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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

#141

Post by goldenchrome »

idiotsecant wrote: post #134
causi wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly you could filter out every HN submission with the phrase "-year old" and miss absolutely nothing of value.

Yeah, stupid kids learning about things with real world projects. They aren't state of the art at all!

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.

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

#142

Post by moffkalast »

mortenjorck wrote: post #112
jwitchel wrote: post #26

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…

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.

> 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.

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

#143

Post by helge9210 »

todd8 wrote: post #113
radicalbyte wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

> 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.

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

#144

Post by mhh__ »

melony wrote: post #71
mhh__ wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

RF is a very, very, expensive hobby. What was the idea you had for the field?

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

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

#145

Post by skapadia »

Comevius wrote: post #115
causi wrote: post #61

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 ele…

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.

I missed the part that said his family is wealthy. Can you point me to that?

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

#146

Post by skapadia »

jedberg wrote: post #122

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.

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.

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

#147

Post by MattGrommes »

vxNsr wrote: post #18
ssizn wrote: post #3

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

A lot of this stuff dies on the industrial engineer’s desk where it can’t be made viable at scale.

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.

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

#148

Post by Ekaros »

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 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.

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

#149

Post by theincredulousk »

b3nji wrote: post #12
londons_explore wrote: post #2

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

> 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."

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?

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