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Looking at this makes me want to find a way to crowdsource basic research problems like this to try and take advantage of the ingenuity of people who would othe

Looking at this makes me want to find a way to crowdsource basic research problems like this to try and take advantage of the ingenuity of people who would otherwise never even know that this kind of problem existed. There are probably a lot of problems like this that involve making something incredibly cheap to be used in the developing world. I think people would do that for free if they could know the bare minimum big picture of how their contribution would be used (ie, malaria treatment, even if you have no idea how your gadget could fit in). It could be something like "Need a device that can reach X rpms and can only be made of Y and Z and must cost less than N" and then just see what people can come up with. I'm not sure how it would work on more complex problems but for clever solutions that rely on limited resources and simplicity I would love to see what people could come up with.

tdaltonc 10y ago
I think that if you could get the problem statement as concise as "Need a device that can reach X rpms and can only be made of Y and Z and must cost less than N" then the battle is won. Another example of this kind of innovation that comes to mind is using freezing wax as a heat source to keep neonatal babies warm. http://extreme.stanford.edu/projects/embrace http://extreme.stanford.edu/projects/embrace The problem statement for that would be something like, "neonates need to be kept at a stable temp." For this one it might be, "We need some way to separate blood solids from liquids." But maybe even that is too close to a "solution stated as a problem after the fact." I think that challenges like this are commonly used as exercises for undergrad design students. But I love the idea of expanding it. A version of the x-prizes that require basically no capital, just imagination.
- okreallywtf 10y ago
  I agree that identifying the 'leaf' problems is the majority of the work but it would be nice to see if you could improve the quality of some of the solutions to these problems by opening them up to the entire world. It would be interesting to see if people in the 3rd world (who are used to making do with less and clever use of materials) could even improve on some lab solutions.

tdaltonc 10y ago

I think that if you could get the problem statement as concise as "Need a device that can reach X rpms and can only be made of Y and Z and must cost less than N" then the battle is won. Another example of this kind of innovation that comes to mind is using freezing wax as a heat source to keep neonatal babies warm. http://extreme.stanford.edu/projects/embrace http://extreme.stanford.edu/projects/embrace The problem statement for that would be something like, "neonates need to be kept at a stable temp." For this one it might be, "We need some way to separate blood solids from liquids." But maybe even that is too close to a "solution stated as a problem after the fact." I think that challenges like this are commonly used as exercises for undergrad design students. But I love the idea of expanding it. A version of the x-prizes that require basically no capital, just imagination.

okreallywtf 10y ago
I agree that identifying the 'leaf' problems is the majority of the work but it would be nice to see if you could improve the quality of some of the solutions to these problems by opening them up to the entire world. It would be interesting to see if people in the 3rd world (who are used to making do with less and clever use of materials) could even improve on some lab solutions.