Mike writes "Signaling a bright future for sustainable energy, 15-year-old Javier Fernandez-Han has created a remarkable algae-powered energy system that is capable of producing food and fuel, treating waste, containing greenhouse gases, and releasing oxygen. Dubbed the VERSATILE system, the project recently netted him a $20,000 scholarship for winning this year's Invent Your World Challenge."
What are you talking about? The competition was "Invent Your World Challenge." Kid makes an energy system. Missed the mark entirely: algae power is not a world.
Also, it has not been built yet, so "created" is too strong a word. He more like "imagined" or "designed" it. Not to say it's not impressive for a 15 year old, but it's not the salvation of the world.
Exactly. I did some designs for algae-powered energy generation when I was about that age. It's not impressive, because the concept is obvious. Algae reproduce very quickly given the right environment and is a cheap way of generating solar power. Algae blooms are caused by sewage getting in to the water supply, so feeding it with animal (including human) waste is obvious.
Algae power is not a scientific problem, it is an engineering one. The test of any solution to an engineering problem is much simp
Its worse than that, he just copied some Phds work off youtube:
From reading TFA, I'd say the kid did a little more than copy someone's work. A lot of work has been done with algae, so neither one should claim to have invented the idea of extracting fuel from it. What I see is that they invented scalable systems for doing it cheaply.
Of the two, the kid's is theoretically "better" IMO. His vision of intended use in the 3rd world is reason enough. Even if the real cost is more like $2000 instead of $200, it's good. Just get Sally Struthers to cry on TV to raise the money.
Of course, until he or someone actually builds a working model, it's just a neat idea. Certainly not the 2nd coming of Da Vinci or Einstein.
FTA: "The algae-powered system hasnâ(TM)t yet been built, however, and skeptics will remain until it is. Even if FernÃndez-Hanâ(TM)s design doesnâ(TM)t pan out as planned, weâ(TM)re thoroughly impressed by his innovative spirit."
A pump powered by children playing? I did a double take when I saw that. Then there was a link to it [inhabitots.com]. I tip my hat to the person who thought of that. Bloody ingenious.
When it stops being an activity which can create mischief -- If we jump hard enough in unison can we create a big enough spark to ignite the methane?!
to a chore -- You kids won't get your allowance if you don't generate at least 5KW of power this week!
Seems to me they could put a donkey on a tether. The pumping capacity would probably be more reliable. Kids are kids, after all. For a week, maybe even a month, that merry go round will be busy during all daylight hours. After that, it'll be hit or miss, now and then. I mean, really. If I actually WANT a kid to eat ice cream, he isn't going to want any. If I WANT him to eat candy, he's going to be suspicious. Ask any parent.
If I actually WANT a kid to eat ice cream, he isn't going to want any. If I WANT him to eat candy, he's going to be suspicious. Ask any parent.Just tell them they are not allowed to play with it from 14:00 to 18:00.
I haven't studied it in depth yet, but I'd imagine it contributes a bit of energy to the system to get things running, kinda like a starter motor on a car, or a solar powered oil pump that can't wait for the oil to be extracted, refined, and fed into the pump's engine to get it working.
Farming is a noble occupation, but if you have to spend time tending a biological system when a chemical system will work flawlessly without any monitoring, well, that's why we make chemical systems instead of just using biological ones.
Farming is a noble occupation, but if you have to spend time tending a biological system when a chemical system will work flawlessly without any monitoring, well, that's why we make chemical systems instead of just using biological ones.
Don't all systems require monitoring? Besides, biology is just applied chemistry. There are applications where chemical processes are just too complex for us to manage, so we have cells managing it for us, like in composting.
"The algae-powered system hasn't yet been built, however..."
Another minor little detail:
"and the PlayPump, which uses energy derived from children playing to power the system."
I assume the children will volunteer to "play" at this "play pump" which I bet will be much more fascinating than say, Nintendo or beating up on little Timmy, or whatever their regular activities are.
Or is this a device in fact powered by child labor? Perhaps it will go over big in China and Malaysia.
It's a merry-go-round [inhabitots.com]. Kids spin around, laugh, and spin some more all the time at local parks in the States. Even in China and Malaysia, when they're not manufacturing Nikes for pennies per hour, I'm sure they might like to feel like normal children, and play outside on a merry-go-round.
If it suits you to be a non-contributing little shit and sneer at anyone who tries, then so be it. But at least stay quiet while you're doing it.
Play pumps are being installed in many places in Africa, and have been for over 5 years now. They're a pretty big success so far. Frontline on PBS did a piece a while ago about them: FRONTLINE - South Africa [pbs.org]
There are 5 replies above my threshold. All of them are ripping this apart as fancy. He's a 15-year old kid who took a lot of interesting technologies and thought of a way to chain them together to achieve a net benefit. What did you guys do? You're assholes.
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday June 24, @08:31PM (#28461565)
I'm 17 and I don't consider this a huge feat.
You know those blogs that do nothing but push glossy "concept" renders of future products? Those flexible curved solar powered laptops with a few multitouch screens thrown in for laughs? I am sure I am not alone in that I die a little inside when I see the comments praising them. All I am thinking is "How are you supposed to stick a curved laptop into a backpack?".
This is like that except on an even greater scale. You throw in a few buzz words, some hokey pokey vaporware and make a nice powerpoint presentation of something neither plausible nor useful.
My grade 6 science project involved keeping a single fish alive for a few months in a fish tank without any filtration or water changes by growing terrestrial plants in the same water. Sure, I forgot to use the word "bioreactor" and I didn't have any flowcharts but on the other hand I actually made something that worked.
You say he "Took a lot of interesting technologies and chained them together", but how is this remarkable in any way? There is no innovation here, just a giant mess of ideas, some practical, most not (Using children to power a pump as a long term solution? Really?).
Just another life lesson: Being practical gets you a plastic medal, spooning bullshit makes you rich. (But I'll be honest, I already knew that) The only genius here is that he figured out you can get twenty thousand dollars for this drivel.
Mainly because I am more interested in the technology, and really don't care how old the guy is. If it works, that's great! I don't really care if the guy who did it is 5 years old or 60. If it doesn't work......then it's just another non-starter technology that made it to the front page of slashdot.
Besides, when was the last time you saw a slashdot discussion where everyone wasn't criticizing everyone else? It's kind of our default mode, unfortunately.
Pure science informs experimental science informs design engineers informs process engineers informs manufacture.
It's a long chain to go from an abstract idea to a machine that whirrs. Yet it requires the competence, indeed, excellence of many people in many different professions.
This isnt even close to a first step. I mean seriously he's 15.
All that he has done here is take a bunch of stuff that is known to work, but not economically, and tied it all together with a pretty diagram. Nothing new has happened here, a nerdy kid who almost certainly has parents who work in the field have produced something of no value.
All that he has done here is take a bunch of stuff that is known to work, but not economically, and tied it all together with a pretty diagram. Nothing new has happened here
I think you are being needlessly harsh here.
His key contribution was to think: "How many things can I chain together so that the waste from one thing feeds something else?" Thus, methane from the digester powers cooking stoves; carbon dioxide from the burned methane feeds algae. I've heard of methane digesters, I've heard of cooking stoves, and I've heard of algae; I haven't heard of an integrated system like this.
If you RTFA, he relates a story about how the gift of a fresh water system to a poor village had an unfortunate side effect: the extra water the village used caused their sewage system to be overloaded. Their "system" was to put their sewage in buckets and dump out the buckets; they ended up with raw sewage running in their streets. He consciously tried to design a system that has no negative effects. (And that's probably an inspiration for including the flush latrines in his design, latrines that feed the digester and/or the algae.)
Even if his design turns out to be flawed, the flaws might be fixable or at least the idea might inspire an experienced engineer to design something even better.
I didn't invent anything this clever when I was 15. How about you?
I think in a lot of ways it's brilliant. In others, it's way short, but then again, he's 15. He's more creative than half the $150/hr consultants we hire, that's for sure.
Seriously, though, we (the sewage district I work for) are looking at micro-treatment - treatment at the point of source for sewage. Lots of reasons but google for PECs (Pollutants of Emerging Concern) if you really want to know why. Eventually we see large scale municipal plants going away and micro-plants with instant recycling being the norm.
This kid is just about 20 years ahead of his time. I want stock in his company.
I want stock in his company.And that will probably be the reason why it will fail if there is a company that does that. The idea was about doing something without waste. The comapny will be there to make money. Give the idea to the world and let EVERYBODY play with it. Universities in Africa, Asia and the rest can then work out a working model. Please let not one company take away this idea and then patent it into oblivion.
And I thought of hybrid vehicles when I was eight and wanted to power my gocart with 3/4 hp electric saw motor, powered by a lawnmower engine running as a generator. But the point is that while you and I were out playing, other people were doing something with their ideas.
Ideas are cheap. It's taking them to the next logical step (even if that's just a well-thought-out formal design) that differentiates the people who win $20,000 scholarships from those who go outside to play.
I am a patent attorney [obligatory "you insensitive clod"] before the British and European Patent Offices. Please excuse the slightly off-topic comment, but I'm not sure we're all particularly evil. I see a lot of patent-attorney bashing here on Slashdot. Mostly what we actually do is provide the best possible advice to our clients based on the current state of the law, and argue their case for them in what has evolved to be a very complex legal system. At the same time, we have a fun job which involves dealing with five or so different technologies on our desks on a daily basis, getting up to speed with them quickly and then thinking up detailed and powerful legal and technical arguments to deploy as to why our client's technology might just be worth the grant of a 20-year monopoly, or conversely, why our client's competitor's technology isn't. Most of us have higher technical qualifications, as well as our legal training. In many ways, it's a geek's dream...
Now, the people to whinge about are a) the legislators, and b) the patent offices themselves, who don't always do the best job of examining the patent applications as rigorously as they could. At least the situation is a bit better here in the EU than in the States, though, where as soon as a patent examiner gets any good he goes and qualifies as an attorney...
http://www.dieselmotorfiets.nl/ [dieselmotorfiets.nl] Here you go, this is the place they make them. And guess what, it's for sale for 17500 euros. Do you have any other Myths you need Busted(TM) ?
Enterprising kids build things. Mediocre kids create marketing materials. Below-average adults give scholarships to mediocre kids. I don't think we're pooh-poohing the kid; I'd be surprised if a few hundred Slashdotters didn't design something similar at the same ages, but didn't think we should be rewarded for it because we didn't solve the massive engineering problems in building such a system (and neither did this kid). We're decrying the kind of society that rewards this more than building things th
Freakin' Prodigies... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Freakin' Prodigies... (Score:5, Funny)
What are you talking about? The competition was "Invent Your World Challenge." Kid makes an energy system. Missed the mark entirely: algae power is not a world.
Kid needs to pay more attention next time.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Its worse than that, he just copied some Phds work off youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hioZ7C6HLs [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Oh please we all know he just looked under his bed for something at the last minute and scraped that off.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. I did some designs for algae-powered energy generation when I was about that age. It's not impressive, because the concept is obvious. Algae reproduce very quickly given the right environment and is a cheap way of generating solar power. Algae blooms are caused by sewage getting in to the water supply, so feeding it with animal (including human) waste is obvious.
Algae power is not a scientific problem, it is an engineering one. The test of any solution to an engineering problem is much simp
Re:Freakin' Prodigies... (Score:4, Insightful)
Its worse than that, he just copied some Phds work off youtube:
From reading TFA, I'd say the kid did a little more than copy someone's work. A lot of work has been done with algae, so neither one should claim to have invented the idea of extracting fuel from it. What I see is that they invented scalable systems for doing it cheaply.
Of the two, the kid's is theoretically "better" IMO. His vision of intended use in the 3rd world is reason enough. Even if the real cost is more like $2000 instead of $200, it's good. Just get Sally Struthers to cry on TV to raise the money.
Of course, until he or someone actually builds a working model, it's just a neat idea. Certainly not the 2nd coming of Da Vinci or Einstein.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You're allowed to use the same spellings as other people, that isn't counted as plagiarism.
Vapourware (Score:4, Informative)
FTA: "The algae-powered system hasnâ(TM)t yet been built, however, and skeptics will remain until it is. Even if FernÃndez-Hanâ(TM)s design doesnâ(TM)t pan out as planned, weâ(TM)re thoroughly impressed by his innovative spirit."
Re:Vapourware (Score:5, Funny)
we're thoroughly impressed by his innovative spirit.
Lies. What really impressed them was a 9 letter acronym like VERSATILE.
Parent
"Play pump" (Score:5, Informative)
A pump powered by children playing? I did a double take when I saw that. Then there was a link to it [inhabitots.com]. I tip my hat to the person who thought of that. Bloody ingenious.
Re:"Play pump" (Score:4, Interesting)
When does "play pump" end and "child labor" begin?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If we jump hard enough in unison can we create a big enough spark to ignite the methane?!
to a chore --
You kids won't get your allowance if you don't generate at least 5KW of power this week!
Re:"Play pump" (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Just so long as it's not a "love pump."
My God! With that, slashdot users could power the universe!
Re:"Play pump" (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems to me they could put a donkey on a tether. The pumping capacity would probably be more reliable. Kids are kids, after all. For a week, maybe even a month, that merry go round will be busy during all daylight hours. After that, it'll be hit or miss, now and then. I mean, really. If I actually WANT a kid to eat ice cream, he isn't going to want any. If I WANT him to eat candy, he's going to be suspicious. Ask any parent.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If I actually WANT a kid to eat ice cream, he isn't going to want any. If I WANT him to eat candy, he's going to be suspicious. Ask any parent.Just tell them they are not allowed to play with it from 14:00 to 18:00.
Re: (Score:2)
I haven't studied it in depth yet, but I'd imagine it contributes a bit of energy to the system to get things running, kinda like a starter motor on a car, or a solar powered oil pump that can't wait for the oil to be extracted, refined, and fed into the pump's engine to get it working.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The advertising supports the pump. Read the article.
Nothing new? (Score:5, Funny)
Isn't that basically what Cowboy Neal is?
Biological systems suck (Score:2)
Farming is a noble occupation, but if you have to spend time tending a biological system when a chemical system will work flawlessly without any monitoring, well, that's why we make chemical systems instead of just using biological ones.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Farming is a noble occupation, but if you have to spend time tending a biological system when a chemical system will work flawlessly without any monitoring, well, that's why we make chemical systems instead of just using biological ones.
Don't all systems require monitoring? Besides, biology is just applied chemistry. There are applications where chemical processes are just too complex for us to manage, so we have cells managing it for us, like in composting.
Re:Oblig. XKCD (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Biological systems suck (Score:5, Funny)
No, farming is what commoners do. Warring and collecting tax and rent are noble occupations.
Jeez, you guys have been without a proper monarchy for so long you've forgotten the basics.
Parent
Mutant! (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
This kid is obviously the love child of Dean Kamen and HRP-4C.
There, fixed that for you.
And now the punch line of the article? (Score:4, Informative)
There's only (Score:3, Insightful)
One small caveat:
"The algae-powered system hasn't yet been built, however..."
Another minor little detail:
"and the PlayPump, which uses energy derived from children playing to power the system."
I assume the children will volunteer to "play" at this "play pump" which I bet will be much more fascinating than say, Nintendo or beating up on little Timmy, or whatever their regular activities are.
Or is this a device in fact powered by child labor? Perhaps it will go over big in China and Malaysia.
Re:There's only (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, look at the horrible child labour [inhabitots.com] going on.
Side note: RTFA. The link was right there!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's a merry-go-round [inhabitots.com]. Kids spin around, laugh, and spin some more all the time at local parks in the States. Even in China and Malaysia, when they're not manufacturing Nikes for pennies per hour, I'm sure they might like to feel like normal children, and play outside on a merry-go-round.
If it suits you to be a non-contributing little shit and sneer at anyone who tries, then so be it. But at least stay quiet while you're doing it.
Re:There's only (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
He's a 15yo boy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Who gives a rip if it was thought up by a 15 year old boy? His age doesn't change the facts of the matter one bit.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I say, chain them to the PlayPump!
http://www.inhabitots.com/2009/03/05/play-pump-the-merry-go-round-water-pump/ [inhabitots.com]
-dZ.
Re:He's a 15yo boy... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm 17 and I don't consider this a huge feat.
You know those blogs that do nothing but push glossy "concept" renders of future products? Those flexible curved solar powered laptops with a few multitouch screens thrown in for laughs? I am sure I am not alone in that I die a little inside when I see the comments praising them. All I am thinking is "How are you supposed to stick a curved laptop into a backpack?".
This is like that except on an even greater scale. You throw in a few buzz words, some hokey pokey vaporware and make a nice powerpoint presentation of something neither plausible nor useful.
My grade 6 science project involved keeping a single fish alive for a few months in a fish tank without any filtration or water changes by growing terrestrial plants in the same water. Sure, I forgot to use the word "bioreactor" and I didn't have any flowcharts but on the other hand I actually made something that worked.
You say he "Took a lot of interesting technologies and chained them together", but how is this remarkable in any way? There is no innovation here, just a giant mess of ideas, some practical, most not (Using children to power a pump as a long term solution? Really?).
Just another life lesson: Being practical gets you a plastic medal, spooning bullshit makes you rich. (But I'll be honest, I already knew that)
The only genius here is that he figured out you can get twenty thousand dollars for this drivel.
Parent
Re:He's a 15yo boy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, when was the last time you saw a slashdot discussion where everyone wasn't criticizing everyone else? It's kind of our default mode, unfortunately.
Parent
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Insightful)
Pure science informs experimental science informs design engineers informs process engineers informs manufacture.
It's a long chain to go from an abstract idea to a machine that whirrs. Yet it requires the competence, indeed, excellence of many people in many different professions.
This is the first step. We have to be patient.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
This isnt even close to a first step. I mean seriously he's 15.
All that he has done here is take a bunch of stuff that is known to work, but not economically, and tied it all together with a pretty diagram. Nothing new has happened here, a nerdy kid who almost certainly has parents who work in the field have produced something of no value.
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Funny)
All that he has done here is take a bunch of stuff that is known to work, but not economically, and tied it all together with a pretty diagram.
I do that too, just not with diagrams. I'm a programmer.
Parent
Re:Yawn... (Score:4, Insightful)
So you don't produce anything of value? I wouldn't be bragging about that.
I do, I just don't write a new operating system for every new project.
Parent
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Insightful)
All that he has done here is take a bunch of stuff that is known to work, but not economically, and tied it all together with a pretty diagram. Nothing new has happened here
I think you are being needlessly harsh here.
His key contribution was to think: "How many things can I chain together so that the waste from one thing feeds something else?" Thus, methane from the digester powers cooking stoves; carbon dioxide from the burned methane feeds algae. I've heard of methane digesters, I've heard of cooking stoves, and I've heard of algae; I haven't heard of an integrated system like this.
If you RTFA, he relates a story about how the gift of a fresh water system to a poor village had an unfortunate side effect: the extra water the village used caused their sewage system to be overloaded. Their "system" was to put their sewage in buckets and dump out the buckets; they ended up with raw sewage running in their streets. He consciously tried to design a system that has no negative effects. (And that's probably an inspiration for including the flush latrines in his design, latrines that feed the digester and/or the algae.)
Even if his design turns out to be flawed, the flaws might be fixable or at least the idea might inspire an experienced engineer to design something even better.
I didn't invent anything this clever when I was 15. How about you?
steveha
Parent
Re:Yawn... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think in a lot of ways it's brilliant. In others, it's way short, but then again, he's 15. He's more creative than half the $150/hr consultants we hire, that's for sure.
Seriously, though, we (the sewage district I work for) are looking at micro-treatment - treatment at the point of source for sewage. Lots of reasons but google for PECs (Pollutants of Emerging Concern) if you really want to know why. Eventually we see large scale municipal plants going away and micro-plants with instant recycling being the norm.
This kid is just about 20 years ahead of his time. I want stock in his company.
Parent
Re:Yawn... (Score:4, Insightful)
I want stock in his company.And that will probably be the reason why it will fail if there is a company that does that. The idea was about doing something without waste. The comapny will be there to make money.
Give the idea to the world and let EVERYBODY play with it. Universities in Africa, Asia and the rest can then work out a working model. Please let not one company take away this idea and then patent it into oblivion.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And I thought of hybrid vehicles when I was eight and wanted to power my gocart with 3/4 hp electric saw motor, powered by a lawnmower engine running as a generator. But the point is that while you and I were out playing, other people were doing something with their ideas.
Ideas are cheap. It's taking them to the next logical step (even if that's just a well-thought-out formal design) that differentiates the people who win $20,000 scholarships from those who go outside to play.
Re:Yawn... (Score:4, Insightful)
Pure science informs experimental science informs design engineers informs process engineers informs manufactures informs patent lawyers informs researchers with C&D forms
Fixed that for you.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Y'mean, s/ informs /, informs /g?
Re:The absolutely necessary obnoxious remark... (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, the people to whinge about are a) the legislators, and b) the patent offices themselves, who don't always do the best job of examining the patent applications as rigorously as they could. At least the situation is a bit better here in the EU than in the States, though, where as soon as a patent examiner gets any good he goes and qualifies as an attorney...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What are you talking about?
You can buy a Hyosung GT-250 Comet for ~$2,700.
They get around 112.9 mpg with standard gas.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Slashdotters pooh-poohing an enterprising kid.. (Score:3, Insightful)