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A 17-year-old designed a novel synchronous reluctance motor

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: A 17-year-old designed a novel synchronous reluctance motor

#61

Post by causi »

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.

Re: A 17-year-old designed a novel synchronous reluctance motor

#62

Post by ekianjo »

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #45
melony wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In what all that resentment towards him is helping you or anyone?

> 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.

Re: A 17-year-old designed a novel synchronous reluctance motor

#63

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #45
melony wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In what all that resentment towards him is helping you or anyone?

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.

Re: A 17-year-old designed a novel synchronous reluctance motor

#64

Post by zackmorris »

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.

Re: A 17-year-old designed a novel synchronous reluctance motor

#65

Post by slingnow »

jwitchel wrote: post #59
throw_m239339 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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.

Re: A 17-year-old designed a novel synchronous reluctance motor

#67

Post by EvanAnderson »

c22 wrote: post #10
callumprentice wrote: post #6

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.

Really? In my observations only 17 year olds have the time and patience to do crap like this.

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.

Re: A 17-year-old designed a novel synchronous reluctance motor

#68

Post by ekianjo »

ssizn wrote: post #3

It’s always the same, “ creates revolutionary thing”. And then nothing comes out of it.

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.

Re: A 17-year-old designed a novel synchronous reluctance motor

#69

Post by bastardoperator »

callumprentice wrote: post #6

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.

In my experience young minds are far more likely to keep at it where most adults take issue with repetitive processes.

Re: A 17-year-old designed a novel synchronous reluctance motor

#70

Post by RHSeeger »

tiahura wrote: post #56
throw_m239339 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Being a curmudgeon isn't a virtue.

Given the sheer number of headlines like " will change the face of " that really boil down to " is interesting to think about, but won't really have any impact on "... 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.

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