Slashdot Mirror
Salad Spinner Made Into Life-Saving Centrifuge
lucidkoan writes "Two Rice University students have transformed a simple salad spinner into an electricity-free centrifuge that can be used to diagnose diseases on the cheap. Created by Lauren Theis and Lila Kerr, the ingenious DIY centrifuge is cobbled together using a salad spinner, some plastic lids, combs, yogurt containers, and a hot glue gun. The simple and easily-replicated design could be an invaluable tool for clinics in the developing world, enabling them to separate blood to detect diseases like anemia without electricity."
This is clever thinking on the part of the students, but hand-cranked centrifuges have been around for a long time. They're not terribly expensive, they're sturdy as hell, and they're durable and easy to sterilize -- which almost certainly cannot be said of something made of disposable plastics and hot glue.
Besides, if you're in a part of the developing world where you have surplus salad shooters and the electricity to power your hot glue gun -- which is, come to think of it, a good description of the eighth grade science classroom where I first encountered a manual centrifuge -- you can probably afford the manual centrifuge.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
What I took from the article was not that they re-invented the wheel, but where able to use analytical thinking and problem solving skills TO re-invent the wheel. They were able to think outside the box and develop a centrifuge (that works) from parts that you can find around a house. I think these students are creative - partner that with their education and it's amazing to think what they will be possible of doing or making in the future. Our future lie's in the hands of our youth - i feel good about our future with students like this.
Of all the things I've lost; I miss my mind the most. - Mark Twain
aren't those centrifuges a bit more powerful?
That's the Iranians' dark secret: They are developing new salad technology. They don't want to nuke the Jews, they just really love Caesar salad and don't want the other Muslim extremists to laugh at them.