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Winner of NASA Glove Contest Named
eZtaR writes "The winner of NASA's $200k spacesuit glove contest has been found. He's an unemployed aerospace engineer, named Peter Homer, and claims to have bought most of the materials in local shops and on eBay."
The baseline Phase VI glove needs replacing.
This guy should have called his the emacs glove, it would have 7 hands a kitchen sink and be able to host multiple lifeforms.
liqbase
... share my concerns about anyone named Homer being involved in the space program?
In all seriousness, I'm sure he'll end up with a good job out of this, which should be worth more to him and his family in the long run then the $200k prize.
...even have a glovebox?
NASA might start overbidding on eBay for weird crap...
Think they'll buy my old pokemon cards?
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
Spacewalks are hard on astronauts' hands
I know there is more to the sentence, but this clause made me chuckle. "Heh - they're doing it wrong."
I need more coffee...
PS Here is the link to the printer-friendly version, i.e. the article on one page.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
ever since I won that old space suit writing soap slogans, I have had a tough time getting it back into good shape. i bet he could give me some good pointers.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Do not hold a laser pistol in this glove!
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
NASA astronauts were overheard to have said, "It's so bad!"
Monstar L
more widely advertised as well as celebrated when a winner is selected.
We need to recognize that individual accomplishment is still something to crow about. When schools turn to removing achievment rewards for fear of offending those who don't achieve to removing grades for the same reason we teach kids the wrong lesson. The winner of this competition was not only trying to help NASA but provide his child a valuable lesson. This is the type of stuff that needs to taught to kids in school today. Show them that one person can do what many cannot do, then explain to them the need for both individual and groups for accomplishing goals.
Many great advancements are the work of a single person, someone who thinks "outside the box". We have to remember that the village is made up of individuals and they are as important as the village.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
With parts bought on eBay, he was sure to win hands down!
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
I want to see the new glove. Anonymous demands photographs / links to the patent.
Wait untill the next round of tests the Nasa will do; then the gloves really will come off!
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
D`oh!
Here's another article about the glove that actually features pictures of the gloves and contestants.
..from October Sky?
And why is he unemployed? Bad boss, matbe?
Back in the day, you could have bought all this stuff at your local Radio Shack. Now, if you're lucky, they'll actually have an RJ-45 cable. Otherwise, they're a place of pre-packaged largely useless gizmos - radio controlled cars, over priced cell phones, and electronic doorbells. It's been a cold in hell since I've seen a transistor, resistor, servo, circuit board, etc. for sale in one. And this is really sad, because they were the only place around here that stocked that sort of thing. Because of this, it's been ages since I've been to a Radio Shack willingly.
I think it stifles innovation not to have places like that around. We went in there as kids and bought all kinds of stuff to build all kinds of stuff. I recall at one point we tried to attach a guidance system to our toy rockets. Now, this had immense practical ramifications since our ultimate purpose was to terrify Old Lady Mortinson's giant hound. Yes, I know, this wasn't horribly well thought out, but what I can say - we were nine. She had this huge beast that lounged about on her front porch until it spotted children. This thing's back was nearly as tall as we were. He had, in our opinion, the largest teeth ever seen on a dog, complete with world-class doggy breath and strings of drool. This wouldn't have been so bad except she lived across the street from the school.
We'd get out of school and have to wait for someone to pick us up. The hound would see all of us gathering and bestir himself. His first act was always to start baying. All this did was drive us to huddle together like a human bait ball. Well, the huge beast would gallop across the street and plow in to us. He'd have a lovely time chasing everyone around, tongue out, and huge paws throwing mud. We'd get in trouble for getting our school clothes dirty and we were convinced that the beast was out to eat one of us.
Anyway, we starting trying to come up with ways to defeat the beast. Since we knew we'd get in trouble for hurting it, that pretty much ruled out BB guns, pellet guns, and 22's that most of us already had (hey, we were country kids). That meant we had to be more creative. We'd go to the Radio Shack and spend hours pouring through the catalog and the shelves trying to come up with something to chase the beast off. We learned more about design from that ridiculous dog. Now, with no where to go, how are kids supposed to do that? Don't tell me that they can do it on line. It's not the same as holding the part in your hand to see how much it weighs or being able to really get a sense of it's size. These are abstract concepts that come hard to a nine year old kid.
2 cents,
Queen B.
HDGary secures my bank
n/t
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
...a world of glass and steel, inhabited by people with implants and microsofts, and even aerospace engineers can't find a job?
I guess That future is here, now. Look no further.
Or is it more the sad state of affairs with our momentarily grounded dreams of space travel?
It smells like victory!
However, one of these days I have a dream of someday actually doing some of the engineering that I spent six years learning about.
He has been supporting his family by working in other fields. His son is 14 years old. Do the 'rithemtic and read the 'riting on the wall: he's middle-aged, talented, so he earns more than a new-grad junior engineer. Thus he now is unemployed, despite being demonstrably skilled: he developed the winning solution to a problem he'd never worked on before. Why is he not still an aerospace engineer? The bean counting MBA parasite that "downsized" him is the one who should be collecting unemployment!
I am happy for the guy that won, and am happy that the guy had a never say die attitude. BUT, and here is the big but you have to ask yourself what the heck happened here.
I think this guy might quite literally be a rocket scientist who ended up selling computers, then a community services manager, and then became unemployed. If America wants to be the forefront of technology, America needs to ask why does a guy have to buy something at EBay to build the next generation of technology?
Maybe America needs a few more role model "Homers".... instead of some Paris Hilton's who happens to be going to jail for 45 days or ended up shaving their head out of whim!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Unfortunately, you're probably in the same boat as me - if you wanted to go back to engineering after 6+ years of programming, you'd need a thorough refresher/catchup course. Modern mechanical engineering (lots of simulations) uses some fluids simulation techniques that were speculative research papers when I was an undergrad. :-(
Oh Yeah!
It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough.
You know you're gonna have to face it, you're a DICK IN A GLOVE.
>> When schools turn to removing achievment rewards for fear of offending those who don't achieve to removing grades for the same reason we teach kids the wrong lesson.
That's not the idea in my view.
The idea is:
a) like another reply points out, rewards are demotivating (kids get the wrong idea that success is achieving high marks);
b) rewards done wrong can be damaging; rewarding done good is excellent.
I had this problem in view when I chose a school that does not rate students for my daughter; those who get 80%+ scores get honoured, but there's no first or second-place prizes. This does not prevent the existence of other competitions, done just for fun.
My point is getting high grades is not compatible with learning; one must be very careful when merging these two very different things. I know about this firsthand: I dropped from one school with fierce competition for promotion and yet achieved a 5-year span student prize for academic achievement in another school (I don't mean to boast, it's just to make a point).
Come to think, the entire money == success may have its roots there.
The winner of NASA's diaper contest, word is that the winner was able to make it from Texas to Florida non-stop on one diaper, even through multiple HEAVY uses. Stocks of Luvs parent company Procter & Gamble(PG) fell on the news that Huggies parent company Kimberly-Clark(KMC) had purchased the rights to the technology for an undisclosed amount.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
You make your own luck. This is the exact reason why social support systems fail. Without a real challenge you seldom have the motivation to innovate or take risks. This guy had to fall to the bottom rung to finally wake up. I see far to many kids graduating from college thinking the hard work is done. At that point ,at most, they have bought a ticket to a tougher game.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
How can you be so crass and shallow? This is a heartbreaking story.
My concern is how this award winning design engineer with 10 years of experience is unemployed. It is obvious that he did better than the industry and teams of competitors. There is something very wrong with the US aerospace industry.
This is bad for everyone. It's especially bad for those in the profession. They face the frustration of not getting things done and an uncertain future, regardless of merit or how hard they work. It's bad for the US that piles of money thrown without results at the federal government, contractors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, and NASA. It's bad for the world that the one remaining superpower is using it's resources to secure oil instead of the boundless riches of the solar system and galaxy. The goal and it's practitioners deserve more respect.
The good news is that the contest worked and the industry may reform into a more efficient and rewarding place. $200,000 is a fine prize that may make up for the years Peter Homer has not been able to practice his profession. It's not enough to form a proper company but others with talent will be encouraged. Hopefully, they will be rewarded better than having their name laughed at.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
He's an unemployed aerospace engineer
:p)
Is there any other kind?
*ducks*
(I get to say that, a good friend of mine is an unemployed aerospace engineer
ClutterMe.com - easiest site creation on the Net. Just click and type.
So a throwaway 'Homer' reference isn't funny, but blatant racism is?
What a sense of humour you have.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
Getting off the subject, most projects last from 6 months to 5 years max, upgrades, add-ons and such. Very few companies can afford to hold on too all their employes full time so it turns into contract work. Yes they always seem unemployed, but they get picked right back up as soon as the next contract start, typically with no more that a few month gape. I bet he tinkered with the glove idea for fun and then get really involved and decided to simply finish it rather than go back to another full time slot on the next contract.
with a BS in Aersp was pretty disappointing. At least I could put my computer skills to use.
Homer Hickam, aerospace engineer at NASA from '81 to '98. You might remember him as the protagonist in the film "October Sky".
for updated space.com link with more images and info