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83-Year-Old Inventor Wins $40,000 3D Printing Competition

Posted by samzenpus on from the old-school dept.

harrymcc writes "The Desktop Factory Competition was a contest to create an open-source design for a low-cost machine capable of turning cheap plastic pellets into the filament used by 3D printers, with a prize of $40,000. The winner is being announced today — and he was born during the Hoover administration. I interviewed 83-year-old retiree Hugh Lyman — a proud member of the maker movement — for a story over at TIME.com. From the article: 'Lyman describes himself as an “undergraduate engineer” — he studied engineering from 1948-1953 at the University of Utah, but didn’t earn a degree. Though he holds eight patents, he says he’s “not educated enough to be able to do calculations of torque and so forth.” So implementing his contest entry “was trial and error. I tinkered with it and used common sense.”'"

9 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. Engineering isn't a secret club by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm glad some people still attempt projects like these without engineering degrees.

    1. Re:Engineering isn't a secret club by History's+Coming+To · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Even the most qualified engineers on the planet sometimes resort to "getting a bigger hammer", or trial and error. You know the Saturn V rocket? One of the biggest and most complex things ever made by humans? They had problems with the combustion plate, basically a big disc of metal that the fuel is sprayed through before igniting. The combustion kept becoming unstable to the point where it was an explosion rather than a burn, and they knew it was something to do with the pattern of holes. No amount of mathematics and computing "power" back then was enough to find a solution, so they took a bunch of plates and drilled holes in them at random until they found one that worked for long enough to launch the vehicle "safely".

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    2. Re:Engineering isn't a secret club by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If he used common sense then he's obviously not an engineer.

      That's right. If he were an engineer, he would have thought of all the reasons why it couldn't be done. Whereas by being "uneducated" he was too ignorant to know that it couldn't be done.

      Years ago, my dad worked for a businessman that only had a high school diploma but an idea for a medical device. The engineers said it couldn't be done. The biz guy told them to STFU or get out . The engineers finally figured it out by trial and error because what they were doing was never taught in engineering schools.

      The biz guy made tens of millions. The engineers got their $25K/year and laid off after the project was done - this was back in the 70s.

      I can't remember the guy's name.

    3. Re:Engineering isn't a secret club by MightyYar · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In the US, optometrists have a doctorate. Ophthalmologists go to medical school. Opticians do neither - usually an associates degree or less is required.

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    4. Re:Engineering isn't a secret club by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Reminds me of that poster on my ex-boss wall. "Aerodynamics say the bumblebee cannot fly. The bumblebee doesn't know and flies instead".

      He, too, wasn't someone with a pretty degree. But what he had was a lot of knowledge of human nature. He looked at an applicant and within a few minutes it was stay or go. No matter the degree, he did take a look at your previous experience, though, but even that wasn't too important, he actually went more by his "gut feeling" as he called it. I don't know what exactly it was, but it allowed him to assemble one of the best and inventive groups I was ever part of.

      Odd fellow. Later he once told me one of the reasons he hired me was that I appeared in jeans and pullover for the interview, since he believed when a tech guy tries to hide in a suit he doesn't believe enough in his own skills to get him the job. And I have to admit, I made that part of my own interview strategy. 'cause he's right, odd as it may seem. If a guy shows up for an interview in everyday clothes, it usually means that he's quite confident that his skills can land him the job despite his attire.

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    5. Re:Engineering isn't a secret club by cellocgw · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Reminds me of that poster on my ex-boss wall. "Aerodynamics say the bumblebee cannot fly. The bumblebee doesn't know and flies instead".

      Sadly for your ex-boss and anti-scientists everywhere, the aerodynamicists (be they scientists or engineers) were quite right: the bumble bee could not fly if one assumed rigid wings. Their research led to greater understanding of a rather interesting organic control system which produces significant lift.

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    6. Re:Engineering isn't a secret club by cellocgw · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No, you missed the point entirely. Science never thought it was impossible. Science quite correctly proved flight with rigid wings was impossible. Science went on to conclude, correctly, that since bumblebees fly, their wings aren't rigid.
      Please stop promulgating that teabagger meme that "scientists [have] an established mindset." As a very funny British comedian once said, "of course science doesn't have all the answers. If it did, we'd be done."

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  2. Re:Trial & Error Works When You Can Afford Err by IndustrialComplex · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Accumulating the knowledge so you didn't need trial and error probably took a fair bit of trial and error to start out with though. :)

    That's why as an engineer you should consider performing a Failure Modes Effects and Criticality analysis (FMECA). Quite often you can predict the error, and account for it. Sometimes you account for the error by adding in additional maintenance/inspections, other times you have spares, sometimes you perform preventative maintenance, and sometimes you put a net underneath the bridge.

    Let's assume your bridge is being constructed from stone (longevity or maintenance reasons), you know that it will eventually erode, crack, and wear out, but you build into your design features which are intended to help delay the failure, or allow for a graceful failure. So instead of designing your bridge to be covered with paint because that would block some of the environment, you forgo the protective paint and leave it exposed to the elements because now you can send a crew to inspect the bridge every 5 years for cracks/erosion/damage which might have been obscured by the paint. While the paint might have extended the life of the bridge by 10 years in ideal situations, being able to inspect the bridge might allow you to discover the crack which would cause a catastrophic failure at life-5 years.

    Sometimes you have to accept error as part of the design because correcting that error might compromise other aspects of the design.

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  3. Not smart enough to calculate torque but ... by tyrione · · Score: 3, Interesting

    spent 5 years at The University of Utah studying engineering? Sorry, but you learn that in your freshman year. Great story, but that part is laughable. As a Mechanical Engineering graduate '93 from WSU I know what the hell I'm talking about, just like a person above me claiming the guy is lying.