October 2014 Challenge - Call For Problem Statements From Engineers In Every Discipline

@abrakadabra • Oct 27, 2024

Oct 27, 2024

1.2K

The society has witnessed over the centuries that engineering solutions to real world problems are often the best for building a better world. There are problems with every sector of the society. There are challenges around us that need a smart, sustainable solutions. And who better to solve these problems but engineers from different disciplines coming up with ideas and inputs to have blueprints (yep, that's the buzzword) for practical, constructive solutions. If truth be spoken, I'd have to say -
the power of a bunch of interdisciplinary engineers, working with a common goal to fix something, is beyond measure and can lead to remarkable feats.

Thanks to #-Link-Snipped-#'s input & energy, we are initiating the activity to come up with problem statements to which all CEans will come up with design solutions.

If you think there's a problem that can be fixed, share a problem statement with us in replies below.

Here's a sample format :

Title: <Problem Statement in single sentence>
Description: <Be as descriptive as you can be. We would love to know the origins of your ideas, the what/when/why/where etc.>
Images/Videos: <You can draw or doodle for better explanation, attach images & link videos that show existing solutions if you think it can help>
Impact: <How, where, to whom can the solution impact, the scale, the effects etc.>

Everything on this open forum is subject to positive change with constructive input from CEans. (If you think we can make this challenge better, do share so in a separate thread or get in touch with us via personal conversation. Only problem statements in this discussion. All other comments will be moved to other location.)

The Reward
Your efforts will get the recognition it so rightfully deserves. I'll make sure of that. 😀

The Deadline
Whenever we think we are ready to pick up the Best 3 Problem Statements, I'll close this thread and then all CEans can work together on coming up with a solution.

All the discussions related to the solutions to our problem statements will be on CrazyEngineers community only for everyone to read & participate in.

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Shashank Moghe

@shashank-94ap1q • Oct 2, 2014

Wonderful! I have a good problem statement in mind. But it must be discussed with the originator of the idea @[Prototype] (why can't he be tagged?). I think we should come up with a problem statement for everybody's scrutiny soon! Awesome initiative! CEans, jump right in!
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Ramani Aswath

@ramani-VR4O43 • Oct 2, 2014

Here is to start the ball rolling.

Low Cost Portable Neonate Incubator
Most of the incubators currently in use are too sophisticated, power intensive and require specialized maintenance. These are unsuited for small town or rural thirld world (I dislike that appellation) setting where many neonates die for want of incubators. They are way too expensive using stainless steel and complicated electronic controls. Nor are they easily transported.

It must be possible to make these using modern, low cost, light weight plastics (Such as reinforced polypropylene, an accepted material for medical applications), low wattage, safe voltage heaters, maintenance free simple controls for temperature/humidity running on long life Li-ion Ferro Phosphate batteries that can be powered by solar power.

This will have a major impact on neonatal care in rural/small town public health facilities in the third world. Certainly in India. It can also find use in all cash strapped government health facilities. Some small enterprises can even run a business renting these for urban home use reducing hospital stay for neonates.

Disclaimer: This is not my idea. Demand for such a device has been voiced by many not for profit organizations like CAMTech.
#-Link-Snipped-#
This is a multidisciplinary activity aimed at helping the neonates in a needy population. I just thought I could put it here for consideration.

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Ankita Katdare

@abrakadabra • Oct 6, 2014

Waiting for more input here -

Tagging all online members
#-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#

read the first post in this discussion and contribute your ideas.

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Shashank Moghe

@shashank-94ap1q • Oct 6, 2014

Ankita Katdare
Waiting for more input here -

Tagging all online members
#-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#, #-Link-Snipped-#

read the first post in this discussion and contribute your ideas.

Working on it. Should be up with it soon.

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Rupam Das

@rupam-das-wW5CvN • Oct 6, 2014

A.V.Ramani
Here is to start the ball rolling.

Low Cost Portable Neonate Incubator
Most of the incubators currently in use are too sophisticated, power intensive and require specialized maintenance. These are unsuited for small town or rural thirld world (I dislike that appellation) setting where many neonates die for want of incubators. They are way too expensive using stainless steel and complicated electronic controls. Nor are they easily transported.

It must be possible to make these using modern, low cost, light weight plastics (Such as reinforced polypropylene, an accepted material for medical applications), low wattage, safe voltage heaters, maintenance free simple controls for temperature/humidity running on long life Li-ion Ferro Phosphate batteries that can be powered by solar power.

This will have a major impact on neonatal care in rural/small town public health facilities in the third world. Certainly in India. It can also find use in all cash strapped government health facilities. Some small enterprises can even run a business renting these for urban home use reducing hospital stay for neonates.

Disclaimer: This is not my idea. Demand for such a device has been voiced by many not for profit organizations like CAMTech.
#-Link-Snipped-#
This is a multidisciplinary activity aimed at helping the neonates in a needy population. I just thought I could put it here for consideration.
I am working on an Incubator design for some times now, extremely low cost materials. Though nothing of production level as of yet, but going nicely though.

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Ramani Aswath

@ramani-VR4O43 • Oct 6, 2014

Rupam Das
I am working on an Incubator design for some times now, extremely low cost materials. Though nothing of production level as of yet, but going nicely though.
Good going #-Link-Snipped-#. Hope it comes through well.

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Shashank Moghe

@shashank-94ap1q • Oct 8, 2014

Since @[Prototype] is very busy, I shall contribute the problem statement that has roots in his original post somewhere else on the forum.

Title: Total in-house development of a fully functional and controllable Autonomous Quad-copter like UAV for vigilance and Emergency situation information gathering purposes.

Description: The idea is to develop a cheap-reliable UAV equipped with cameras and receivers/transmitters, which can act as a device for gathering information in places where the Police/Fire Services/Ambulances (and other "necessary" services alike) cannot be present 24*7. Let us assume a fire situation where the Fire Brigade response time is x, we must need to gather vital information to save lives and property before a person can set foot on the area under fire (literally). Or take the case of a massive earthquake/flood which more often than not disrupts the traditional communication barriers (roads, phones, etc.) and thus makes it impossible to gather information of the troubled zone. The point is to have a vigilante present which can replace humans for safer and faster intelligence. Imagine Police being able to manage Ganpati/Durga Puja crowds better, night patrolling made easier and comprehensive, etc.

The UAV shall require support from all disciplines of engineering from Electronics to Communications to Chemical to Aeronautical. It will be built with an autonomous decision making AI capable of idling around gathering first signs of trouble.

Images/Videos:

Did not watch this complete video, just a representative, as we don't want to be restricted to a particular design. But that's the idea for a start.

Impact: Police, Emergency Services and the general public will be helped.

Note: This is not a unique idea, but a necessary one. CEans are welcome to provide constructive criticism.
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Ramani Aswath

@ramani-VR4O43 • Oct 8, 2014

Netra from DRDO and IdeaForge, a private enterprise of Bombay IITians might have all these capabilities.

<a href="https://walterfarah.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/quadcopter-netra/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Quadcopter. Netra – Robotics</a>

#-Link-Snipped-#

#-Link-Snipped-#

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRDO_Netra" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Drdo Netra</a>

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Ramani Aswath

@ramani-VR4O43 • Oct 8, 2014

A.V.Ramani
Good going #-Link-Snipped-#. Hope it comes through well.
For those CEans looking at contributing to pediatric devices development here is a link:
#-Link-Snipped-#

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Shashank Moghe

@shashank-94ap1q • Oct 9, 2014

A.V.Ramani
Netra from DRDO and IdeaForge, a private enterprise of Bombay IITians might have all these capabilities.

<a href="https://walterfarah.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/quadcopter-netra/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Quadcopter. Netra – Robotics</a>

#-Link-Snipped-#

#-Link-Snipped-#

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRDO_Netra" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Drdo Netra</a>
One idea down 😁 Will look for something else 😀

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Ramani Aswath

@ramani-VR4O43 • Oct 9, 2014

Shashank Moghe
One idea down 😁 Will look for something else 😀
Not necessarily. One can always make a better mouse trap. May be a cluster of quads working in concert?
#-Link-Snipped-#

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Ramani Aswath

@ramani-VR4O43 • Oct 17, 2014

Shashank Moghe
One idea down 😁 Will look for something else 😀
An update:
Quote:
SBG Systems recently came up with a brilliant device that could change many things in the world of Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs). Cost-effective and weighting only 500 g, it provides survey-grade roll, pitch, heading, and position at 200Hz. Mounted on a UAV, it can be used for LiDAR and Hyperspectral data georeferencing and orthorectification. These words may be unfamiliar to you so much so here is a quick explanation of what the Ekinox-N can do.
Endquote
<a href="https://www.crazyengineers.com/threads/ekinox-n-ins-gps-by-sbg-systems-for-uavs.77015">EKINOX-N INS/GPS BY SBG SYSTEMS for UAVs</a>

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Don Ross

@don-ross-A3oedi • Jan 15, 2015

India must be more sophisticated than I thought. Sorry.,,,,,, if your concentration is on UAV's and not the welfare of your citizens then I'm not sure about things anymore. Your just the same as the USA.
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Rupam Das

@rupam-das-wW5CvN • Jan 15, 2015

#-Link-Snipped-# With all due respect, you are not analyzing a rice bawl where you take out a rice and you know what's there in the entire bawl. You have no idea of the kind of work our students are taking up. As a developing nation, we live in immense cost challenged environment. So innovation is not part of our academic requirement, but rather a survival necessity.

Take some time. Come over here. I would take you through an Innovation tourism. I bet you will write a series of book on Indian innovations.

To give you an idea of how we innovate daily, just to get on with our lives:

And I am not sharing any of student works here.

In short, the cost constraint would never discourage our brilliant boys and girls from aiming interstellar. They would dream big, try big, find ways to get it cheaper. Aspiration drives society. A a billion people, no one should expect every one to study how to grow more tomato. But if growing more tomato is the problem, we have cheaper scientific problem for that.

Just compare the fund input to MIT and IIT and then see the ratio of the engineers from either institute driving Silicon valley top force. You would understand it.

A Gravitation need not to be proved by throwing an Apple towards sky. We would rather invest our energy making cheap planes, selling them and buying loads of apple from it to teach 10000 students about what is Gravity! That's how we do it and that's how we will keeping doing it.

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Don Ross

@don-ross-A3oedi • Jan 15, 2015

Judging by this web site I don't see that. I hear you but don't see the needs of your people being met by you bright minded people. We in America do not have people cleaning the waste of others off the streets. That is shameful and unacceptable. Where are the power plants. Where is the help to the poor. I know more about your country than you think and see an elitest being above the many and this web site proves it. All you do is want to be equal to America in technology. Not welfare.
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Rupam Das

@rupam-das-wW5CvN • Jan 15, 2015

#-Link-Snipped-# ROFLMAO...............................................................................................................................

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Don Ross

@don-ross-A3oedi • Jan 15, 2015

I do not know what that means?
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Don Ross

@don-ross-A3oedi • Jan 16, 2015

When I was younger the elders of the town met because there was a house in town without water and sewage. A real house but off the grid so to speak. Well the laws say that it was to be condemned and no one could live there. This is true. That's' the law of the land. Oh yes a composite toilet could of been used , even an out house if it passed health codes. But the person was not able to do it. So instead of condemning it the towns elders went out, banded together and hand dug the septic and water. Using the old septic tank, cleaned it out and got it going again. Now that's the old timers. The new generation is about condemning it and not caring. Shame, the town has changed.
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Don Ross

@don-ross-A3oedi • Jan 16, 2015

You need a civil corp of volunteers, say 13 to 18 yr old's to start building these infrastructures. A little at a time. Common town bathrooms to start. Then street by street slowly you eat up the septic problem and get rid of it. I know this is more of a political movement but if the engineering is not somewhat in place they have nothing to base there standings on. Shovels are cheap. Plastic pipe cheap. labor free. It could be just out houses on the side of the road spaced out.I volunteered for 10 yrs. Training young people 13 to 18 yrs. old. So I know what I am talking about. I made men out of them in leading by example.
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Ramani Aswath

@ramani-VR4O43 • Jan 17, 2015

Don Ross
I know more about your country than you think and see an elitest being above the many and this web site proves it.
<a href="https://www.theuglyindian.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">The Ugly Indian</a>

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Don Ross

@don-ross-A3oedi • Jan 17, 2015

I understand Thanks for that. I am dealing with the same problem here, be it much smaller, but my immigrant customers tolerate this blight and I can not get them to see it. It is as that video pointed out, all about education and redefining use. Thanks for your openness about this pet peeve of mine.
I spent my day today with an Indian customer of mine and we spoke of his trip back to India and the changes he noted. I spent the evening with my Cambodian customer and went to dinner then back to a Cambodian night club. I get a lot of real world exposure to other ethnicities than the average American but not enough to see the whole picture as I think I do. It is with them and other ethnicities that I am allowed the freedom to experiment with my alternate technologies. They trust me and tolerate my failures as long as I redeem myself and correct it. Most do not even know I am using them as an experiment,lol. I have many laboratories out there as we speak, lol.
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