's basically a teeny-tiny grav drive, a battery, a control unit, and a device for connecting
it to the object being carried (I used a carabiner for this).

How does it work? Well, if you have to transport something then you hook the object up to the
Handle (eg by putting the handles of the bag it came in or you put it in through the carabiner,
or by using straps around it and hooking it up ditto, or whatever), and turn the device on.
This then lifts up, cargo and all, until the cargo is 10cm or so off the ground. You then use
the control unit to drive it along to where you're going (probably your ground vehicle, but
could be taxi, subway, anything). Simple, no?

Some side notes and safety features, in no particular order.

There's a trade-off between carrying capacity and battery life. I hand-waved this at 50kg for
half an hour, or 100kg for 15 minutes. There would certainly be a realtime readout available
of the amount of battery life remaining at current load and speed. See discussion below.

There is a potential 'pendulum' problem with the basic model described above - the bag is
going to swing. More advanced models might have four, or six, even teenier grav drives attached
to the main unit on retractable cables. Each separate sub-unit pulls out and is clipped to
a separate corner of the cargo. These work together to damp down any swing, pitch, roll, and
yaw. The cables supply power and control.

You can lift the cargo more than 10cm, but not more than 30cm, off the ground (eg for rough
terrain, flooding, steps, and so on). You can adjust the attitude (eg for going up steps you
might want the angle of the cargo to match the angle of the steps). For safety reasons, the
control unit won't go more than 2 metres off the ground.

I figured that the control unit might have a 3D joystick or something on it for control.
Perhaps this is also on a retractable cord, so you can hand-hold it, for convenience.
There's a "dead-man switch" on the Handle, for safety reasons. Or you can drive it from
your comm (your hand computer - everybody has one). Again, for safety reasons, if the Handle
gets out of range (2 metres), or if you let go of the control, then it stops moving and
sets down. Or you can set it to 'follow me' mode, and it will follow your comm. If it goes
out of range, it just stops, and will need another command to start moving again. If the
battery runs out, same thing.

Background notes and assumptions.

My TU is a pretty high-tech one - TL16 is common, and some planets are just about at TL18
(which I interpret as TL15/16 in parts, and TL20 in parts). Also my civilized societies tend
to be fairly legalistic: safety (at least of the public) is a major consideration. (Note to
sadistic GMs: some players can find built-in and not-easily-overridden safety features very
frustrating...)

An interesting question is 'so what Tech level does this item appear at?'. My answer is 'make
your own decision'. According to T5 (since I have the book handy), Gravitics comes in at TL9,
and drives large (and energy-efficient) enough to lift loads to orbit come along at TL10. My
guess is that something like a Grav Handle is commonly available at TL13 or TL14, but I won't
come after you if you slot it into your TU at TL16, or anywhere else.

An associated question is 'what sort of battery?'. Again, my answer is 'any sort you want',
but in my TU I have anti-matter batteries as mainstream. These are rechargeable, off any
standard power outlet. If you want to scoff at this and invent a specialist store where you
drop off your batteries to be recharged and picked up later, or where you turn in your batteries,
pay a small fee, and walk out with the same number of the same type, freshly recharged (cf
propane tanks in the US), go ahead. If you decide that these batteries are throw-aways, go for it.

I posit that however a grav drive works, it doesn't affect the content of the matter around it
significantly (if you see what I mean). You could built a Handle with a rocket motor, but I don't
think that your purchases would look too good when you turned it off again - and neither would you.

Anyway, hope this is useful, or thought-provoking, to some of you out there. Comments welcome.

Any other handy-dandy devices out there that people would like to share?

Jonathan