Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Floor changes colors when wet.

Replace wet floor signs.
  (+15, -2)(+15, -2)
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Wet floor signs always make me look around, wondering where the wetness actually is. Most of the time I can't see anything so I assume it is dried. To improve safety/reduce the risk of lawsuits over customers falling, restaurants should use flooring materials which change colors when they get wet. This way the areas of wetness could be easily identified and stepped over. There would only be the need for one sign on the front door reading "Caution: floor wet when blue".
DIYMatt, Jun 22 2009

[suctionpads] Colour_20Change_20Paint
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 22 2009]

...and the opposite. http://74.125.155.1...hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca
hmmmm. [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 22 2009]

Color-changing floor Color-changing_20floor#1201632605
[xaviergisz, Jun 22 2009]

The obvious way of doing this. Plasma_20Walk
[coprocephalous, Jun 23 2009]

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       good idea, any thought on how it could be done?
WcW, Jun 22 2009
  

       Heh.
Google shows at least one. [link]
  

       ...and just because it's new to me, so it might new to y'all, [link] 2   

       again, how.
WcW, Jun 22 2009
  

       One way of making this:
coat the floor with a thin light-conducting surface. Pass light through the light conducting surface using total internal reflection (in a similar way to an optic fiber). When liquid falls on the floor, the total internal reflection is disrupted and light escapes the light conducting surface thus illuminating the liquid.
xaviergisz, Jun 22 2009
  

       concrete changes colour when it's wet. But apart from that, bone.
simonj, Jun 22 2009
  

       Actually, most materials change colour when wet, that is how we see that it is wet. A more pronounced effect would be nice, though.
loonquawl, Jun 22 2009
  

       Just incorporate some of those color-change-when-wet Barbie hair fibers in an epoxy resin so that they spell out the word WET when they're, y'know, wet.   

       Is there a suitable material that becomes transparent (or even semi-transparent) when wet, allowing an image or color to show through, yet is durable enough to serve as a top layer floor covering?   

       You could make the floor look like cartoon shiny blocks of ice.
tatterdemalion, Jun 22 2009
  

       I think the problem is a matter of wear tolerance. The ability to function after buffing and waxing is also an issue. Reactivity is generally synonymous with perishability. On the other hand I could see a wash compound that went on colorful and dried translucent. I could also see some sort of optical function that would be affected by the presence of water on the surface acting as a prism.
WcW, Jun 22 2009
  

       [mumble mumble mumble] redundant with the "Color-changing floor" xaviergisz dug up - although it's a different application (and one I'd admittedly much rather think about). Could you annotate the other idea with the new use for the same principle?
jutta, Jun 22 2009
  

       These are very different ideas.
WcW, Jun 22 2009
  

       I agree - the ideas are different (the other one advocates rather dubious means to identify urine and distinguish it from innocuous liquids, whereas this one seeks merely to highlight nocuous liquids).
MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 22 2009
  

       I read up to "So howzabout treating a floor with something that causes dramatic color change when wet?" The author then goes on for a bit, true, but at that point it's this idea, but without the warning sign. Meh, if it feels different to y'all, I'll be just as happy to keep it - let me know if you change your mind.
jutta, Jun 22 2009
  

       look, neither one is really an idea, per say.
WcW, Jun 23 2009
  

       //I could also see some sort of optical function that would be affected by the presence of water on the surface acting as a prism//
I was thinking of something along those lines too - a sort of prismic surface finish.
Maybe something like one of those lenticular images, and the water fills in the ridges, and suddenly an image becomes visible.
Not quite a colour change, though.
coprocephalous, Jun 23 2009
  

       [bigsleep] - You'd still need a sign to inform people that floor slipperiness increases the likelihood of falling over.

This isn't so good for the blind - the floor should have specially absorbent bits which swell up when wet forming little bumps which spell out "Slippery" in Braille.
hippo, Jun 23 2009
  

       ...which you could then trip over.   

       How about a man who berates passers-by with a series of lubricatively appropriate anecdotes?
zen_tom, Jun 23 2009
  

       // Is there a suitable material that becomes transparent (or even semi-transparent) when wet, allowing an image or color to show through, yet is durable enough to serve as a top layer floor covering? //   

       Frosted glass?
notexactly, Jul 24 2017
  

       If colour comes from tiny scale shape, just have water change the material's shape. Go even further and make a material that when wet, the shape makes the floor more grippy. No colour, no signs and no slips. Well, there has to be a colour change.
wjt, Jul 24 2017
  


 

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