My home town of Sheffield, England has become the unexpected new home of young women with quirky yet ingenious design ideas. A couple of months ago, I shared Rachel Gilbert’s design for feline false teeth with Popgadget readers, and now I’ve just read about Ruth Amos, an 18-year old student from Sheffield who has invented the StairSteady handrail, a simple but brilliant idea.

The StairSteady is a rail that attaches across any flight of stairs and moves in front of you as you walk - so that someone with problems staying upright can hold on to this to help them get up and down stairs safely. It costs £329.00 ($642) plus the cost of fitting, so it isn’t cheap, but it is a lot more affordable than moving to an apartment because you’re scared of falling over!

Miss Amos told the BBC that she was inspired to create the device to help the father of one of her teachers - who had suffered a stroke.

When I was 18, pretty much all I cared about was where I’d go to college and whether I’d over-plucked my eyebrows (I invariably had). Something tells me she’ll go far…

Tags: gadgetry, gaming, games, cable