18-year-old’s breakthrough invention can recharge phones in seconds

lol, The people who are mocking this girls invention are cracking me up. Its like if someone invented car tires and others mocked them with "not impressed, you didn't invent rubber".

She didn't invent the the technology, she just applied it in a new way. Ask yourself: if you were shpping for a new cell phone and there was one that advertised the ability to charge in 1 minute instead of 30 would you find that useful? Would it possibly influence you to purchase that phone instead of the ones that take an hour to charge and otherwise have all of the same features? Of course you would want the quick charging version!

If its not a new invention why don't you have it already?

Originally posted by Slugworth
lol, The people who are mocking this girls invention are cracking me up. Its like if someone invented car tires and others mocked them with "not impressed, you didn't invent rubber".

She didn't invent the the technology, she just applied it in a new way. Ask yourself: if you were shpping for a new cell phone and there was one that advertised the ability to charge in 1 minute instead of 30 would you find that useful? Would it possibly influence you to purchase that phone instead of the ones that take an hour to charge and otherwise have all of the same features? Of course you would want the quick charging version!

If its not a new invention why don't you have it already?

Because it is a good experiment for a student, but it is not practical for real world deployment.

Hers is an implementation of a known technology no one uses because there are already several better approaches, it is great that she was able to understand and implement this on her own, that's what's great, the technology itself, not so much, some are mocking, some are commenting on the true nature of this event, you are defending her, but do you understand what she did and the honest, true meaning and value of her work?

reply to post by Kaifan

but do you understand what she did and the honest, true meaning and value of her work?

I have not the slightest clue what hydrogenated TiO2-polyaniline nanorods are, so I cannot claim to know the meaning. As for the value, so far she has made around $50k on it from a company is most known for their consumer electronics that did $50B in revenue last year so I would say the value of her work is $50k and some good connections. If I were betting on the future value of those connections I would bet high.

If that capacitor was as cheap enough, it would change the world. Lead acid batteries don't take much to go bad and they do wear out, these capacitors even though they are half as energy dense as lead acid, they will last 10 times as long AND they charge alot faster. They are better for the environment too.

Originally posted by XL5
If that capacitor was as cheap enough, it would change the world. Lead acid batteries don't take much to go bad and they do wear out, these capacitors even though they are half as energy dense as lead acid, they will last 10 times as long AND they charge alot faster. They are better for the environment too.

If I read this right her invention will go for 10,000 cycles with a loss of 35% of charge.

To put it another way, a device needing 1 charge per day and a short charge at that would still be able to be charged in 27 years. As far as I am aware, we have no similar tech at the moment. If this panned out it could replace car batteries completely.

Would also be a boon for storage cells for solar installations.

P

Regardless of how the media portraid the story, it is a positive and encouraging news for younger generation. Perhaps they should have more TV shows on such activities which might motivate/drive many (not all) young students to focus their energy and knowledge in more positive aspects and respective fields of studies.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


I dont imagine the kids budget was anywhere near the science boys either.....
The system is scaled for cell phone type batts....it works
Nobody else scientist or civilian thought this up, but she did BRAVO.....
The nasayers should do as well as this kid...then they could bitch...

I am curious about what her parents do. Every time I see a supposed "prodigy" they had parents in the same Field so is it as surprising they are teaching their children? Mozart's Father after all was a Teacher, composer, pianist and violinist. Don't get me wrong this Girl is brilliant but I will be will to bet one of her parents is an engineer...

Is this giving a full charge to a Li-Ion battery in 20-30 secs? Wouldn't want to use that for my phone then. Unless of course this ever makes it to market.

reply to post by alfa1


So, where are all the other inventors who actually did it and made one?

You say this is nothing special, but it looks to me like you want to give credit for this to people who once thought about it, rather than the kid who actually invented a working version and applied it to a specific use

Way to go in ignoring credit where it's due.

reply to post by alfa1


I just think your jealous because an 18 year old is smarter than you. Obviously she created something you or any of us have made. But I guess its ok that you can put her down for her accomplishments.

I hope the rules of the science fair allowed the student to retain intellectual property rights.

I'd hate to see this young lady only win $75,000 and not the millions that her patent would be worth.

Originally posted by ChaoticOrder
Interesting stuff... can someone please inform me how this differs from the super supercap:

It almost seems like she's invented the same thing as these guys at almost the same time, although it looks like her result isn't quite as impressive as the professional scientists who designed the super supercap.

surely she must have stolen the idea from this guy come one she is 18 years old and more advanced then 95% of the people who write in these threads

Supercapacitors do have a real world uses even today. They are already in some flashlights, and used for stereos in cars given the high discharge rate. She didn't invent the capacitor, but she improved it, which is great. Supercapacitors have the potential to replace crappy ancient technology batteries, like the lead-acid battery in your car, which after a few years is trash. They can be be discharged to zero and left in dormant state unlike regular batteries which can't do that or it will die. The real goal would be to get enough density to propel a car a couple hundred miles, and then put the gas companies out of business.

Kudos, to this young lady. I wonder what invention took 1st place?

Originally posted by alfa1

This isnt the "genius kid saves the world" story that the media beatup would like it to be.

Someone needs a hug...

It is indeed an invention; for some that do not know... there is more than one type of invention. There are utility patent inventions and design patent inventions etc.. I think she got rooked for 50,000 bucks; so she's not quite as smart as the invention article portends her to be... of course 50k sounds like a lot to someone her age; and that's exactly what that company was hoping on when low balling her.

So the invention in my mind equals smart; but jumping at a crappy deal, that won't even pay for 4 years of college equals dumb. So that makes her pretty average in my book.

Super caps are a common modification to do a battery delete on motorcycles, it gets charged by the stator like a regular battery and the reg/rectifier balances and dissipates the excess. You could make some pretty large caps to power an electric vehicle; but even a small one can electrocute you, if you do not ground it out to discharge it, and when they fail they boil over their toxic contents out and when over charged they explode pretty violently. So they aren't exactly the perfect solution in battery replacement... they go when they go, some can last 5 seconds some 5000 hours even if rated 2000 hours. The tech just does not lend a reliable or predictable outcome; for a battery replacement.

There are only two reasons for the super cap use in motorcycle modification, it's a tad lighter and much smaller than a conventional battery with the same output making it easily hidden.

So there is more work that needs to be done on this girls invention, a charge limiter or something to dissipate the extra charge so it doesn't explode and making the battery bay non serviceable so people don't go shocking/electrocuting themselves. So the real marketability... valuable to a company is most likely in the service department for repairing/selling battery units, and the charge your cell in 30ish seconds convenience the selling point.

I know couple of scientists who are on the same boat. They are used and exploited for their talents and are definitely without a doubt underpaid. The scientists themselves are so indulged and engulfed in their fields of studies that they seldom forget or never pay attention to the monetary aspect of their profession. They do have a big exposure to other intellectual communities and/or properties along with travel perks for seminars and speeches.

Originally posted by Slugworth
reply to post by Kaifan

 

but do you understand what she did and the honest, true meaning and value of her work?

I have not the slightest clue what hydrogenated TiO2-polyaniline nanorods are, so I cannot claim to know the meaning. As for the value, so far she has made around $50k on it from a company is most known for their consumer electronics that did $50B in revenue last year so I would say the value of her work is $50k and some good connections. If I were betting on the future value of those connections I would bet high.

We may be pushing this too far, i don't want to diminish her work in any way, i'm just saying, the idea is not new and it is not that good, there may be uses for it, but it is just not that useful as some may want it to look, if this was a world changer idea, it would not be worth 50k, you can get that on kickstarter and even more for simpler things, if this was a sudden discovery that could potentially change batteries and technology as we know them, this alone would be worth 1+ billion, probably 10 billion.

Again what i'm saying is, she has an implementation of a known idea, that's not bad, but it is not an invention, it is an implementation of an existing, previous idea, we have had the hover car since the 70's, it is an implementation of a known idea, a flying car, but where is it now? it surely exists, but it was never able to reach a level where it can be made a comercial product, in the end the technology found a niche in military applications, but nowhere near what the original idea was meant to achieve, same case here, it could probably find its way into some specific cases, but it won't be a world changer, if it was, people would be offering billions by now.

reply to post by Kaifan

if this was a world changer idea, it would not be worth 50k....people would be offering billions by now

It does not say anywhere in any article that I could find that she sold the idea for 50k, that the entrants surrender their IP rights, or that Intel or anyone else takes control of the IP rights to any of the entries. She received 50k in scholarship money as a prize. It is not a reflection of the value of the invention.