[HN Gopher] A 17-year-old designed a novel synchronous reluctanc...
___________________________________________________________________
A 17-year-old designed a novel synchronous reluctance motor
Author : evo_9
Score : 483 points
Date : 2022-08-11 15:00 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| boxmonster wrote:
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't sneer, including at the rest of the
| community._" - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| Even if you're right, it only makes things worse.
| boxmonster wrote:
| zackmorris wrote:
| This is great, I'm happy for him! But I miss the creative aspect
| in myself. I used to be so creative like him, with so many half-
| finished inventions scattered around the house.
|
| Today there's nothing. I finally managed to carve out a day or
| two per week away from my job to work on personal projects after
| many years of failed attempts to get away at great personal
| expense. But the last 3 days that I went to work on something, I
| picked up the metaphorical brush and there was nothing there. No
| creative impulse, just worries about chores/bills/obligation and
| painful memories from 20 years of negative reinforcement after
| failing at business or going through traumatic life events in
| 2000, 2001, 2003, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2019 and during the pandemic.
| Probably many more that all blur together. Now I just project my
| frustrations onto the world with negativity and accomplish no
| forward progress towards my life goals.
|
| Does anyone know a way to truly rekindle the creative spark after
| it's completely died? I feel generally happy and capable, but in
| borderline crisis that I can't self-start anymore or do work that
| isn't demanded of me externally. I'm coming to terms with the
| harsh reality that I'll likely never accomplish even one thing of
| any importance in all of the remaining years of my life. There's
| only work now and the daily grind. Pedal to the metal in first
| gear. Like I started out as Wesley Crusher but today am Paulie
| from Rocky with no prospects, only long slow decline.
| gnramires wrote:
| I'll try to give a more practical approach to complement other
| answers. I believe creativity (in specific field and broadly)
| is a skill like any other that you need to cultivate and
| practice. It's also much about problem solving, identifying
| needs, connecting ideas, and learning (i.e. having a good pool
| of knowledge), than apparent. The more of each of those you
| have, the better you become at innovating and creating in your
| field.
|
| When you go into the world, you need to go asking yourself
| "What could we improve here? What could we change here?". If
| you're in a creative (artistic) field, it's a good idea to
| survey the work of others and develop "taste" -- i.e. your own
| perceptions of what's good material, and what things could be
| improved.
|
| I'd suggest a few things:
|
| (1) Develop a space. Decide what you want to create, and give
| yourself a dedicated space for it: 30 minutes a day, a few
| times a week, you name it. I'm pretty sure with the space you
| _will_ star making things, whatever you like.
|
| (2) Learn supporting skills and knowledge. Each field has
| necessary skills to really be able to create -- software
| skills, hardware skills, math, writing, drawing, art theory,
| etc.
|
| (3) Survey what's out there. If you're a game developer, play
| games and develop your own ideas, what is my dream game like?
| What defines a good game? What's missing out there? What can I
| actually make with my means? You'll be able to feed back into
| your creations. If you're an engineer, the world is waiting to
| be improved upon as well :)
| dghughes wrote:
| I was the same way only maybe not as productive as you. From a
| young age until some point I was always thinking always
| inventing.
|
| I recall thinking if it was possible to not think since I was
| constantly thinking. I was well-known among my friends in pre-
| Internet times as knowing a lot of obscure facts. I was always
| reading anything from science journals to history mainly to get
| ideas for inventions.
|
| One thing I have been toying with is a long fast. People say
| for them it reset their brain and they could think more
| clearly. And by long I mean days like a 7 day or more fast. At
| my age it would probably kill me.
| sbf501 wrote:
| He has an amazing lab and access to a lot of expensive
| resources. There should be maker labs like this for pre-college
| kids all over the place, that are free.
| jcalvinowens wrote:
| > I can't self-start anymore or do work that isn't demanded of
| me externally
|
| I've had similar feelings in the past. For me, the way out is
| to flip it around: I'm not neglecting my personal project out
| of a lack of willpower or motivation, I've lost interest in my
| personal project and it's no longer rewarding enough to be
| worth my time! The solution is to find something new to do, not
| run yourself into the ground trying to see it through.
|
| It's not a job: you don't have to deliver something for your
| time. Focus on what interests and excites _you_ , not what will
| get internet points or make money. If you want to allocate part
| of your free time towards making money, treat that like a
| second job and not as free time.
|
| Also, a career culminating in a permanent fellowship with an
| inter-dimensional time traveling think tank in your early
| twenties is an unrealistic standard for achievement.
| kthartic wrote:
| Therapy, therapy, therapy :)
| spcebar wrote:
| Even though you're happy in every day life, it sounds like you
| could benefit from some therapy to help you unpack those
| painful memories. Moving past that might help your creativity
| flow.
|
| When my creative juices feel depleted, I give myself permission
| to do nothing. Take a long walk, play a game, watch a movie,
| but don't make anything. I usually find that relieving the
| pressure of feeling like I should be more productive actually
| makes me more productive.
| psd1 wrote:
| Sympathies. If it's any consolation, Janacek wrote his string
| quartets in his 80s.
|
| Go to Burning Man. I spent a month on site at a regional burn;
| in the month since then, I've published two personal projects
| and been much more productive at work. I never found that spark
| on return from "normal" holidays.
| Aromasin wrote:
| It's not gone, just rusted. The oil to fix that is simply
| spending time in a creative space. Keep making time for
| yourself to build something. Even if you sit at a bench for 2
| hours and do nothing (I bet you won't) it's moving you more in
| the direction of creativity again than any amount of time on a
| computer or doing chores will bring you.
| yuan43 wrote:
| > No creative impulse, just worries about
| chores/bills/obligation and painful memories...
|
| and later:
|
| > Does anyone know a way to truly rekindle the creative spark
| after it's completely died?
|
| Take an unreasonably keen interest in your
| chores/bills/obligations. Do you need to cook dinner? Research
| the hell out of it to understand the underlying principles.
| Experiment with your techniques, take notes, and perfect. Learn
| the history of what you're doing. Do you need to do car
| maintenance? Really understand what it is you're doing and why.
| Do you need to manage finances? Become an expert in double-
| entry accounting. Actually watch how-to videos on it and maybe
| engage in an online discussion or two about it.
|
| It's easy to ignore the mundane things we're all faced to do.
| It's also remarkable how interesting anything - no matter how
| seemingly unremarkable - can be if viewed from the right
| perspective and taken to sufficient extremes.
|
| If you were to take this approach, I suspect you might find
| some interests you never knew you had. It's possible you can't
| make headway on your old interests because you yourself have
| changed. Those old interests don't in fact interest you in the
| same way anymore, but you haven't recognized that yet.
| eternalban wrote:
| > Does anyone know a way to truly rekindle the creative spark
| after it's completely died?
|
| I don't know about a "way" but falling in love definitely kicks
| things back in gear. Go and get yourself a _muse_.
| hnaday wrote:
| For me, falling in love became a distraction, sadly.
|
| You have to ask yourself what's my goal? And what's my reward
| function? Very different for everyone.
| stewx wrote:
| Find a way to challenge yourself. Maybe find some "off-the-
| shelf" projects to build that don't require creativity, but
| maybe do require some new skills or new technology you haven't
| used before.
| Aperocky wrote:
| > creative spark
|
| The harder you want it, the more elusive it is.
|
| I've done a bunch of projects that I'm proud of (on a very
| minor scale, mostly 0 use outside of satisfying my own
| curiosity), but if you ask me now on the spot I would have no
| idea what is the next interesting personal project that I'll
| find really creative and fun.
|
| When it comes it comes.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| The creative impulse can be shy, when it's not all consuming.
| We forget that we need to play, without the expectation of a
| result.
|
| The highest creative states are sometimes called "formless
| functioning". This is when you are fully immersed in creating,
| and the ego just dissolves. It's hard to be creative when
| you're standing over your own shoulder criticising your lack of
| creativity.
|
| So I would be gentle with yourself. Play, do things you enjoy
| just because you enjoy them. The creative impulse will stir.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Your honesty was refreshing compared to others who jumped
| straight to hate, because there was no story about them as 17
| year old inventors (so clearly he does not deserve it either).
|
| But a magic bullet to rekindle the creative spark?
|
| There is none.
|
| Give it a rest and it will come back, or not.
|
| Try something new, preferably somewhere else.
| bckr wrote:
| > Give it a rest and it will come back, or not.
|
| I don't think this is right.
|
| I think instead GP can pick up the brush over and over again
| and make things happen with or without the creative spark.
| The point is to get inspired by one's own creation, not to
| create ex nihilo.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| When you pick up the brush with disgust, after a while you
| will feel only disgust with the whole art and never create
| anything inspired and beautiful again.
| karamanolev wrote:
| > No creative impulse, just worries about
| chores/bills/obligation
|
| I think that's critical in many people's lives and I've felt it
| starting to creep in my, but I think I'm keeping it at bay.
| Based on personal experience, when you settle down and/or start
| family, chores/bills/obligations start creeping up on you
| massively. It's very easy to get sucked into a mindset that if
| you start falling behind on those, your life will start falling
| apart. In reality, a lot of those can be postponed with only
| minor downsides. Yes, you can live in a slightly dirtier/less
| organized house. Yes, the lawn can be slightly less maintained.
| Yes, you can probably postpone that car service another week.
| Just sit down, forget about the world [not] falling apart and
| enjoy your hobbies. Write some side-project code, start a
| hardware tinkering project that you're unlikely to finish.
| Disassemble a failing kitchen appliance to see if you can fix
| it. Those things bring way more to your life than the apparent
| utility!
| phonescreen_man wrote:
| Maybe try magic mushrooms?
| justinlloyd wrote:
| I don't know the answer to your problem. I've gone through
| periods of "lack of creativity" in my own life, usually when
| there's too many "life experiences" happening around me and my
| day job is spilling over in the number of hours it needs.
|
| I will say that WFH has helped immensely, at 6PM-ish I turn off
| the VM that is my day job computer and flip over to whatever it
| is I want to be working on, or go in to my workshop. I have
| designated areas in my home office for - this is where I write,
| this is where I do electronics, this is where I write code,
| this is where do my day job, this is where I do woodworking.
| That compartmentalization prevents other activities from
| spilling over. Limited social media hours, just like limited TV
| hours, is also another boon.
|
| I write a lot of what I call "lab notes" about my thought
| processes as I work through ideas, example here
| https://github.com/justinlloyd/retro-chores for a current
| project, take lots of pictures of things as I research, and see
| where it leads me.
|
| I also abandon a lot of things too, when I am no longer feeling
| the spark. I'd rather have a hundred abandoned creative
| projects than a few that I feel guilty about not working on, or
| not feeling the urge to work on.
| codazoda wrote:
| I recently created a Scanner Daybook from the ideas presented
| by the late Barbara Sher in one of her books. It's freed me to
| explore ideas on paper with no obligation to create the works I
| describe. The funny thing is that it strokes my mind and I
| actually get a lot of the projects done. I tend to work in an
| MVP fashion and create very simple things, however.
| adaml_623 wrote:
| Try going internet free for two weeks?
| whiddershins wrote:
| I've been there, more than once. I seriously doubt the creative
| impulse can be eradicated, it is just hiding.
|
| The way I've gotten past this is to commit to messing around,
| or trying to make some small thing, at a specific time on a
| schedule.
|
| (Every morning, whatever you have)
|
| Make no rules about what is "valid" to work on, and give
| yourself permission to quit after a certain amount of time if
| you still aren't feeling it that day.
|
| The creativity will return as a result of _doing_. And it may
| take a form that surprises you, and wasn't what you set out to
| focus on, because currently you don't know yourself well enough
| to know what you are even interested in.
|
| One day, during one of those periods, I sat down at my
| regularly scheduled time and I produced computer music for
| about 60 minutes, listened back to what I made and was
| absolutely disgusted by how mediocre it was.
|
| I stood up to walk out of my studio and on a lark picked up my
| trusty 6 string bass. I then wrote this entire song in one
| pass:
|
| Spotify
|
| https://open.spotify.com/track/2erc0IdvaDh6xnprg8gthS?si=xX0...
|
| Apple Music
|
| https://music.apple.com/us/album/sometimes-you-need-sun-feat...
|
| It just came out fully formed.
|
| Relax, play, mess around, do little fun or interesting things.
| Let your mind wander. But sit down at your scheduled time.
|
| Inspiration will return.
| didgetmaster wrote:
| Part of the resistance to the creative process is the current
| demand from the market that version 1.0 of something has to be
| 'near perfect'.
|
| In the old days (80s and 90s), a software startup could release
| their first version that did something truly unique even if it
| was still really rough around the edges. People would buy the
| first version with the expectation that a good portion of the
| revenue would be used for R&D which would make version 2.0 way
| better. You could boot-strap some really great projects that
| way.
|
| It seems that today, a new product never stands a chance unless
| it has great funding up front with all the kinks worked out and
| tons of bells and whistles built-in before ever being
| introduced to the public.
|
| I created a new kind of data management system that manages
| unstructured data (i.e. files) completely different than
| conventional file systems. It also does some amazing work with
| structured data using Key-Value stores to make really fast
| relational tables.
|
| When I demonstrate how it can do something like file lookups
| thousands of times faster than file systems or how it can do a
| query against a big table 10x faster than Postgres; you would
| think that would capture people's attention and make them want
| to investigate it further.
|
| Instead, most just point out what your little startup project
| is still missing when compared to 40-year old projects that are
| on version 15. They say, "Get back to us once you have
| A,B,C,D,... features working, tested, and perfected". When you
| lack the resources to do that, it can be soul crushing.
| Animats wrote:
| Somebody sign him up for YC. $500K is enough to build some good
| prototype motors and find out if this is commercially viable.
| eterevsky wrote:
| So, how is it in terms of efficiency? The article mentions that
| it's 31% more efficient than existing reluctance motors, but
| doesn't give a comparison to the traditional electric motors.
| phkahler wrote:
| That's a very good question. I have an EV motor control and
| calibration background so lots to say here. First off, peak
| efficiency tends to occur at mid to high speed and mid to high
| torque, in other words high power. Most EVs spend very little
| time operating anywhere near their peak power. It may take as
| little as 4kW to drive down the highway at constant speed, but
| a motor may be capable of 100kW or much more.
|
| Efficiency at 500 to 1000 RPM is important, and reluctance
| machines tend to be very poor at those speeds and low torques.
| So maybe he increased efficiency from 30 percent to 61 percent,
| which would be really good. Or maybe he increased efficiency
| from 50 percent to 65.5 percent (65.5/50 = 1.31 but I hate
| looking at percent change of a percentage). What he did not do
| is increase the max efficiency significantly at an already
| efficient operating point where most motors are already over 90
| percent, and that's OK because like I said we don't operate up
| there very often.
|
| BTW, IMHO the best way to characterize electric machines like
| this is not to look at their efficiency, but to look at their
| losses. There's a really nice way to plot losses but it's a bit
| hard to explain in a comment. He also doesn't seem to have a
| dyno which makes taking data and testing a lot easier.
|
| Anyway, he did a great job and will undoubtedly continue doing
| so!
| 1-more wrote:
| > Efficiency at 500 to 1000 RPM is important
|
| Why is this? Thinking out loud: can't you gear your motor so
| that it's most efficient at cruising speed for the vehicle?
| But the problem is that the car still needs to be able to
| accelerate from zero and some gearings will make that
| impossible, so having an efficient band at 500--1000 RPM
| gives you the best chance of being able to accelerate from
| 0-500 RPM?
| choonway wrote:
| >He also doesn't seem to have a dyno which makes taking data
| and testing a lot easier.
|
| how do you test without a dyno? and isn't it easy to set up a
| electrical generator tied to a high wattage variable resistor
| to do it?
| sitkack wrote:
| If the design is sufficiently low cost, and since it it wont
| have drag when free wheeling, multiple motors could be ganged
| to provide different peak/torque efficiencies. High torque to
| get off the line and a cruising motor to travel at speed.
| Given the power to weight densities of modern motors, having
| multiple compact motors will provide zero weight burden in a
| car.
| VLM wrote:
| Motors are no monolith, and the various scaling factors WRT
| bearing quality and air gap (among other construction tolerance
| issues) mean the smaller the motor is, generally the less
| efficient it is. What is motor efficiency is very much a "how
| long is a piece of string?" question.
|
| All engineering is about tradeoffs and if the kid is replacing
| air gap with "something", that efficiency has to be balanced
| against better bearings vs better mfgr tolerances etc. Its
| still a valid tool in the collection of tradeoffs; but its
| unlikely to match the boosterism tone of the article as being
| "the solution to all our problems".
|
| The problem with boosterism is not that its positive or
| criticism is good or complaining that contest he was in, is
| mostly a contest of parental income and willingness to spend,
| but the problem with boosterism is it can completely overshadow
| any actual science or engineering. The kid probably DID do
| something cool and interesting, but it's buried under the
| boosterism and exhilarating claims of world changing etc.
|
| Its a valid criticism because this kind of popular coverage
| gives the false impression that actual science journal articles
| or EE component datasheets should consist of 99% boosterism
| with perhaps 1% content. From a journalistic perspective its
| worthy of criticism in the sense of this is NOT science and
| engineering journalism, its just a puff piece full of glory and
| sparkles. From an educational perspective its worthy of
| criticism in that the tone of the article implies kids should
| not go into STEM fields unless their parents are rich and easy
| spenders, which ironically would be a better match for a non-
| financially rewarding liberal arts degree; I assure you that a
| kid can grow up to be an excellent EE even if his parents can't
| afford a 3d-printer.
| londons_explore wrote:
| A tesla Model 3 motor already is partially a reluctance motor.
| This youtube video describes it rather well, and I'd recommend
| giving it a watch [1]. Notice the air gaps - thats the reluctance
| part of the rotor.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esUb7Zy5Oio
| b3nji wrote:
| > A tesla Model 3 motor already is partially a reluctance
| motor. This youtube video describes it rather well, and I'd
| recommend giving it a watch [1]. Notice the air gaps - thats
| the reluctance part of the rotor.
|
| > [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esUb7Zy5Oio
|
| I dont think he's using air gaps?
|
| "Instead of using air gaps, Sansone thought he could
| incorporate another magnetic field into a motor."
| viggity wrote:
| if you watch the video, tesla puts the magnets in the air
| gaps. (around 6m 40s)
| tromp wrote:
| Air gaps are the traditional way to make a reluctance motor.
| Sansone is exploring a different way to make a reluctance
| motor, improving performance at the cost of added complexity.
| theincredulousk wrote:
| does anyone know how it works that towards the end of the
| video, it shows the resulting torque curve of the motor is
| actually negative for a decent span. Does this mean the motor
| actually resists rotation for that arc during every rotation?
|
| Wouldn't that be a significant hit to efficiency, or do the
| benefits simply outweigh it for a net gain?
| elihu wrote:
| I think the idea is that the inverter's job is to always be
| continually changing the current to the motor's stator
| windings such that you'd always have close to the optimal
| angle between the rotor and the magnetic fields created by
| the stator. Kind of like how a gas engine might backfire if
| you fired a spark plug at the wrong time so a well designed
| engine would avoid doing that.
| DFHippie wrote:
| That makes it sound like this could be used to improve
| Tesla's motors.
| perf1 wrote:
| Why are there no improvements in traditional petrol engines? They
| basically convert 60% into heat. Like use the heat to run a steam
| engine?
| VLM wrote:
| The term to google for is cogeneration. Sometimes all people
| need is the correct search term.
|
| The problem with cogeneration is its usually incredibly heavy
| and there aren't many uses for very low temperature process
| heat in most real-world applications.
|
| Another problem with cogeneration is you might get a small
| percentage boost by connecting a backup generator to the HVAC
| system but the capex can be VERY high if done safely and
| reliably, and system complexity seems to scale at an
| exponential rate. It seems a no-brainer to dump the radiator
| heat from a backup generator into an office building thereby
| burn less natgas to heat the building; however you factor in
| that you have to frost-proof it all and its going to be
| hundreds of gallons of anti-freeze in those pipes which is
| expensive and all pipes leak eventually with has ecological
| issues, and you can't have exhaust leaks into the building and
| over half the time you need cooling not heating anyway and the
| HVAC cannot be made smaller because you still need to heat even
| when the gen is off and the HVAC system will be less reliable
| because it'll be more complicated and the backup gen will be
| less reliable because its more complicated, perhaps making the
| backup gen less reliable than wall power. So shrug shoulders
| and dump the gen heat using an air cooled radiator, even in the
| winter.
| phkahler wrote:
| There is a fundamental limit to ICE efficiency dictated by the
| laws of thermodynamics. You can push that theoretical limit up,
| but it is dependent on having a higher compression ratio.
| Diesel engines use higher compression ratios for ignition, but
| they are dirty (in comparison). Higher compression ratios tend
| to result in more NOx emissions too, so for the regular car
| makers there is a direct trade between
| efficiency/emissions/reliability. But even if you aim for
| highest efficiency at all cost, you'll never get close to 100
| percent, as the theoretical max never goes there (or does it at
| infinite compression ratio?).
| iiv wrote:
| There have been huge improvements since the first petrol
| engine, and huge improvements in the last 20 years as well.
| Petrol engines are some of the most studied and meticulously
| engineered things ever created.
| skykooler wrote:
| One big limitation is the Carnot efficiency - for any heat
| engine (which internal combustion engines are) there's a
| maximum upper bound on the efficiency, which for gasoline and
| diesel is around 37%. Beyond that point you can't extract any
| more energy out of the waste heat without removing energy from
| somewhere else in the system.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Petrol engines can physically only achieve around 55-60 %
| efficiency, so getting up to ~35-40 % vehicle efficiency is
| actually really good. Large scale Diesel engines get really,
| really close (within a few points) of the hypothetical
| frictionless-no-heat-radiation-no-flow-losses efficiency
| possible with their parameters.
| shakezula wrote:
| What do you mean? The amount of improvements in standard ICE
| engines are mind-blowing. The fuel efficiency and power they
| manage these days is insane. You're quoting that 60% figure and
| neglecting that most of the losses from that are thermodynamic
| and mechanical losses at transfer points that can't really be
| overcome. At some point you have to lose some heat along the
| way.
| monkpit wrote:
| We've been improving them for like 150 years, and they're still
| getting better. For example, Mazda's Skyactiv to increase
| compression ratios.
| yreg wrote:
| There has been a myriad of improvements in traditional petrol
| engines?
| wizofaus wrote:
| Yet our cars still can't fly, and still emit greenhouse
| gases...
| doug_life wrote:
| Turbochargers do exactly that. They take waste gas/heat to turn
| a pump and provide more oxygen for combustion. Also look into
| the F1 ERS systems that recover waste energy.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| Drive a car from the 1980s for a little while, then come back
| and we can discuss how much better engines are today.
|
| Lots!
| rob_c wrote:
| Good luck if he gets a patent and helps improve the world.
|
| This feels like another story on a revolutionary battery which is
| 20% better but has 3x parts and is 10x the final cost. I hope
| it's just bad reporting.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| This next generation is finally fulfilling the promise of the
| Internet in my opinion. Every book, article, research paper and
| millions of high quality instructional videos, lectures and
| courses are there for the taking. And the Zoomers really are
| using all that information. It's like water to fish - it's all
| around them.
|
| I've personally seen my son and his friends get into and then
| become proficient in a bunch of different topics, like motorcycle
| maintenance, programming games, film and video editing, drone
| racing/building, music and a ton of other real-world useful
| skills, all without a mentor being involved. I've personally
| learned more about a bunch of different topics I never had a
| handle on before, like physics and math, where my education was
| stuck at an 11th grade level until the past few years.
|
| Compared to my teen years, the difference is breathtaking. I
| think the result will be a better society and a bunch of people
| doing what they really love for a living.
| ssizn wrote:
| It's always the same, "<minor> creates revolutionary thing". And
| then nothing comes out of it.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Also, would be good to see any proper research done on the
| correlation between kids like that winning prizes and how they
| fare in the future in terms of driving first-rate innovation
| wherever they go.
|
| I have a hunch there's hardly any.
| gedy wrote:
| That's fine, as long as it's not some phoney PR thing like
| "...well and their parents happen to world experts of the same
| thing", or own a business around this, etc.
| katkatkatkatket wrote:
| Usually because <minor> has made a prototype of an already
| well-established phenomenon, and the really difficult part is
| making a production-ready design.
|
| A bit like the "10-year-old makes a heart pump for just $10"
| stories. It's really easy to hook up a motor to some pipes,
| it's absurdly hard to make that pass medical regulations.
| keepquestioning wrote:
| Better than Clock Boy
| vxNsr wrote:
| A lot of this stuff dies on the industrial engineer's desk
| where it can't be made viable at scale.
| MattGrommes wrote:
| This is also true for a lot of research done by adults at a
| large cost. Every "New Battery Technology Will Run Your Phone
| For 1 Million Years!" story ends like this once they go to
| the real world with it.
| barroomhero wrote:
| Waiting for the "yeah, but..." comments now.
| olivermarks wrote:
| 'Could'...
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| Because most of these stories are sensationalized omitting a
| lot of facts around who's that kid, who are his parents and how
| much help did the provide him. It's also often a PR stunt to
| promote an underlying company or organization. This kid didn't
| developed anything in his parent's garage, he had access to
| sophisticated industrial equipment and you bet someone helped.
|
| Of course, there are outliers, but most often it's borderline
| fake news.
| asciimov wrote:
| That's because the "rest of the story" isn't as good. With a
| little digging you often find <minors>'s parent(s) are a
| researcher that studies that exact <thing> <minor> was
| building, or <minor> somehow got a job working at a lab that
| works on <thing>, or <minors>'s <thing> isn't as novel as
| article leads you to believe often with <thing> being known and
| unused due to some obvious flaw.
| wizofaus wrote:
| Impressive...we might actually get our next Tesla or Edison...as
| I've noted here before, why there's not more such prodigies these
| days with genuine determination and obvious ability given today's
| population, existing knowledge base and access to education and
| resources still somewhat eludes me.
| mywacaday wrote:
| When I first began using social media I was excited at the
| potential ability in the future to look back over my life. In
| reality I have almost completely abandoned social media and I am
| very happy with the Google photos remember this day feature which
| for me goes back at least 15 years. The only worry is how long
| Google maintain Photos
| justusthane wrote:
| What? Wrong post, maybe?
| BirAdam wrote:
| I normally try to avoid posting a comment that echoes others, but
| I will make an exception this time.
|
| I am old enough to remember issue after issue in the 90s of
| Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, and
| other magazines wherein there'd be a breakthrough that promised
| to revolutionize the world. Then, you'd read news off Yahoo or
| Fark that would describe a young wiz kid's new invention. Nothing
| happened. Ever.
|
| Due to this inevitable hype train that lacks any kind of stopping
| ability, paranoid types would start thinking that the oil
| industry must be involved in stopping them. Not a bad assumption
| given things that megacorps have done in the past, but it is
| generally bad policy to invent large nefarious schemes with zero
| evidence.
|
| As a younger guy, I was always intrigued and would then start
| drawing and writing about the world to come! It was so enjoyable
| and the crushing disappointment would come over the months as
| nothing more was heard or seen. I awoke to the reality that
| people run risk calculations on business, on machinery, on
| changes, and if the financials aren't viable, things don't
| happen. Additionally, young inventors are often seduced by patent
| purchase offers. Then if megacorp X has a bad culture that can't
| produce a truly new product... it dies. Beyond all of those
| challenges, you have regulators to convince as well. Of course,
| here in the good ol' USA, regulators don't seem to care toooooo
| much about safety. Paper thin cars with zero crumple zones? okay.
| SUVs without doors, roofs, accurate steering? okay. Trucks and
| SUVs with very high rollover potential? sure. Non-lockable
| differentials? absolutely. Massive lithium batteries that catch
| fire somewhat easily? Why not.
|
| Note, I am actually fairly libertarian and don't support
| regulation in general, but I hear very frequently that automobile
| regulation is big reason for innovation being stifled, and in
| this case I do not see how that could be even remotely possible.
| jwitchel wrote:
| Robert Sansone, great job!
|
| So many young prospective engineers read HN every day. Let's find
| comments that are encouraging or thought provoking or point
| readers in helpful directions Like @londons_explore did.
|
| Bringing the beatdown is bad for everyone. Especially bad for
| young engineers. This kid is impressive, straight up impressive.
| Let's encourage him and others like him. HN shouldn't someone's
| supervillain origin story.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqMCYdqaFCQ&t=41s
| justsocrateasin wrote:
| I had a hunch this would link me to The Incredibles. Great
| reference and I totally agree with the sentiment.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > Bringing the beatdown is bad for everyone.
|
| It's healthy to question media narrative as the media tend to
| sensationalize and embellish stories for clicks or views. It's
| disingenuous to try to make people feel guilty about it arguing
| if we question that story that child will turn bad or
| something, in an post-truth era. Nobody is attacking that kid,
| just how the media cover these stories with a template.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| I don't think this is totally on the media. The story is
| sufficiently weasel worded -- the motor "could" "pave the
| way". Anybody with any experience reads "could" as "probably
| not" and "pave the way" as "a tiny little step in a long
| process".
|
| Most 6 year olds have figured out that "maybe" means
| "probably not". Many adults have forgotten that lesson.
| alex_young wrote:
| Most of the major inventions of the last 2 centuries were
| the product of many incremental steps. The automobile, the
| airplane, the computer, the internet, etc.
|
| I think it's worth celebrating even minor contributions
| toward a potentially world changing future personally.
| picture wrote:
| Hey, as someone who's participated in the same competition,
| you got it right on the money. It's a well known joke
| amongst science fair students that "could pave the way to
| this and that" really means its kinda useless. Some of our
| school's projects from two years ago worked on quantum
| computing but didn't achieve the goals they'd hope for so
| our instructor just told them to sprinkle some paved the
| ways in their paper
| cheschire wrote:
| Will the kid understand that's everyone's intent, I wonder?
| Silverback_VII wrote:
| He surely will have to understand that to be exceptional
| creates a lot of headwind (certainly in his own field).
|
| "The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who
| cannot fly."
| tiahura wrote:
| Being a curmudgeon isn't a virtue.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| Given the sheer number of headlines like "<This invention>
| will change the face of <this well known thing>" that
| really boil down to "<This idea, which isn't even new> is
| interesting to think about, but won't really have any
| impact on <this well known thing>"... it really doesn't
| make one ill-tempered to bring up for discussion whether
| the current article is one of those.
|
| It might not be one of those, and it's not fair to assume
| it _is_ one of those... but discussing whether it is or not
| isn't rude/mean, and probably _should_ be standard
| practice.
| jwitchel wrote:
| Fair enough, but context matters and there are two that
| matter here: (1) The subject was the tech and the engineer
| not biased media narratives, and (2) HN is a forum that so
| many people look up to. So if you want to context switch to a
| discussion about the media (a worthy subject BTW) post a new
| thread; let's not do it on a thread that is spotlighting
| interesting tech from a promising engineer.
| slingnow wrote:
| I would much rather live in a world where people question
| biased media narratives and we risk hurting someone's
| feelings than the other way around. If this kid can't
| handle a little bit of criticism, he won't be long for the
| engineering discipline.
| jwitchel wrote:
| It's not a binary choice. We can and should have both. We
| can also provide constructive feedback and at times
| criticism both without risking hurting their feelings.
| Again, the point is time and place.
| dieselgate wrote:
| Don't know about this one, when it comes to someone who
| is younger than 18 for this context I'd error on the side
| of "if you don't have anything nice to say don't say
| anything". If it's Sharktank or something that's a bit
| different
| psd1 wrote:
| That's a false dichotomy
|
| > If this kid can't handle a little bit of criticism
|
| I do expect adults - over 25 - to take the rough with the
| smooth. But children are not adults.
|
| I think you're assuming your own competence at pedagogy.
| I would want to shield children from you until they've
| developed the resilience you demand from them.
|
| Also, the emotional tone - sheesh
| jwitchel wrote:
| +1 And to pile on a bit here... part of learning to be a
| good engineer is learning how to give good constructive
| feedback. If you are creating real risk of truly hurting
| someone with your feedback (in a PR or a code review for
| example) then it's you who are at fault for tone deafness
| not them for being thin skinned.
|
| Giving and getting feedback is hard. It's a skill and it
| doesn't come easily to most. Sometimes hurting someone's
| feelings is inevitable, but starting from a place of
| "toughen up buttercup" is really self-serving and
| counterproductive.
|
| There is always someone better than you, and always
| someone worse. Always someone who knows something you
| don't, and always someone who can learn from you.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Waterluvian wrote:
| People are far more likely to become your neighbours or
| coworkers than they are to replace you. Gotta resist the
| instinct to be competitive and gatekeep.
|
| This is wonderful work and it makes me feel bubbly about the
| future of engineering when young adults are _this engaged_.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| I think this is the right angle to take.
|
| Unlike a lot of breathless "engineering breakthrough" stories,
| this piece, as well as young Mr. Sansone himself, readily
| acknowledge that this is a work in progress and may not pan
| out. Even if it doesn't, what an incredible achievement for a
| high-schooler - and just imagine the great contributions to the
| field this kid is poised to make in the coming decades.
| moffkalast wrote:
| > and just imagine the great contributions to the field this
| kid is poised to make in the coming decades
|
| Well let's curb the expectations for now, it can be quite
| damaging for a kid be held forever to an potentially
| unrealistic standard just because they did something great
| once. I mean sure for the occasional genius it turns out fine
| because they live up to it, but for the rest it's a self hate
| and imposter syndrome on steroids.
| hosh wrote:
| I think this person has a strong intrinsic motivation to
| contribute innovations. He has already worked on other
| projects before this one. We don't have to have any
| expectations or setting up any extrinsic motivations or
| even to be cheerleaders, and instead, we can honor and
| respect him for who he is, and his chosen purpose. And for
| those with the capability and availability, act as resource
| if he needs it. (In the article, he says he was working
| without a mentor and had to figure a lot of stuff out
| himself).
| karaterobot wrote:
| All the objections to this that I have are from the breathless
| tone of this article, and the many others in the past that have
| made big claims for the sake of precious, precious clicks.
| Whether or not this particular design revolutionizes the field is
| beside the point. As we know, most things do not. But if he's
| made something novel that expands our understanding, and he's
| done it in a garage without institutional backing, or investors,
| or even a mentor, then it's an impressive achievement.
| hbarka wrote:
| Tesla's electric motor evolution is an interesting journey that
| has taken them at this point to the permanent magnet synchronous
| reluctance motor (PMSRM). Their history is very interesting. The
| early Model S was RWD using an induction motor. The AWD Model S
| then got a smaller induction motor on the front, keeping the
| larger sibling in the rear. They then ditched the larger rear
| motor and just used the same smaller motors front and rear. All
| the while they were also evolving the software to optimize for
| torque split, acceleration, and range. They released a feature
| that they called torque sleep in which the rear motor would pulse
| off leaving just the front motor driving the car during low
| torque conditions. The AWD was effectively FWD during these
| moments, squeezing additional range.
|
| When the Model 3 was released, it had a completely new motor, the
| permanent magnet synchronous reluctance motor. Various names and
| acronyms called it PMSRM, IPM-SynRM, PMa-SynRM, but the main
| difference was that now Tesla was moving away from the
| asynchronous induction motor (and no permanent magnet), to the
| PMSRM. Having permanent magnets now allowed it to have true "one-
| pedal" driving, where the car can bring itself to a complete stop
| without using the physical brakes. With the magnetless induction
| motors, the driver has to induce a brake hold during a stop, then
| release, which was still better than keeping the foot on the
| brake, but one-pedal driving was the luxury feature to have if
| just for the lazy look-ma-no-pedals stop.
|
| Wait there's more.
|
| Tesla in its genius still had inventories of the induction motor,
| so at first they created an AWD configuration that had the extra-
| large watermelon-sized induction motor in the rear and
| cantaloupe-sized PMSRM on front. Software was used to optimize
| for power or range. Stomp on the power pedal and electricity went
| to the induction motor. Cruise for range and this load was tasked
| to the PMSRM. There was enough combined torque and power to go
| around that Tesla could make these modulations hundreds of times
| a second.
|
| They also sold these combinations as the Performance or Plus
| version. There was also the LR for Long Range, the LR Plus, the
| Standard Range, Standard Range Plus). You can guess as to which
| combination of AWD, RWD, induction, or induction + PMSRM each car
| model had based on the badging. They did this for a few quarters
| then went all in on purely PMSRM front and rear. Some Tesla old-
| school purists still scour the used car listings to find the pure
| induction models.
|
| If you haven't experienced it you have to try how smooth the
| Tesla motors are when it comes to one-pedal driving. It's really
| good compared to other makers. One-pedal driving isn't unique to
| Tesla but there's something different in their recipe. It's
| available in the latest Model S, 3, X, Y with PMSRM. Tesla
| engineers are a brilliant lot and maybe Robert Sansone can join
| them and continue the arc of motor evolution and who knows maybe
| go back to motors without a permanent magnet someday.
| kayfhf wrote:
| jedberg wrote:
| As a parent, my first question is what did his parents do to
| foster this and enable it, and can I do it too? I know my kids
| may not be interested in engineering, but I want to at least give
| them the chance. And I suspect whatever his parents did is
| applicable to other interests too.
| skapadia wrote:
| If I had to guess, they probably let him try whatever he wants,
| without that knee-jerk impulse of saying "that's crazy, no
| way!" or "stop what you're doing and clean your room" or
| "you're always in the garage. go out and play, or get a part
| time job". Now it's possible he's able to do this because his
| parents can afford to let him spend time on this, but still.
| It's really easy as a parent to just say "no", but much harder
| to put your own prejudices and assumptions aside and say "yes".
| My daughter is 10yo and spends hours in her room drawing,
| painting, and making miniatures of everything out of cardboard,
| paper, and whatever scraps are around. She hoards all that
| stuff. So many times I say, no let's throw that away or you're
| spending too much time on art. Her best creations are when we
| leave her completely alone.
|
| I recognize my own hypocrisy, because I'm a far better
| developer when there are few meetings - when I'm left alone.
| wyre wrote:
| I'm not a parent, but I had a less-than-supportive teenagehood.
| I think an unconditional support of your child's interests and
| growth will go a long way. Be a yes man/say no as little as you
| can. I imagine this kids parents provided a lot of financial
| support from his parents too.
|
| "Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their
| children than the unlived life of the parent." -- Carl Jung
|
| Good luck! I wish you the best!
| rdl wrote:
| Wow. This is inspiring -- will be interesting to see what else he
| does in the future. Selfishly I hope he stays focused on
| innovative hardware stuff rather than getting dragged into
| advertising optimization or some other big software project.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| This is how we do it. Not 30-somethings in STEM for the cash and
| clout, or Twitter warriors frantically retweeting, or the green
| PR industry, or authoritarian rules.
|
| More people like this lad, motivated, smart, and hard-working,
| and we'll become sustainable. Just need to get out of their way.
| mattkrause wrote:
| Part of the problem is that there's very little cash in the S
| or M parts of STEM.
| dymk wrote:
| We do "it" (what's "it"?) with... 17 year olds' spare time, for
| free? Maybe they get a patent if it all pans out?
| ordu wrote:
| > If his motor continues to perform with high speed and
| efficiency, he says he'll move forward with the patenting
| process.
|
| Is it a wise move? Shouldn't he just file a patent application
| instantly? (It is not a kind of a sarcasm or something. I really
| do not know, and I'd like to hear from people experienced with
| patent applications.)
| [deleted]
| yardie wrote:
| Its kind of expensive. About $30-50k for the entire process.
| For a big company with deep pockets and IP lawyers already on
| retainer that price is just the cost of doing business and an
| investment of beating the competition. If your an individual
| $30k for a not sure bet is a hell of a lot of money.
|
| A good friend patented a makeup applicator and she's not sure
| if she'll ever get that money back.
| potamic wrote:
| Why does it cost so much to file a patent? Isn't one able to
| draft and submit an application by themselves?
| yardie wrote:
| You can do a lot of things on your own and you may even be
| successful at it but there are so many roadblocks
| intentionally put in your way. If you don't have the
| expertise to file an application paying someone else to
| counsel may be prudent. If you do have the expertise you'll
| probably make more being hired to file than the actual
| patent filer.
|
| Anyway, she thought of an idea. Sketched and prototyped it.
| Hired a lawyer to file it and that was step 1. She wasn't
| able to manufacture, license, or sell her patent.
|
| She went back to being a makeup artist and was mildly
| successful streaming.
|
| Other friends with patents work for large corps (Siemens,
| Microsoft, Motorola) who handle it all automatically. They
| might have got a plaque and a annual bonus for their
| effort. None are wildly richer for it.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I got a dollar, for mine...
| cma wrote:
| Even publishing it gets him a 1 year inventor's grace period
| where his publication can act as prior art to stop others from
| patenting, but doesn't stop him from patenting, under the
| newish first to file rules. But I dont know about
| internationally.
| mminer237 wrote:
| The USPTO's grace period is very generous internationally.
| About 16 countries have comparable rules.[1] In most of
| Europe, any public disclosure beforehand completely prohibits
| you from getting a patent. So if you want protection outside
| the Americas and Eastern Asia, you should still not disclose
| anything before you get a patent.
|
| [1]: https://www.mewburn.com/law-practice-library/grace-
| periods-f...
| BaseballPhysics wrote:
| Probably. Given some years back the US moved to a first-to-file
| system, getting an initial patent application filed to
| establish that date is probably not a bad idea and isn't too
| terribly expensive.
| djbusby wrote:
| Can be done for just the filing fee. But you'd likely want to
| have council help, about $6k last I looked.
| BaseballPhysics wrote:
| You don't need a completed application to get a provisional
| going. A suitable written description is enough, and is
| something an individual can probably do on their own. The
| USPTO even has a whole section providing resources and
| assistance for folks to do this:
|
| https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics/using-legal-
| services/pr...
|
| That said, promoting that to a full non-provisional
| application is not something most people should do without
| a patent attorney as it takes real skill in the art (ha!)
| to get the claim set right.
| picture wrote:
| What exactly is novel about this? I've participated in ISEF
| before and the amount of marketing/hyping and the lack of
| knowledgeable judges is frustrating. ISEF also clearly have a
| thorough fetish with patents. If you check the box on your form
| suggesting you may look into patenting in the future, your
| project performs a lot better.
| gnramires wrote:
| The only thing that saddens me here is the patent aspect. I
| really wish we had a more open and effective IP mechanism.
| jbay808 wrote:
| > Instead of using air gaps, Sansone thought he could
| incorporate another magnetic field into a motor. This would
| increase this saliency ratio and, in turn, produce more torque.
|
| This appears to be the novel part. It's an SRM but it appears
| to replace, or augment, the airgaps using some additional
| technique to increase the saliency ratio.
|
| The text sort of implies that it's using a rotor winding, but
| I'm not sure; that would arguably make it no longer an SRM.
| Maybe he's added conductors into the airgaps to exclude
| magnetic fields via eddy currents.
|
| Or maybe something else!
|
| Whatever it was, it's very impressive to be making and testing
| motor prototypes on one's own, at his age or any age. There's a
| ton of work that goes into every little detail, like coil
| winding, or bearing alignment. Definitely great work!
| callumprentice wrote:
| Inspiring story all round but this paragraph stood out for me:
|
| "I didn't have a mentor to help me, really, so each time a motor
| failed, I had to do tons of research and try and troubleshoot
| what went wrong," he says. "But eventually on the 15th motor, I
| was able to get a working prototype."
|
| I imagine most 17 year old would not have kept going 15+ times
| until they arrived at something which worked.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| In my experience young minds are far more likely to keep at it
| where most adults take issue with repetitive processes.
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| he will have learned at some point that most valuable skill one
| can learn is self reliance in the face of adversity.
| diego_sandoval wrote:
| Makes me realize that it wasn't lack of opportunities or lack
| of mentorship that stopped me from achieving what I wanted when
| I was a teenager, it's just that I didn't want it bad enough.
| melony wrote:
| He is from an upper middle class family at the minimum.
| Hardware projects at his scale is not exactly a low cost
| expenditure, even with AliExpress and cheap Asian parts of
| questionable quality. I doubt he even needs the winnings to pay
| tuition.
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| In what all that resentment towards him is helping you or
| anyone?
| melony wrote:
| No, but pointing out something that most people seem to
| gloss over. It is like reading "startup X raised Y dollar
| with a Z year old founder" articles and oohing and aahing
| while misunderstanding the actual circumstances that got
| them there. It is never about solely the product and idea,
| HN hates to acknowledge this but you don't raise money
| without strong connections and network, and it is the same
| story for science fairs (especially at the pre-
| undergraduate level). Follow your children to the next
| state-level science fair and most of the top award winners
| will have similar backgrounds. Almost always a relative or
| "family friend" in academia/research who's guiding them,
| either that or a blank cheque for the children/extremely
| well funded school clubs.
| llaolleh wrote:
| You're correct. Those factors are often overlooked. Kids
| don't even know that if they ask enough times, there are
| kind people who are willing to help them.
|
| All this leads me to conclude that we need to do better
| so these resources to innovate and learn are accessible
| to all.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > resentment towards him is helping you or anyone?
|
| Where do you see resentment? It's like saying "anyone could
| have been Bill Gates" except that Bill Gates had access to
| lab computers much earlier than any other kid of his
| generation (and his family was well off, too). A touch with
| reality is always helpful in an ocean of optimism.
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| In your judgment about what he and his family needs are,
| your pre-supposed hypothesis about their condition and
| about the usage of his tuition and the resources of his
| prize which are not your prerogative. That comment which
| is subtly derogatory and distractive to the merit in
| question is your search or highlight of what exactly?
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| The parent comment is saying that kids' achievements are
| limited to their resources. This seems valid to me.
| Certainly my own experience as a parent (and a child) bears
| it out.
| johnohara wrote:
| My experience teaching high school kids was just the opposite.
| Quite a few will stay with a problem long after most so-called
| "prudent" adults have moved on.
|
| As adults, we forget that 17 year olds are still living their
| lives in a world of what they don't know, not in what they
| know. And once they do know they can be very insistent about
| being right. Because, it's all they know.
|
| It's also how a team of 16-17 yr olds can somehow manage to win
| when the odds are completely against them. All they know is
| what they want to see happen. And they will keep trying until
| they succeed, the clock runs out, or the other team makes it
| painfully obvious by completely routing them.
| callumprentice wrote:
| Interesting, thank you. My assertion was based on my own 17
| year old self, my peers at that time as well as people that
| age now. Sounds like the opposite could be true. I find that
| quite heartening.
| mhh__ wrote:
| It's a somewhat common joke in physics departments to compute
| something up to (say) N=3 then say "Well if we were
| undergraduate students we might compute this up to N=100"
| c22 wrote:
| Really? In my observations _only_ 17 year olds have the time
| and patience to do crap like this.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Lots of time but no money.
|
| Like the guy who makes his own chips. Super impressive but
| there's no way in hell I could've ever afforded to do that (I
| did look into it when I was 18)
| furyofantares wrote:
| Both things ring fairly true
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| I don't know about "only", but my observations are that they
| do.
|
| I've volunteered for a youth leadership camp every summer
| since 1998. Our attendees are 16-18 y/o males exclusively
| (there's a female version of the camp but I don't work there
| so I have no opinion on that side). Our attendees have been
| thru a selection process, so I'm not seeing a representative
| cross section of Ohio, US males of that age. In our sample,
| though, the number of focused and determined young men is
| very high.
|
| I'm not at all surprised a 17 y/o would have the drive and
| determination to keep trying over and over. Not all of them
| are that way-- surely it's a very small percentage.
| Nonetheless, that determination isn't an anomaly in my
| experience.
| todd8 wrote:
| Back before the internet, in 1964, I read a brief Scientific
| American column on laboratory glass blowing (for making
| condensers and so forth). This set me on a quest; and I
| acquired supplies and primitive homemade equipment. I was
| years away from being able to drive so I took the bus
| downtown to the Detroit public library where I found several
| books devoted to the subject. I studied these for hours. I
| worked on this project for many days.
|
| I ended up being able to make a few primitive items from my
| tubes of glass, but of course, it was a silly pursuit that
| led nowhere. So I moved on to my next project, making a solid
| fuel rocket from scratch, then an arc furnace, then
| gunpowder, then a homemade gas-mask, etc. So it was for a
| curious kid in the 60's. I'm lucky I didn't burn down the
| house. This of course was made possible by the lack of an
| internet (and of course periodicals like Scientific American
| back when it was great and really about science).
|
| I admire the 17-year old in the article for coming up with
| something in this age when it is so much easier to entertain
| oneself by surfing the net.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > So I moved on to my next project, making a solid fuel
| rocket from scratch
|
| Remember when you could get the ingredients to do things
| like that easily; sometimes even in a "Science Kit for
| Kids!" one would buy at Caldor or the like? Man, how times
| have changed.
| dsr_ wrote:
| In the late 1980s, the toy store at the mall carried a
| section of model rockets and rocket engines, igniters...
| supermarkets carried cap guns and refills in racks just
| before checkout.
| OJFord wrote:
| Can't you get _actual_ guns at some US supermarkets, in
| the 2020s? Meanwhile I 'm pretty sure you can get those
| combination cap/spud guns in the seasonal aisle at larger
| UK supermarkets, and almost all French^. Funny.
|
| (^when I was younger I remember being amazed by all the
| stuff you could get in French supermarkets, aisles and
| aisles of school supplies, summer toys/beach items,
| clothes, etc. - seems they were much earlier in that
| trend, and still seem to lean further into it, though
| it's been a few years since I've been.)
| [deleted]
| adventured wrote:
| Most of the mainstream chain supermarkets in the US don't
| sell guns (Kroger, Target, Whole Foods, Costco,
| Albertsons, Ahold, Publix, Sams, HEB, Meijer, Aldi, et
| al.). Walmart is the primary exception there.
|
| Overwhelmingly that's now handled by independent gun
| stores, or a select few sporting good chains (eg Dick's
| Sporting Goods - the largest sporting goods chain in the
| US - which sells a restricted set of rifles and a few
| shotguns; they came under pressure not long ago to get
| rid their guns and they capitulated and reduced what and
| how they sell [1]).
|
| Big corporations in the US are drastically more sensitive
| today to gun issues and the related bad PR that goes with
| selling guns (even Walmart has rolled back their selling
| of guns).
|
| [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-dicks-sporting-
| goods-deci...
| krater23 wrote:
| WTF?! You really have Aldi in the US? As a german I never
| supposed that.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| I'm 42, when I sent my mom out with a shopping list for
| this stuff as a kid it ended up in her (almost) being
| arrested.
| todd8 wrote:
| Yes, back in the 60's my buddy and I asked our parents to
| buy us some powdered aluminum and iron-oxide. We got in
| trouble because the chemical supply company warned them
| about our requested ingredients. That was the end of our
| homemade thermite project. So it was on to another
| project, homemade lock-picks.
| helge9210 wrote:
| > That was the end of our homemade thermite project
|
| I call it luck.
|
| I decided not to proceed, when understood, that I have no
| way to put it off.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > I decided not to proceed, when understood, that I have
| no way to put it off.
|
| I didn't :)
|
| It's all about the quantities.
| philipkglass wrote:
| You can still do that easily today:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_candy
|
| I have seen potassium nitrate stump remover on the
| shelves at my local Fred Meyer (Kroger). If you can't
| find find it on shelves it's easy to order:
|
| https://www.walmart.com/ip/Potassium-Nitrate-
| Powder-99-8-Pur...
|
| The vast majority of fireworks and rockets I made as a
| kid used potassium nitrate as an oxidizer. 5 pounds will
| provide many hours of entertainment and education.
| mrexroad wrote:
| Only if their parents have blocked TikTok, most of YouTube,
| and PlayStation. </sarcasm of parent of kids faced with
| endless parade of distractions>
| tqi wrote:
| Have you seen the amount of effort and repetition it takes
| to make a TikTok?
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| What kids do depends on lots of things, including the
| makeup of the kid.
|
| None of my 5 were heavy into social media, even tho I was
| for 15 years.
|
| One followed my skillset and became heavy into
| computers/electronics (8y-now) and old cars (19y-now).
|
| The other 4 didn't pickup strong hobbies. I believe it's
| because there weren't available examples that fit their
| abilities.
|
| Two settled on gaming (one now a technician tho). One does
| music and graphic art.
| VLM wrote:
| Ironically Minecraft would be good training for this level
| of dedication
| throwaway14356 wrote:
| which says a lot about the state of the industry.
|
| The best part to me is the large amount of designs one
| shouldn't bother to talk about because it is much more
| important to hysterically moan about potential perpetual
| motion than discus any motor/engine improvement.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I kinda agree. That is around the age when you still can have
| the free time and energy to do what is essentially huge
| amount of grind. It is just question where the focus is. It
| might be games, books, music, anime and so on.
|
| Older you get less there is time and energy. And more
| responsibilities.
| thehappypm wrote:
| You can both be right!
| ekianjo wrote:
| Most 17 years old don't have access to 3d printers. Equipment
| is a big factor in making something tangible.
| prvc wrote:
| They're common in public libraries in many major cities, so
| quite a few do.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| As someone who was in that position 13-17, it's
| complicated. Many will refuse to help you if it's a
| project with a modicum of risk (like homemade motors)
| and/or impose crippling restrictions, at that age.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| One third of 17 year olds cannot read at grade level.
| OJFord wrote:
| Are you sure about that? I don't know when you're allowed
| to leave school in the US, but they're pretty popular in
| schools - relatively cheap tools & a lot safer than others.
| They didn't exist (in the mainstream at least) when I was
| at school, but we had laser cutter/engravers for example. I
| know which I'd pick if I were in control of the budget (and
| had to choose one).
| crysin wrote:
| My High School which was a fairly well funded public High
| School in Illinois, US hadn't upgraded their shop
| equipment since the 80s really it felt like. We had wood
| tools, saws, the basics only. The coolest thing we had
| was a smelting forge, but students weren't allowed to use
| it due to safety concerns. This was in the late 2000s.
| digitallyfree wrote:
| Whether you're able to use the equipment for tasks
| outside of the specific class (even if it's school
| related like a science fair project) is another issue.
| I've seen different schools in the same district do
| things differently - one for instance allowed students to
| say use the media lab to record a drama production and
| had a maker club where students could use the machine
| shop for personal projects. Others very strictly
| restricted the use of school equipment for the specific
| class in question (e.g. only shop class students can use
| the machine tools and only for projects related to that
| class). It really depends on the instructor and the
| school administration.
| mhh__ wrote:
| I built a niche little bit of tech (not really invention as
| much as applying a old idea to a backward field) when I was 19,
| I could've kept going but I ran out of money on the 2nd
| iteration because RF is an expensive hobby.
| melony wrote:
| RF is a very, very, expensive hobby. What was the idea you
| had for the field?
| mhh__ wrote:
| Using RF rather than capacitive methods to detect hits
| between sabre fencers.
|
| I built the first one basically out of scraps and rtl SDRs,
| second one out of slightly better Chinese crap then ran out
| of money.
|
| Would be a compliance nightmare to sell either iterations.
| If I could do it with TDR instead I don't know
| dieselgate wrote:
| Cool article, engineers gonna engineer!
|
| Two things that jumped out to me: it's incredibly seeing copper
| being compared as the "cheap" alternative! Obviously it would be
| compared to rare earth but copper is typically "expensive" in
| general or household applications. Also, I had no idea Tesla
| motors spin at up to 18k rpm that's just bonkers. Guess it makes
| sense because they're single speed(?) Dang, old diesels (kind of
| an extreme example, I acknowledge) redline at like 3500 rpm.
| zzzeek wrote:
| > Instead of using air gaps, Sansone thought he could incorporate
| another magnetic field into a motor. This would increase this
| saliency ratio and, in turn, produce more torque. His design has
| other components, but he can't disclose any more details because
| he hopes to patent the technology in the future.
|
| ah well great, we'll all just twiddle our thumbs waiting on that
| then instead of collaborating on how to integrate the good ideas
| here into existing large scale manufacturing.
| emacsen wrote:
| While many of us are against certain types of patents, this is
| exactly what patents are for- protecting the invention of an
| inventor for a very limited time (20 years, it used to be 7 if
| I recall). In return, society gets the invention "source code"
| in the form of what is essentially exactly how to reproduce the
| invention.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > ah well great, we'll all just twiddle our thumbs waiting on
| that then instead of collaborating on how to integrate the good
| ideas here into existing large scale manufacturing.
|
| So what's your alternative? Inventors are _required_ to share
| everything freely, and never profit from their work?
| zzzeek wrote:
| Firstly, I didn't indicate anyone is _required_ to do
| anything. Secondly, you present a false choice. I innovate
| with software every day, have published millions of lines of
| code with almost no restriction on re-use, I certainly
| "profit" via my employment and donations; I'm just not a
| billionaire. This inventor is certainly in a great space to
| get incredible, lucrative job offers via his fame and
| notoriety.
|
| put another way, what if instead of him inventing a novel way
| for a motor to be enhanced, he instead were a physicist who
| discovered some new property of physics that basically
| allowed the same thing to occur? Do scientific discoveries
| get "patents" that prevent anyone else from making use of
| that new information for 20 years?
| rm_-rf_slash wrote:
| It's not that hard to get a provisional patent. And like it or
| not the USPTO is a vital institution for incentivizing
| innovation and driving growth.
| bckr wrote:
| This is inspiring, and let's look at why so many of us have the
| impulse to figure out what the flaw or missing part of the story
| is.
|
| For me, it's because I hadn't done something so cool at 17. That
| makes me think, huh, I wonder if I'm not a "natural born
| engineer". I start going through my life story so far and beating
| myself up for playing too many video games, or not going deep
| enough on my interests.
|
| Then I start thinking about the ways my life is different from
| his. I start to feel resentment about the opportunities I didn't
| have, the resources that weren't available. What could I have
| done if things had been different?
|
| Next I start to resent how society scores us on things that can
| contribute to the economy, or things that look particularly cool,
| and things that we accomplished at a young age.
|
| And then I start to imagine the difficulties that this young
| inventor will have. "Oh yes", I think, "He'll find out soon
| enough what the REAL world is like."
|
| And these thoughts are not who I want to be. But I can reflect
| and learn something about myself from them. And I can choose to
| go another way.
|
| I can decide that, if a 17 year old kid with the right resources
| and a crazy idea can make something really cool, then I, as an
| adult with more experience and resources can make something at
| least as cool if I want to. And I'm going to. It's not like my
| life is over because I'm older than 17.
|
| And if this article is making you spiral with insecurity, I hope
| you make a similar decision. A decision to be inspired instead of
| intimidated.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| What irks me is the inappropriate focus on the who over the
| what.
|
| I'd in all honestly be similarly annoyed if the headline said
| "57 year old stamp collector from Yorkshire designs a novel
| synchronous reluctance motor".
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| It's the hero worship fetish half of the world has.
|
| It's never about the achievement, it's about the person that
| achieved it. You can very easily find out if wherever you've
| the same tendency: just think about the most impressive score
| or safe you remember in whatever sport you love. Do you now
| think that the deed was impressive or that the person that
| did it is the impressive thing? Will you remember the play,
| or the person that played?
| cheq wrote:
| Gave me chills, thanks!
| PaulHoule wrote:
| If you want to be cynical about it see
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/03/why-sc...
|
| (of course that is another clickbait article from a magazine
| that was good before the web but now specializes in clickbait)
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| I remember when I was in high-school agonizing for over a
| year over the 100$ fee to publish an app on google play.
|
| Ultimately it's hard to ignore the pattern when you see the
| stories about these precocious kids on the news, they always
| come from wealth.
| deepspace wrote:
| Agree, I was very interested in electronics as a teenager,
| but had no money for tools, instruments, or components. I
| had to scavenge components from discarded radios, used my
| dad's plumber's iron for soldering and saved up for months
| for decent wire and a wire stripper.
|
| I did eventually end up getting a scholarship to study
| engineering, but I cannot help feeling a tiny bit resentful
| when seeing kids in the news who obviously had a lot of
| support from a wealthy family.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You should not feel resentment, but you should feel their
| luck to be born into that.
|
| On the downside: they will never learn the value of
| recycling, of working with inadequate, broken,
| uncalibrated and dangerous tools. But you did and I'd bet
| you came out the better engineer on account of that. What
| doesn't kill you makes you stronger isn't just about
| health.
| Zagill wrote:
| Lately I try to see privileges like that less as an
| unfair advantage that someone else has, and more an
| unfair disadvantage for everyone else. I want every kid
| to have access to high quality education which includes
| the tools and materials to work with and learn new
| concepts - that's regardless of the socioeconomic class
| they were born into. Instead of trying to tear down other
| people for the opportunities they had that you didn't,
| maybe we should be attempting to improve the world for
| everyone so that there's less of those unfair
| disadvantages going around.
| silisili wrote:
| I personally don't think age has anything to do with it. If the
| story for some reason said 47 instead of 17, I think comments
| would largely be the same.
|
| So then why? Insecurity may still have a lot to do with it. I
| guess a large percentage of people like to either prove others
| wrong, or show off intelligence?
|
| See also, Cunningham's Law.
|
| https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law
| bendbro wrote:
| > Next I start to resent how society scores us on things that
| can contribute to the economy
|
| Lol
| snapcaster wrote:
| Thoughtful post, I think it's such a strong ability to develop
| to be able to see this thought process happening in your head
| and being aware of it. Thanks for sharing this
| nkzd wrote:
| Today, my friend and I cynically talked over a beer about this.
| We ranted to each other about how we wasted the best years of
| our life and how we didn't have the resources or education
| other people have right now. This is a defeatist attitude and
| your post has inspired me to be better.
|
| Thank you for writing this.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| How important is it to have accomplishments?
| bGl2YW5j wrote:
| Insightful comments like this are why I love HN. Thank you!
| IshKebab wrote:
| > why so many of us have the impulse to figure out what the
| flaw or missing part of the story is
|
| Because media LOVES to say "12 year old creates revolutionary
| invention!" especially for energy related things and especially
| for inventions that aren't revolutionary. Here's a classic
| example:
|
| https://www.wired.com/2011/08/boy-genius-13-year-olds-solar-...
|
| > 13-year-old Aiden Dwyer has managed to do something that
| grown-up scientists haven't. He has wrung up to 50% extra
| electricity from regular solar cells. How? Brains, trees, and a
| dash of math geekery.
|
| (It's 100% nonsense.)
|
| That said it doesn't exactly look like the case here but it's
| the obvious null hypothesis.
| sbf501 wrote:
| > why so many of us have the impulse to figure out what the
| flaw or missing part of the story is.
|
| Why? Because that's literally what engineers are paid to do:
| make things, break things, fix things. It's all about tearing
| things apart to understand them, and then making them better.
|
| Just like this kid is doing. I don't think DC motor engineers
| took it personally when he decided to "figure out what the
| flaw" was in current rare earth magnet designs, right?
|
| If you take that personally, you're in the wrong field.
| barefeg wrote:
| I wonder how much classical education hinders this kind of
| people. I can see a point in networking, however creating a
| network of randomly assigned people doesn't seem so effective. It
| might be better to create a network from clubs, etc.
|
| I never created anything so impressive while young but I was
| always curious and building or taking apart stuff. I always felt
| school got in the way _.
|
| _ in the end I stayed all the way until PhD and later changed
| careers, but that's a different story
| EgoIncarnate wrote:
| Impressive to come up with this on his own, but possibly already
| patented. Tesla has been using magenets instead of airgaps in
| their Internal Permanent Magnet - Synchronous Reluctance Motor
| back in 2020. Hopefully his other inovations are more novel.
| https://uk.motor1.com/news/462107/video-tesla-model-3-electr...
| t_mann wrote:
| Minor grammar point: I assume the engineering professor was
| _consulted by_ Tesla. 'Consulting with' would mean that he asked
| them for help, which would be somewhat less remarkable.
| pontifier wrote:
| The article teases by opening with a casual mention of "high
| speed running boots" but I'm having a devil of a time finding any
| info about that.
|
| I've thought about this a bit myself. About 15 years ago my
| unpowered prototype allowed me to speed walk about as fast as I
| could sprint. Only problem was my ankles kept hitting each
| other... Very painful.
|
| Sounds like a very inventive and interesting guy rather than a
| one trick pony. Good luck!
| vidanay wrote:
| "I heard some guy invented a car that gets 100mpg and lasts for
| 30 years, but the auto industry and oil industry had him killed."
| whatshisface wrote:
| It adds to the humor that the two numbers you quoted might
| actually be achievable.
| perf1 wrote:
| Aren't most anti aircraft missiles heat seeking? Could also be
| a reason why 60% of the engine energy need to go into creating
| heat. Otherwise cheap gas engine drones that can't be
| intercepted and can fly thousand of miles could be really
| dangerous.
| throwaway14356 wrote:
| stan meyer (infamous for claiming his dune buggy ran on
| water) did a hilarious talk where he described pvc tube
| rockets filled with water used both as the propellant and the
| explosives. Mass produced they would cost 5 dollar[sic]
|
| The war we could give..
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| Yes, it's called Carnot's conspiracy.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| My own conspiracy theory is that the only reason this story got
| traction is because it carefully sends the message "EVs are not
| sustainable, and might never be".
|
| There's enough people being paid to tell clear lies that I
| don't feel I'm paranoid to suggest that writing such an article
| (which seems very careful to not be particularly positive about
| current EVs) might get you money from fossil fuel interests
| and/or they'd hype it for visibility.
| justapassenger wrote:
| There's this car that runs on WATER, man!
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" The video explained that most electric car motors require
| magnets made from rare-earth elements"_
|
| For years, Tesla exclusively used induction motors with no
| permanent magnets. It's only relatively recently (when the Model
| 3 was released) that they started using permanent magnets in
| order to gain a few % better efficiency.
|
| Even now, dual-motor cars often pair an induction motor with a
| permanent magnet motor. This configuration has various
| advantages: the induction motor can spin freely with no
| resistance when no power is required, so using one of each
| provides the best combination of efficiency and power.
| tunesmith wrote:
| Now I want to know more about his "high-speed running boots".
| causi wrote:
| BEVs like Teslas already have a rare-earth-free induction motor
| in them. They use an additional rare earth motor for efficiency,
| which in the Model S and X gets them ten percent greater range.
| The way this article conveniently ignores that fact leads me to
| believe there's no chance of the modified synchronous reluctance
| motor exceeding the efficiency of the induction motor and
| therefore will have no impact on the electric car industry.
|
| Mighty impressive work from a teenager, though.
| Comevius wrote:
| This is always the case when these young and wealthy prodigies
| are being covered by the media. They always invent a toy that
| the industry already tried or keep trying to make practical.
| Practical as in not just performance, but cost too.
| skapadia wrote:
| I missed the part that said his family is wealthy. Can you
| point me to that?
| Comevius wrote:
| I wish I could be as innocent as you. Science fairs are for
| rich kids.
|
| Here is Robert, 17, currently working on his Private Pilot
| Certificate. His hobby is dicking around with 3D printers
| and drones.
|
| https://linkedin.com/in/robert-sansone-62116b1b7
|
| I don't even want to link the second winner, but he is very
| connected in Saudi Arabia. Let's just leave it there.
| deepspace wrote:
| Just look at the photos. Only a fairly wealthy family could
| afford to buy him those instruments, and of course, the raw
| materials for the motors. Even his clothing suggests that
| there is no lack of money.
| marshray wrote:
| For what it's worth, that is cheap no-name Chinese test
| equipment he's using.
|
| Probably a $300-400 setup, which is not nothing, but well
| within reach of most families.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Or mowing a few lawns. I pay the teen who mows my small
| front and back yards $40. It's not a big deal. He's done
| in 30-40 minutes and moves to the neightbors down the
| street. This is just a couple weekends of side hustle.
| dicknuckle wrote:
| Benefit of the doubt: it could be a local makerspace.
| Although he's working on his pilot license so yes, he's a
| rich kid.
| [deleted]
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| A group of engineers run the numbers on a thursday afternoon
| and see immediately that it just isn't practical/possible.
| The idea dies without ever getting out of the lab or even off
| the whiteboard.
|
| A kid stumbles into the idea though and has the gumption to
| actually carry it all the ways to a "working" prototype,
| which inevitably wows everyone who isn't in the field (pretty
| much everybody).
| unethical_ban wrote:
| You say this like it's a bad thing.
| causi wrote:
| Frankly you could filter out every HN submission with the
| phrase "-year old" and miss absolutely nothing of value.
| marshray wrote:
| It's about the lifecycle of the inventor, not the motor,
| silly.
|
| Even though the probability is low that he is founding a
| revolution in magnetodynamics, I personally found this
| story more inspiring than a blog post about the latest
| front-end Javascript framework.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Yeah, stupid kids learning about things with real world
| projects. They aren't state of the art at all!
| Double_a_92 wrote:
| The kid is absolutely not stupid. But the media
| sensationalizing trivial stories is.
|
| Most likely this is an already existing design, which is
| rarely used because of something that makes it
| impracticable on a bigger scale.
|
| But because some smart kid happened to toy around with
| it, it's suddenly the new technology that will
| revolutionize the car business.
| goldenchrome wrote:
| I get what you're saying but the headlines tend to imply
| that they're state of the art (like this one). It always
| takes a knowledgeable someone in the comments to bring
| this fact to light, which makes me think it's usually
| clickbait. Kudos to the kid, but less kudos to the
| journalist.
| gigatexal wrote:
| Kudos to this kid and all his accomplishments to this point.
| Here's to a future of many many more. I sure as hell wasn't this
| accomplished at 17.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-08-11 23:00 UTC)