Segway Inventor Turns To Environment

MBCook writes "CNN has an article in which they talk about Dean Kamen's latest inventions designed to provide water to rural villages. His goal is also to provide electricity and opportunities for entrepreneurship. From the article: 'Eighty percent of all the diseases you could name would be wiped out if you just gave people clean water,' says Kamen. 'The water purifier makes 1,000 liters of clean water a day, and we don't care what goes into it. And the power generator makes a kilowatt off of anything that burns.'"

Second time better?

[kawika]

Years ago, relief organizations drilled wells in India and Pakistan to provide clean disease-free water to the poor populations. Indeed, it did reduce the levels of illness and was hailed as a public health victory. Unfortunately, it turned out that this underground water had high levels of arsenic [asemindia.com] that poisoned the people over time. Now they are seeing high levels of skin, lung, liver, kidney and bladder cancer. So let's hope things go better this time.

Maybe Segway 3.0...

[green pizza]

If he just leaned that way, wouldn't his platform make the turn for him?

Forward/Stop/Reverse is controlled by leaning, but steering is controlled by turning the control on the left side of the handlebars. Maybe future Segways will feature lean-stearing.

don't blame him, and he has done much more

[johnpaul191]

his company was not responsible for all the hype building up to Segway's release. they have made a ton of incredibly useful inventions and i would think anyone with any interest in technology or engineering would know about his work long before the Segway. inventing a portable insulin pump seems like a pretty valid invention, right? a wheelchair that can climb stairs?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Kamen/ [wikipedia.org]
or
http://www.dekaresearch.com/ [dekaresearch.com]

Make fun of him all you want for the Segway

[mdarksbane]

But these sorts of projects are what the guy actually cares about.

After he made his initial fortune (in medical devices) he started up an organization called FIRST, designed to get more smart kids interested in engineering, and to help our culture value problem solving more than drama. Since then the organization has grown to include thousands of teams, tens of thousands of high schoolers in countries all around the world.

I've been working with one of those teams for three years, and every year Kamen stands up and gives a speech, not about how much fun we're going to have building robots, but about his vision for what we can do to solve these sort of engineering problems, to bring clean water to those who need it, etc. He's done a lot of good work, aside from his kind of whacky human transport device, and for all that his speeches are about as depressing and boring as you can get, it's very clear that this is where his heart is. He's put a ton of money and effort into getting people into engineering so that some day if he can't solve these sorts of problem someone will.

And for as bored as I am every time I have to sit through him talking about it, I can admire that. This is about things a lot more important than a goofy looking scooter.

Re:Cow dung?

[timeOday]

I worry a little about pollution issues, as you likely get a lot of particulates in the air.

Compared to the status quo, which is burning the chips in open fires, almost anything should be an improvement.

Re:don't blame him, and he has done much more

[deacon]

his company was not responsible for all the hype building up to Segway's release.

Bullshit.

The entire buildup was nothing but hype, from the preannouncment which had no information but "This will change the world!!" to all the idiotic TV "news" shows which had dorks riding Smegs up and down ramps and going in circles.

All this for a device which appeals to the narcisistic assholes who mow down small children on sidewalks.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/11/26/toddler_wo unded_in_segway_hitandrun/ [theregister.co.uk]

and then Smeg away.

Re:Cow dung?

[maxume]

'Economies of scale' is idiomatic (american?)english for the efficiency gains that come with increasing size.

You're being too literal

[Quiet_Desperation]

He was probably thinking of the bacterial stuff: cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery, etc. And then there's the parasites. "Disease" can be a vague term.

Water-borne diseases are a HUGE problem in the third world. Seriously, they have *fatal* diarrhea, and I'm not saying that to be funny.

Re:I was thinking about this the other day

[tinkerghost]

Nice idea but boiling water (100C/212F) won't kill most bacteria in 5 minutes.
Steralizing is usually done via steam at 2atm( 250-275F IIRC) for 15 minutes. Plus it doesn't remove contaminants. Mud + heat = dryer mud.
Most of the water purification systems use either an evaporation/condensation cycle or reverse osmosis through a semi-permiable membrane.
Of the 2, evap/cond is both more reliable and more scaleable. As a bonus, you can literally do it with 2 coconuts and a banana leaf.

Re:don't blame him, and he has done much more

[hackstraw]

By far, these [gizmag.com] are the coolest Segways to date.

The one on the right is basically a wheelchair. I saw a thing on TV about it, and the thing can scoot around on 4 wheels, or go upright like a regular Segway on two wheels (like in the picture). The cool thing about it, is that the person in the "chair" can be at eye level with "normal" people.

The other thing is an offroad version. Both are pretty cool. The regular Segways have no real use in my opinion.

Re:i remember

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because the Segway wasn't commercially successful, that doesn't mean it wasn't a good invention. Dean's problem was trying to replace cars with Segways. The Segway is designed to replace walking, though, not driving, according to its speed and the fact that it offers no protection from harsh weather or poor road conditions. The idea of marketing the Segway to the Postal Service was a good one, though it had that one design flaw (the Segway toppling over when the battery runs out) which could be fixed pretty easily, if Dean wants to re-release the product. Anyway, the Segway appears to be successful in Japan, where they replaced everything above the platform and it's remote controlled: http://wiredblogs.tripod.com/gadgets/index.blog?en try_id=1298966 [tripod.com]

Re:Rumors

[DavidTC]

Anyone making fun of his Segway does need to realize that, and yeah, his wheelchair was fucking brilliant. If you haven't seen it, it's a upright wheel-'chair'.

People in it are the same height as people who can walk (Thus, he says, elimating a lot of prejudice.) and can go over bumps and up and down stairs. It doesn't take up any more horizontal space than a fat person.

Think of it as a segway made into a wheeled mech suit for the lower half of your body. And I read somewhere that he planned to slim it down once it caught on, so it would be basically leg braces with wheels at the end. People might come up to you, and you wouldn't even notice their legs aren't moving.

And this isn't some pipe dream, these things actually work, balancing the same way as the segway, with two wheels on each side, so they can flip forward and move you up or down stairs. They're just too expensive right now. He was hoping to use the same parts as the segway to cut the cost down,but that didn't work out, obviously.

basic water filtering info here

[drwho]

It's been fifteen years since I was in the water treatment business, but I doubt any of the fundamentals have changed.

Here's how it works: You mix a chemical called a 'flocculant' in with the water, which has been roughly filtered and perhaps let sit for a while to let any silt settle. This water is then mixed with air under high pressure, and pumped into tanks, entering halfway between the bottom and top of the tank with as little turbulence as possible. Because of the decrease in pressure, air bubbled form, and the flocculants cause small particles (bacteria, shit, uranium) to stick to them. The bubbles then gradually float to the surface, where the 'suds' or 'scum' is skimmed off, again with a minimal amount of turbulence. After enough of this happens, the water is then called clean and sucked out and wasted on fertilizing laws.

Generally, this is done on a continuous basis, and the equipment is a big, round vat. The ones I knew were from 5 to 23 meters in diameter. There's some real issues that make this process a bit more tricky than the description above would make it seem:

1) raw water is not produced, nor clean water consumed, at uniform rates. However, the filtering equipment works correctly at a very small flow/pressure. Holding tanks on either side are neccessary.

2) Flocculant is a consumable, and it takes a certain amount to clean a given volume of water to a certain improvement. Costs money.

3) water is not uniformly dirty.

4) generally, the larger units can let water stay and bubbles float (and grit sink to the bottom) longer, so less flocculant is needed. But these take up more space...LOTS more.

5) How clean does water really need to be? If there's some nasty outbreak (Cholera, Giardia) maybe it needs to be much cleaner. Maybe not so much at other times. Who makes that decision? My thoughts are that tap water should only be cleaned to a certain percent, which can be used for lawns / car-washes / firefighting / pools, cleaned a bit further for household uses (laundry, bathing) by an in-home filter, and cleaned further for drinking by a tap-based carbon filter (Brita, etc). But this is a lot of equipment. Real serious policy issues here. I doubt that such a poor and corrupt country as Bangladesh can handle these problems correctly. But hey, I guess eomthing is worth a try.

Re:Rumors

[Dining Philanderer]

I think the knock against the Segway was that people are already so fat and lazy that they NEED to walk around more. When I was in Chicago police where using the Segway to cover much more ground than could be covered by foot, especially in the parks.

No, what you didn't know was...

[Anonymous Coward]

... that the inventor hoped the segue would catch on because if it did, his stair climbing wheelchair would have become a lot cheaper to make, due to using many of the same parts.

On another note... the segue's relatively small foot print giving it's rather impressive performance(if you actually ride one, it's impressive, if you just read some numbers they don't sound like much), would not be possible using only a 3rd wheel for balance. 3 wheels present their own stability issues, especially in a top heavy machine.

Re:The Purpose?

[cmpalmer]

You know, everything American isn't bad. When 100% of your time is taken up by trying to produce enough food and shelter to keep you alive, it doesn't leave a hell of lot of time for inventing, creating, and enjoying life. Are you sitting in a shack with no electricity exhausted from a day of backbreaking work on a sustenance farm drinking brown water and hoping you'll live long enough to see your kids grow up?

Re:Rumors

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether Edison stole from Tesla or not, Edison was clearly not in Tesla's league as evidenced by the following inventions by Tesla.
* The polyphase induction motor
* The hydroelectric generator
* Radio
* X-Rays
* Vacuum tubes
* Fluorescent lights
* Microwaves
* Radar
* AC power (both 2-phase and 3-phase)
* Broadcast power
* The rotary engine
* The Tesla Coil

Re:Rumors

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Honda's 'Metropolitan' scooter is less than $2000 (1/2 the price of the Segway), at least twice as fast (depending on weight, possibly even more), and has much greater range.

Vespa is a premium brand and is priced accordingly - somewhat ironic considering it's heritige.

Re:Rumors

[Kadin2048]

Actually $20k is not outrageously priced for an electric wheelchair. (The proper term these days is "power mobility system".)

Some of the more advanced designs -- regular chair type ones -- that have features like raising and lowering of the seat (so the user can use tables and vanities of different heights) are nearly that expensive. I knew someone who used one like that about 6 years ago, and I think they said it was about $12k. So certainly less than $20k, but not out of reach for a reasonably well-off person who suddenly became disabled.

That's assuming that you could get your insurance company to pony up the cost in cash of the next least-expensive power chair, which they may not be particularly willing to do. Although they may cover stair-climbing systems now, I'm not sure.

micro-capitalism

[peter303]

Reaching out to poor rural villages where 2/3rds of humanity lives is an admirable goal.

I've been reading that micro-loans, (micro-banks, micro- capitalism) is having a revolutionary effect in some of these villages too. The concept is to lend a small amount of money e.g. $50 to $200 to someone who would could not save that much money beforehand or a bank would find too much trouble to deal with. With that small amount of money the borrower buys some device like a peddle sewing machine, an irrigation pump, a kiln, etc. and improves their business. Early results are the entreupeneurs improve their incomes by an order magnitude. And the loan default rate is no worse than for a middle-class urban borrower. These micro-loans are really growing the rural economies where they are availble.

Sludge...???...Profit!!!

[LunaticTippy]

Crap-sludge is worth money as fertilizer, plus if dried completely you can burn it.

OT...I dump turtleshit-laden pondwater on part of my yard, and the plants there have exploded with lush growth. My friends joke that I should bottle and sell it.

I'm gonna need more turtles.

Re:Learn the subject matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, as a power wheelchair user and judging from reviews I read, the biggest feature of the chair is the ability to stand on two wheels, high above the ground. The gyroscopes are also used for this.

This makes for some descent eye to eye communication with all the "standing" people. (yeah! YOU!) Speaking to someone while they are 3 feet above you is just not practical, you constantly have to "shout" and stare upward - very frustrating and tiring.

You can also use this feature to reach things, say a cup in a cupboard in the kitchen. Or an item on a shelf in the supermarket. I've seen people break down and cry as they use that feature, they realize how easier/pleasant it is to be able to stand up.

More and more public transport and buildings are wheelchair friendly, thus you won't have to use the "stair climbing feature" very often. And when you do use it, you need someone around in case of any problems or assist you.

I definitely want to have this wheelchair one day, it is about 30K USD at the moment. I don't quite like their design decisions when it comes to ergonomy, normal power wheelchair manufacturers are far ahead when it comes to that.

The second edition of the chair is out already, I'll give them a few years, eventually they should come out with a cheaper/more ergonomic model.

Back to the topic of cheap Sterling engines- info

[Savantissimo]

From the CNN article: "Kamen's goal is to produce machines that cost $1,000 to $2,000 each. That's a far cry from the $100,000 that each hand-machined prototype cost to build."

This has always been the trouble with Stirling engines. They seem simple until you actually try to make one that outputs a usable amount of power at some reasonable efficiency that doesn't cost a fortune. Many people have tried over the centuries, but so far it's always been a matter of picking which two of the three goals you want to fulfill. Dean Kamen has a nontrivial challenge ahead in trying for the Sterling hat-trick.

Don Lancaster's Blatant Opportunist #32 [tinaja.com]

One way to avoid bad engineering is to stay away from energy sinks into which bunches of time and money have previously been dumped with no visible effect. I like to call these engineering ratholes. Let's look at a few of the more popular examples coming over my voice helpline...

Stirling engines- Every few years somebody rediscovers the Stirling engine. They build a few prototypes which just barely fail to work, and then just barely go bankrupt. The promise here sure is enticing. A low delta-T engine which accepts anything from oily rags to sunlight. But there's two fundamental gotchas here. First, any engine designed for a low DT temperature differential is inherently inefficient. Carnot and all. More crucially, there is a key component to a Stirling engine that nobody - but nobody - has figured out how to build yet. It is called a regenerator. Any regenerator has to be long and thin and short and fat. Not to mention being an excellent insulator and a superb conductor.

[Also see Hardware Hacker May, 1993 http://www.tinaja.com/glib/hack64.pdf [tinaja.com] for everything you ever forgot about heat engines and thermodynamics.]

Wikipedia - Problems with Stirling Engines: [wikipedia.org]

Stirling engines require both input and output heat exchangers which must contain the pressure of the working fluid, and which must resist any corrosive effects due to the heat source. These increase the cost of the engine especially when they are designed to the high level of "effectiveness" (heat exchanger efficiency) needed for optimizing fuel economy.
Stirling engines, especially the type that run on small temperature differentials, are quite large for the amount of power that they produce, due to the heat exchangers. ...
Power output of a Stirling is constant and hard to change rapidly from one level to another. Typically, changes in output are achieved by varying the displacement of the engine (often through use of a swashplate crankshaft arrangement) or by changing the mass of entrained working fluid (generally helium or hydrogen). This property is less of a drawback in hybrid electric propulsion or base load utility generation.
Hydrogen's lowest molecular weight makes it the best working gas to use in a Stirling engine, but as a tiny molecule, it is very hard to keep it inside the engine and auxiliary systems need to be typically added to maintain the proper quantity of working fluid. These systems can be as simple as a gas storage bottle or more complicated such as a gas generator. In any event, they add weight, increase cost, and introduce some undesirable complications.

U.S. Patents: [uspto.gov]

6,862,883 Kamen, et al. Regenerator for a Stirling engine

A regenerator for a thermal cycle engine and methods for its manufacture. The regenerator has a random network of fibers formed to fill a specified volume and a material for cross-linking the fibers at points of close contact between fibers of the network. A method for manufacturing a regenerator has steps of providing a length