A 17-year-old designed a novel synchronous reluctance motor | Hacker News Reader

A 17-year-old designed a novel synchronous reluctance motor

smithsonianmag.com

753 pointsevo_9285 comments

Robert Sansone, great job!

So many young prospective engineers read HN every day. Let's find comments that are encouraging or thought provoking or point readers in helpful directions Like @londons_explore did.

Bringing the beatdown is bad for everyone. Especially bad for young engineers. This kid is impressive, straight up impressive. Let's encourage him and others like him. HN shouldn't someone's supervillain origin story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqMCYdqaFCQ&t=41s

I had a hunch this would link me to The Incredibles. Great reference and I totally agree with the sentiment.

> Bringing the beatdown is bad for everyone.

It's healthy to question media narrative as the media tend to sensationalize and embellish stories for clicks or views. It's disingenuous to try to make people feel guilty about it arguing if we question that story that child will turn bad or something, in an post-truth era. Nobody is attacking that kid, just how the media cover these stories with a template.

Will the kid understand that's everyone's intent, I wonder?

He surely will have to understand that to be exceptional creates a lot of headwind (certainly in his own field).

"The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly."

Being a curmudgeon isn't a virtue.

Given the sheer number of headlines like "<This invention> will change the face of <this well known thing>" that really boil down to "<This idea, which isn't even new> is interesting to think about, but won't really have any impact on <this well known thing>"... it really doesn't make one ill-tempered to bring up for discussion whether the current article is one of those.

It might not be one of those, and it's not fair to assume it _is_ one of those... but discussing whether it is or not isn't rude/mean, and probably _should_ be standard practice.

A curmudgeon is what a cockeyed optimist calls a realist.

Fair enough, but context matters and there are two that matter here: (1) The subject was the tech and the engineer not biased media narratives, and (2) HN is a forum that so many people look up to. So if you want to context switch to a discussion about the media (a worthy subject BTW) post a new thread; let's not do it on a thread that is spotlighting interesting tech from a promising engineer.

I would much rather live in a world where people question biased media narratives and we risk hurting someone's feelings than the other way around. If this kid can't handle a little bit of criticism, he won't be long for the engineering discipline.

That's a false dichotomy

> If this kid can't handle a little bit of criticism

I do expect adults - over 25 - to take the rough with the smooth. But children are not adults.

I think you're assuming your own competence at pedagogy. I would want to shield children from you until they've developed the resilience you demand from them.

Also, the emotional tone - sheesh

+1 And to pile on a bit here... part of learning to be a good engineer is learning how to give good constructive feedback. If you are creating real risk of truly hurting someone with your feedback (in a PR or a code review for example) then it's you who are at fault for tone deafness not them for being thin skinned.

Giving and getting feedback is hard. It's a skill and it doesn't come easily to most. Sometimes hurting someone's feelings is inevitable, but starting from a place of "toughen up buttercup" is really self-serving and counterproductive.

There is always someone better than you, and always someone worse. Always someone who knows something you don't, and always someone who can learn from you.

> But children are not adults.

He's 17 years old, so he's not a full adult. But classing him as a child, in the same category as 6 year olds, seems further from the truth than calling him an adult. 17 years old is old enough to join the army, today, in numerous developed first world nations like New Zealand, Norway, and with parental consent, Germany and America.

It's not a binary choice. We can and should have both. We can also provide constructive feedback and at times criticism both without risking hurting their feelings. Again, the point is time and place.

Don’t know about this one, when it comes to someone who is younger than 18 for this context I’d error on the side of “if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything”. If it’s Sharktank or something that’s a bit different

I don't think this is totally on the media. The story is sufficiently weasel worded -- the motor "could" "pave the way". Anybody with any experience reads "could" as "probably not" and "pave the way" as "a tiny little step in a long process".

Most 6 year olds have figured out that "maybe" means "probably not". Many adults have forgotten that lesson.

Hey, as someone who's participated in the same competition, you got it right on the money. It's a well known joke amongst science fair students that "could pave the way to this and that" really means its kinda useless. Some of our school's projects from two years ago worked on quantum computing but didn't achieve the goals they'd hope for so our instructor just told them to sprinkle some paved the ways in their paper

Most of the major inventions of the last 2 centuries were the product of many incremental steps. The automobile, the airplane, the computer, the internet, etc.

I think it's worth celebrating even minor contributions toward a potentially world changing future personally.

They (Tesla) now design materials with ML. So it's more optimization than innovation. I think ML combined with FEMM analysis can also be used to optimize motors. It might turn out a model that it too costly to manufacture but why not try it?

Anyway, I hope Robert Samsone uses FEMM analysis to design his motor. It will definity help him build less prototypes.

I think this is the right angle to take.

Unlike a lot of breathless "engineering breakthrough" stories, this piece, as well as young Mr. Sansone himself, readily acknowledge that this is a work in progress and may not pan out. Even if it doesn't, what an incredible achievement for a high-schooler – and just imagine the great contributions to the field this kid is poised to make in the coming decades.

> and just imagine the great contributions to the field this kid is poised to make in the coming decades

Well let's curb the expectations for now, it can be quite damaging for a kid be held forever to an potentially unrealistic standard just because they did something great once. I mean sure for the occasional genius it turns out fine because they live up to it, but for the rest it's a self hate and imposter syndrome on steroids.

I think this person has a strong intrinsic motivation to contribute innovations. He has already worked on other projects before this one. We don't have to have any expectations or setting up any extrinsic motivations or even to be cheerleaders, and instead, we can honor and respect him for who he is, and his chosen purpose. And for those with the capability and availability, act as resource if he needs it. (In the article, he says he was working without a mentor and had to figure a lot of stuff out himself).

No expectations, just recognition of potential and effort.

Correct. Expect regression to the mean.

... and then be excited and supportive if/when he's an outlier.

"Expect" or "I want"? Comes across like you want him reduced to mediocrity.

I don't know, there are plenty of counter examples.

I hope he doesn't care what people expect of him and hold himself to the highest standard possible.

I don't know, he's already completed 60 engineering projects and this is his 15th attempt at his 61st project. The motivation and talent is certainly there. At 17 I was pushing supermarket carts around and smoking weed with my friends. He's certainly worth keeping an eye on.

> the Fort Pierce, Florida-based inventor estimates he’s completed at least 60 engineering projects in his spare time. And he’s only 17 years old.

I don't think you have to worry too much about that.

I solved a major FBI case when I was 18 years old. 20 years later I'm finally stabilizing on steady beneficial contribution to society instead of pining for the next moonshot / recognition.

Thanks for being real.

People are far more likely to become your neighbours or coworkers than they are to replace you. Gotta resist the instinct to be competitive and gatekeep.

This is wonderful work and it makes me feel bubbly about the future of engineering when young adults are _this engaged_.

This is inspiring, and let's look at why so many of us have the impulse to figure out what the flaw or missing part of the story is.

For me, it's because I hadn't done something so cool at 17. That makes me think, huh, I wonder if I'm not a "natural born engineer". I start going through my life story so far and beating myself up for playing too many video games, or not going deep enough on my interests.

Then I start thinking about the ways my life is different from his. I start to feel resentment about the opportunities I didn't have, the resources that weren't available. What could I have done if things had been different?

Next I start to resent how society scores us on things that can contribute to the economy, or things that look particularly cool, and things that we accomplished at a young age.

And then I start to imagine the difficulties that this young inventor will have. "Oh yes", I think, "He'll find out soon enough what the REAL world is like."

And these thoughts are not who I want to be. But I can reflect and learn something about myself from them. And I can choose to go another way.

I can decide that, if a 17 year old kid with the right resources and a crazy idea can make something really cool, then I, as an adult with more experience and resources can make something at least as cool if I want to. And I'm going to. It's not like my life is over because I'm older than 17.

And if this article is making you spiral with insecurity, I hope you make a similar decision. A decision to be inspired instead of intimidated.

If you want to be cynical about it see

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/03/why-sc...

(of course that is another clickbait article from a magazine that was good before the web but now specializes in clickbait)

I remember when I was in high-school agonizing for over a year over the 100$ fee to publish an app on google play.

Ultimately it's hard to ignore the pattern when you see the stories about these precocious kids on the news, they always come from wealth.

Agree, I was very interested in electronics as a teenager, but had no money for tools, instruments, or components. I had to scavenge components from discarded radios, used my dad's plumber's iron for soldering and saved up for months for decent wire and a wire stripper.

I did eventually end up getting a scholarship to study engineering, but I cannot help feeling a tiny bit resentful when seeing kids in the news who obviously had a lot of support from a wealthy family.

You should not feel resentment, but you should feel their luck to be born into that.

On the downside: they will never learn the value of recycling, of working with inadequate, broken, uncalibrated and dangerous tools. But you did and I'd bet you came out the better engineer on account of that. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger isn't just about health.

Lately I try to see privileges like that less as an unfair advantage that someone else has, and more an unfair disadvantage for everyone else. I want every kid to have access to high quality education which includes the tools and materials to work with and learn new concepts - that's regardless of the socioeconomic class they were born into. Instead of trying to tear down other people for the opportunities they had that you didn't, maybe we should be attempting to improve the world for everyone so that there's less of those unfair disadvantages going around.

I grew up nearly the same. Built many of my own tools from what I could find literally laying around.

Please take my comment here as my experiences shared in the hope you get something good from them. It's nothing more than that, and it's worth what you paid too.

Fast forward many years:

Today I'm working on an advanced additive manufacturing machine in a company I and a friend started. I'm doing electronics, working with advanced CNC machines, writing some code, and doing a lot of stuff that was hobby type dreaming a decade and change ago.

The team is largely people who really enjoy the electromechanical world, some have gone to school, some haven't. Nobody cares about any of that. We all want to make something cool happen.

When I took my first job, I began to also take up hobbies. Spent a number of years in manufacturing, during which I did a lot of computing on whatever computers I could get my hands on, or seat time with. Next job was CAD related, and I spent time on electronics again.

Wash, rinse, repeat a few times and those hobbies are real!

Each one ended up adding to the set of things I can do and as that set expanded, and as my circle of friends and professional contacts expanded, so did my potential opportunities. Get the skill, look for an opening to do it professionally, do it, get help if you need to, wash, rinse, repeat.

I think about what I can get done now and how it might pay me and those close to me. That stuff is real.

At one point in my life, I could see some real opportunity, but I was going to have to lean into it. So I quit modern gaming. This was big! I do retro, and play the occasional title I find interesting, but pushing that out of the front row in my life both hurt and was amazing!

See, I got bored. And that's how a lot of good stuff starts. The amazing part was finding out that being bored means I'm also receptive to learning new things. And doing stuff is a lot more fun than thinking about it all is too.

If I think about what I could have done, if... I get depressed. And that stuff is fantasy.

So I just don't do that.

Maybe this helps you some.

Look, there is no doubt luck plays a big role in our lives. No joke.

I can also say that if you invest in yourself, network with others and essentially expand your receptivity to luck, your chance of experiencing some goes up and with that come opportunities.

I do take some pride in the fact that I really did get a lot of my skills the hard way. Same with any money. And if times get tough, I really do know how to deal and can do that, am used to doing that, to a much greater degree than many of these lucky people might be. And helping others get things done often lead to them helping me.

We all need a little help. Give and get. That's the rule.

One can have a significant impact on the world, and many people without any of those nice things.

Consider making it all about what you can do and what that can mean. You will be very likely to do more than you think and it will mean more than you expect it to. Ask me how I know. :)

Even I retrospect I think of this 2 ways

1. Could I have made that $100 if I did it specifically for the purpose of publishing the app? (For me, the answer is always yes at that amount. I could have easily washed some cars, mowed some grass, etc. I had so much free time)

2. When it comes to business, tech, particularly the early internet boom, probably some other domains; I’m just thankful to be in the minority of the world that speaks English. I’m self taught at most things and it’s hard enough as it is. This value of this one diminishes every year but I find it’s still useful and feel it’s a form or luck.

It's not about making the money, it's about what you spend it on. If 100$ is a significant amount you're not going to spend it on a frivolous purchase, you'll spend it on the absolute necessities. And if you do want to make a purchase purely because it makes you happy, you're going to agonize over it and feel guilty for a long while.

I went on to make 20,000 euros doing freelance over the next five years while in college but it all went to my student loans, rent and other necessary costs while I was starting my career, not anything I actually wanted to buy for myself.

I get that. What works for me, and I tried to point out, is not taking $100 out of my income/savings that is funds for my absolute necessities. It's more so about using the goal as motivation to temporarily increase my income. That extra income is already earmarked for the goal, so it doesn't really take away from necessities.

Obviously, if you're at a deficit on the necessities it will be tempting to use the extra income for those things. That's a different conversation/problem however

At the end of the day, most people are after wealth to give their children advantages. Either advantages they had growing up, or advantages they didn't have growing up. Granted there is diminishing returns here, i.e. a billionaire's children aren't likely to be much more advantaged than a child from a family with a net worth of $100 million.

Until the US gets away from the idea that education is a for-profit industry and something you pay for, almost all highly accomplished children will come from wealthy families.

What a ridiculous article. It says:

> Last year my son, who was in third grade at the time, came home with a sheet of paper from his school that listed three categories for appropriate projects: developing a hypothesis and conducting an experiment to test that theory, inventing something new, or researching "something specific." The guidelines listed "whales" as an example of something specific. Given that my son was 8 years old, the idea that he could, on his own, do any single one of these things seemed ludicrous.

> Even the easiest of these items—researching a topic—is nearly impossible for a child who hasn’t yet mastered the ability to browse the Internet. (As a parent and the founder of a tech company, I’ve observed that in order to browse the Internet one needs to know how to scan the screen, differentiate between actual content and ads, and evaluate the trustworthiness of a resource—elements that are far out of reach of most 8-year-olds.)

Has that parent never heard of books and libraries? If their school has a library it should have books appropriate for a child with enough information for an 8 year old to research some topic like whales. If the school is one of the ones that has ditched their library, a good public library should do.

Even if they have to resort to using the internet, the parent should be able to easily point the child at some sites that are trustworthy and ad free, such as PBS Kids. If the parent does that, and keeps an eye on the kid while the kid is searching to make sure they stay on kid friendly sites, that's not going to count as the parent doing the work for the kid and should be acceptable.

Thoughtful post, I think it's such a strong ability to develop to be able to see this thought process happening in your head and being aware of it. Thanks for sharing this

What irks me is the inappropriate focus on the who over the what.

I'd in all honestly be similarly annoyed if the headline said "57 year old stamp collector from Yorkshire designs a novel synchronous reluctance motor".

It's the hero worship fetish half of the world has.

It's never about the achievement, it's about the person that achieved it. You can very easily find out if wherever you've the same tendency: just think about the most impressive score or safe you remember in whatever sport you love. Do you now think that the deed was impressive or that the person that did it is the impressive thing? Will you remember the play, or the person that played?

Insightful comments like this are why I love HN. Thank you!

> why so many of us have the impulse to figure out what the flaw or missing part of the story is.

Why? Because that's literally what engineers are paid to do: make things, break things, fix things. It's all about tearing things apart to understand them, and then making them better.

Just like this kid is doing. I don't think DC motor engineers took it personally when he decided to "figure out what the flaw" was in current rare earth magnet designs, right?

If you take that personally, you're in the wrong field.

Good point, and it’s hypocritical to admire the impulse in one person while criticising others for the same

> you're in the wrong field

Bravo

I found it interesting that the article chooses to not acknowledge several projects like

* https://www.refreedrive.eu/

* https://www.electricmotorengineering.com/synchronous-relucta...

Today, my friend and I cynically talked over a beer about this. We ranted to each other about how we wasted the best years of our life and how we didn't have the resources or education other people have right now. This is a defeatist attitude and your post has inspired me to be better.

Thank you for writing this.

How important is it to have accomplishments?

That are important to yourself, or to others?

This is the key, most people don't care about my "accomplishments".

For me its all simple, if you've accomplished nothing in a field your opinion is not worth noticing, if your brain has calcified around dogma your opinion is pure comedy.

If you are both accomplished and have an open mind your opinion can be valuable if constructive but in the end there is only one opinion that counts.

Also, it is entirely fine to try to do something that will take a million attempts like yours to maybe perhaps get it done poorly.

Hero's engine is just fine. We didn't need more from him. It was enough. It took a while for anyone to truly get it and their steam engine and many after it were useless pieces of crap - which was good enough. We didn't need more from them.

x86 is a piece of crap too!

I personally don't think age has anything to do with it. If the story for some reason said 47 instead of 17, I think comments would largely be the same.

So then why? Insecurity may still have a lot to do with it. I guess a large percentage of people like to either prove others wrong, or show off intelligence?

See also, Cunningham's Law.

https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law

Gave me chills, thanks!

> Next I start to resent how society scores us on things that can contribute to the economy

Lol

> why so many of us have the impulse to figure out what the flaw or missing part of the story is

Because media LOVES to say "12 year old creates revolutionary invention!" especially for energy related things and especially for inventions that aren't revolutionary. Here's a classic example:

https://www.wired.com/2011/08/boy-genius-13-year-olds-solar-...

> 13-year-old Aiden Dwyer has managed to do something that grown-up scientists haven't. He has wrung up to 50% extra electricity from regular solar cells. How? Brains, trees, and a dash of math geekery.

(It's 100% nonsense.)

That said it doesn't exactly look like the case here but it's the obvious null hypothesis.

That’s not why. It’s because the low hanging fruit has been picked decades ago so it seems, and usually is, unlikely that a 17 year old would be able to create something people paid to think about this with sustainable financial incentives were unable to do.

People don't understand that in the worst case scenario, an avenue of potential innovation is eliminated and makes future work easier. Too many people identify as scientists, especially online, for the sake of their ego rather than intellectual development. Anyone exploring possibilities has contributed.

Why are you making this about you?

Comparison is the thief of joy my friend :)

Inspiring story all round but this paragraph stood out for me:

“I didn't have a mentor to help me, really, so each time a motor failed, I had to do tons of research and try and troubleshoot what went wrong,” he says. “But eventually on the 15th motor, I was able to get a working prototype.”

I imagine most 17 year old would not have kept going 15+ times until they arrived at something which worked.

Really? In my observations only 17 year olds have the time and patience to do crap like this.

Both things ring fairly true

Only if their parents have blocked TikTok, most of YouTube, and PlayStation. </sarcasm of parent of kids faced with endless parade of distractions>

What kids do depends on lots of things, including the makeup of the kid.

None of my 5 were heavy into social media, even tho I was for 15 years.

One followed my skillset and became heavy into computers/electronics (8y-now) and old cars (19y-now).

The other 4 didn't pickup strong hobbies. I believe it's because there weren't available examples that fit their abilities.

Two settled on gaming (one now a technician tho). One does music and graphic art.

Ironically Minecraft would be good training for this level of dedication

Have you seen the amount of effort and repetition it takes to make a TikTok?

which says a lot about the state of the industry.

The best part to me is the large amount of designs one shouldn't bother to talk about because it is much more important to hysterically moan about potential perpetual motion than discus any motor/engine improvement.

Lots of time but no money.

Like the guy who makes his own chips. Super impressive but there's no way in hell I could've ever afforded to do that (I did look into it when I was 18)

Back before the internet, in 1964, I read a brief Scientific American column on laboratory glass blowing (for making condensers and so forth). This set me on a quest; and I acquired supplies and primitive homemade equipment. I was years away from being able to drive so I took the bus downtown to the Detroit public library where I found several books devoted to the subject. I studied these for hours. I worked on this project for many days.

I ended up being able to make a few primitive items from my tubes of glass, but of course, it was a silly pursuit that led nowhere. So I moved on to my next project, making a solid fuel rocket from scratch, then an arc furnace, then gunpowder, then a homemade gas-mask, etc. So it was for a curious kid in the 60's. I'm lucky I didn't burn down the house. This of course was made possible by the lack of an internet (and of course periodicals like Scientific American back when it was great and really about science).

I admire the 17-year old in the article for coming up with something in this age when it is so much easier to entertain oneself by surfing the net.

> So I moved on to my next project, making a solid fuel rocket from scratch

Remember when you could get the ingredients to do things like that easily; sometimes even in a "Science Kit for Kids!" one would buy at Caldor or the like? Man, how times have changed.

I'm 42, when I sent my mom out with a shopping list for this stuff as a kid it ended up in her (almost) being arrested.

Yes, back in the 60's my buddy and I asked our parents to buy us some powdered aluminum and iron-oxide. We got in trouble because the chemical supply company warned them about our requested ingredients. That was the end of our homemade thermite project. So it was on to another project, homemade lock-picks.

> That was the end of our homemade thermite project

I call it luck.

I decided not to proceed, when understood, that I have no way to put it off.

> I decided not to proceed, when understood, that I have no way to put it off.

I didn't :)

It's all about the quantities.

In the late 1980s, the toy store at the mall carried a section of model rockets and rocket engines, igniters... supermarkets carried cap guns and refills in racks just before checkout.

Can't you get actual guns at some US supermarkets, in the 2020s? Meanwhile I'm pretty sure you can get those combination cap/spud guns in the seasonal aisle at larger UK supermarkets, and almost all French^. Funny.

(^when I was younger I remember being amazed by all the stuff you could get in French supermarkets, aisles and aisles of school supplies, summer toys/beach items, clothes, etc. - seems they were much earlier in that trend, and still seem to lean further into it, though it's been a few years since I've been.)

Most of the mainstream chain supermarkets in the US don't sell guns (Kroger, Target, Whole Foods, Costco, Albertsons, Ahold, Publix, Sams, HEB, Meijer, Aldi, et al.). Walmart is the primary exception there.

Overwhelmingly that's now handled by independent gun stores, or a select few sporting good chains (eg Dick's Sporting Goods - the largest sporting goods chain in the US - which sells a restricted set of rifles and a few shotguns; they came under pressure not long ago to get rid their guns and they capitulated and reduced what and how they sell [1]).

Big corporations in the US are drastically more sensitive today to gun issues and the related bad PR that goes with selling guns (even Walmart has rolled back their selling of guns).

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-dicks-sporting-goods-deci...

WTF?! You really have Aldi in the US? As a german I never supposed that.

Lidl as well (albeit less widespread)

Fascism as well (albeit less widespread)

We have lots of Aldi's in Australia, too.

> Internationally, Aldi Nord operates in Denmark, France, the Benelux countries, Portugal, Spain and Poland, while Aldi Süd operates in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Switzerland, Australia, China, Italy, Austria and Slovenia. Both Aldi Nord (as Trader Joe's) and Aldi Süd (as Aldi) also operate in the United States with 1,600 stores between them as of 2017,[11] and the U.S. is the only country to have both Aldi companies operating outside of Germany.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldi

We have Aldi and we have Trader Joe's -- which is owned by the family of Theo Albrecht (Aldi Nord).

Trader Joe's sells all house-brand products aimed at a higher quality and price point.

You can still do that easily today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_candy

I have seen potassium nitrate stump remover on the shelves at my local Fred Meyer (Kroger). If you can't find find it on shelves it's easy to order:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Potassium-Nitrate-Powder-99-8-Pur...

The vast majority of fireworks and rockets I made as a kid used potassium nitrate as an oxidizer. 5 pounds will provide many hours of entertainment and education.

Most 17 years old don't have access to 3d printers. Equipment is a big factor in making something tangible.

One third of 17 year olds cannot read at grade level.

Do you mean in the US, globally, or what? HN has lots of readership outside the US.

Are you sure about that? I don't know when you're allowed to leave school in the US, but they're pretty popular in schools - relatively cheap tools & a lot safer than others. They didn't exist (in the mainstream at least) when I was at school, but we had laser cutter/engravers for example. I know which I'd pick if I were in control of the budget (and had to choose one).

My High School which was a fairly well funded public High School in Illinois, US hadn't upgraded their shop equipment since the 80s really it felt like. We had wood tools, saws, the basics only. The coolest thing we had was a smelting forge, but students weren't allowed to use it due to safety concerns. This was in the late 2000s.

Whether you're able to use the equipment for tasks outside of the specific class (even if it's school related like a science fair project) is another issue. I've seen different schools in the same district do things differently - one for instance allowed students to say use the media lab to record a drama production and had a maker club where students could use the machine shop for personal projects. Others very strictly restricted the use of school equipment for the specific class in question (e.g. only shop class students can use the machine tools and only for projects related to that class). It really depends on the instructor and the school administration.

They're common in public libraries in many major cities, so quite a few do.

As someone who was in that position 13-17, it's complicated. Many will refuse to help you if it's a project with a modicum of risk (like homemade motors) and/or impose crippling restrictions, at that age.

I don’t know about “only”, but my observations are that they do.

I’ve volunteered for a youth leadership camp every summer since 1998. Our attendees are 16-18 y/o males exclusively (there’s a female version of the camp but I don’t work there so I have no opinion on that side). Our attendees have been thru a selection process, so I’m not seeing a representative cross section of Ohio, US males of that age. In our sample, though, the number of focused and determined young men is very high.

I’m not at all surprised a 17 y/o would have the drive and determination to keep trying over and over. Not all of them are that way— surely it’s a very small percentage. Nonetheless, that determination isn’t an anomaly in my experience.

I kinda agree. That is around the age when you still can have the free time and energy to do what is essentially huge amount of grind. It is just question where the focus is. It might be games, books, music, anime and so on.

Older you get less there is time and energy. And more responsibilities.

You can both be right!

In a not so distant past state fund academia had the time to pursue their research without the need to deliver what economy donors deemed relevant. Then research got increasingly economy funded. Today we are at two, minutes two millions.

Innovation doesn't always need the big team but time, deep understanding of a few (one?), patience, dedication and endurance.

He is from an upper middle class family at the minimum. Hardware projects at his scale is not exactly a low cost expenditure, even with AliExpress and cheap Asian parts of questionable quality. I doubt he even needs the winnings to pay tuition.

In what all that resentment towards him is helping you or anyone?

No, but pointing out something that most people seem to gloss over. It is like reading "startup X raised Y dollar with a Z year old founder" articles and oohing and aahing while misunderstanding the actual circumstances that got them there. It is never about solely the product and idea, HN hates to acknowledge this but you don't raise money without strong connections and network, and it is the same story for science fairs (especially at the pre-undergraduate level). Follow your children to the next state-level science fair and most of the top award winners will have similar backgrounds. Almost always a relative or "family friend" in academia/research who's guiding them, either that or a blank cheque for the children/extremely well funded school clubs.

You're correct. Those factors are often overlooked. Kids don't even know that if they ask enough times, there are kind people who are willing to help them.

All this leads me to conclude that we need to do better so these resources to innovate and learn are accessible to all.

> resentment towards him is helping you or anyone?

Where do you see resentment? It's like saying "anyone could have been Bill Gates" except that Bill Gates had access to lab computers much earlier than any other kid of his generation (and his family was well off, too). A touch with reality is always helpful in an ocean of optimism.

In your judgment about what he and his family needs are, your pre-supposed hypothesis about their condition and about the usage of his tuition and the resources of his prize which are not your prerogative. That comment which is subtly derogatory and distractive to the merit in question is your search or highlight of what exactly?

Yeah I bet you are real fun at parties. You are the type who will go around defending billionaires because they spent their money building tech you like. You are not a temporarily embarrassed billionaire and success isn't purely the result of individual agency.

The parent comment is saying that kids' achievements are limited to their resources. This seems valid to me. Certainly my own experience as a parent (and a child) bears it out.

My experience teaching high school kids was just the opposite. Quite a few will stay with a problem long after most so-called "prudent" adults have moved on.

As adults, we forget that 17 year olds are still living their lives in a world of what they don't know, not in what they know. And once they do know they can be very insistent about being right. Because, it's all they know.

It's also how a team of 16-17 yr olds can somehow manage to win when the odds are completely against them. All they know is what they want to see happen. And they will keep trying until they succeed, the clock runs out, or the other team makes it painfully obvious by completely routing them.

Interesting, thank you. My assertion was based on my own 17 year old self, my peers at that time as well as people that age now. Sounds like the opposite could be true. I find that quite heartening.

It's a somewhat common joke in physics departments to compute something up to (say) N=3 then say "Well if we were undergraduate students we might compute this up to N=100"

"My experience teaching high school kids was just the opposite. Quite a few will stay with a problem long after most so-called "prudent" adults have moved on."

Honestly I've made a career of this but I never got close to building a novel engine as a kid, I was too busy wanting to play C+C or breaking through my parents tea collection, trying to smoke them and calculating if there was a high or how much it caused me to cough.

I built a niche little bit of tech (not really invention as much as applying a old idea to a backward field) when I was 19, I could've kept going but I ran out of money on the 2nd iteration because RF is an expensive hobby.

RF is a very, very, expensive hobby. What was the idea you had for the field?

Using RF rather than capacitive methods to detect hits between sabre fencers.

I built the first one basically out of scraps and rtl SDRs, second one out of slightly better Chinese crap then ran out of money.

Would be a compliance nightmare to sell either iterations. If I could do it with TDR instead I don't know

In my experience young minds are far more likely to keep at it where most adults take issue with repetitive processes.

he will have learned at some point that most valuable skill one can learn is self reliance in the face of adversity.

Makes me realize that it wasn't lack of opportunities or lack of mentorship that stopped me from achieving what I wanted when I was a teenager, it's just that I didn't want it bad enough.

BEVs like Teslas already have a rare-earth-free induction motor in them. They use an additional rare earth motor for efficiency, which in the Model S and X gets them ten percent greater range. The way this article conveniently ignores that fact leads me to believe there's no chance of the modified synchronous reluctance motor exceeding the efficiency of the induction motor and therefore will have no impact on the electric car industry.

Mighty impressive work from a teenager, though.

This is always the case when these young and wealthy prodigies are being covered by the media. They always invent a toy that the industry already tried or keep trying to make practical. Practical as in not just performance, but cost too.

Frankly you could filter out every HN submission with the phrase "-year old" and miss absolutely nothing of value.

Yeah, stupid kids learning about things with real world projects. They aren't state of the art at all!

I get what you’re saying but the headlines tend to imply that they’re state of the art (like this one). It always takes a knowledgeable someone in the comments to bring this fact to light, which makes me think it’s usually clickbait. Kudos to the kid, but less kudos to the journalist.

The kid is absolutely not stupid. But the media sensationalizing trivial stories is.

Most likely this is an already existing design, which is rarely used because of something that makes it impracticable on a bigger scale.

But because some smart kid happened to toy around with it, it's suddenly the new technology that will revolutionize the car business.

It's about the lifecycle of the inventor, not the motor, silly.

Even though the probability is low that he is founding a revolution in magnetodynamics, I personally found this story more inspiring than a blog post about the latest front-end Javascript framework.

A group of engineers run the numbers on a thursday afternoon and see immediately that it just isn't practical/possible. The idea dies without ever getting out of the lab or even off the whiteboard.

A kid stumbles into the idea though and has the gumption to actually carry it all the ways to a "working" prototype, which inevitably wows everyone who isn't in the field (pretty much everybody).

I missed the part that said his family is wealthy. Can you point me to that?

Just look at the photos. Only a fairly wealthy family could afford to buy him those instruments, and of course, the raw materials for the motors. Even his clothing suggests that there is no lack of money.

For what it's worth, that is cheap no-name Chinese test equipment he's using.

Probably a $300-400 setup, which is not nothing, but well within reach of most families.

Or mowing a few lawns. I pay the teen who mows my small front and back yards $40. It's not a big deal. He's done in 30-40 minutes and moves to the neightbors down the street. This is just a couple weekends of side hustle.

Benefit of the doubt: it could be a local makerspace. Although he's working on his pilot license so yes, he's a rich kid.

I missed the part about him working on his pilot's license. Thanks.

I wish I could be as innocent as you. Science fairs are for rich kids.

Here is Robert, 17, currently working on his Private Pilot Certificate. His hobby is dicking around with 3D printers and drones.

https://linkedin.com/in/robert-sansone-62116b1b7

I don't even want to link the second winner, but he is very connected in Saudi Arabia. Let's just leave it there.

That’s funny. I won my science fair and we were dirt poor.

I would point out that most kids with Robert’s access to resources would be smoking pot and playing Xbox, just like their poorer brethren. As someone without his resources competing at a science fair like him I feel absolutely no disadvantage and am impressed with his achievements. I ended up borrowing equipment from school rather than owning it but still had it. But I also wasn’t cool enough to find any pot.

Those resources (both equipment and guidance) must come from somewhere, and unfortunately usually they don't come from the school. Schools tend to treat science fairs as an extracurricular afterthought.

In Robert's case there are highly motivated parents and a motivated student, but it's really about the starting point. Motivation is something that can be fostered.

You say this like it's a bad thing.

> The way this article conveniently ignores that fact leads me to believe there's no chance of the modified synchronous reluctance motor exceeding the efficiency of the induction motor and therefore will have no impact on the electric car industry.

This is because you are 5+ years out of date with the state of the industry. All of the latest cars -including those from tesla (3 and Y)- are using SRMs, most with neodymium magnets. Note that these are NOT brushless PM motors, and the magnets are used for a different purpose. SRMs have the highest peak efficiency of any common motor design and are cheaper than brushless PM motors.

The only reasons not to use SRMs are the slightly lower torque efficiency and the difficulty of design... both of which this guy did.

I've always been a bit baffled by the ongoing panic around rare earth magnet shortages when induction motors have always been there as an only-slightly-worse alternative, waiting in the wings.

Like, if the economics shift enough, many major players in the space could change their designs within 5-10 years, couldn't they?

Note that if we ran out of samarium and neodymium tomorrow, we'd still use SRMs instead of induction motors. SRMs without magnets are still extremely efficient, just larger than induction motors. Despite being larger they are still cheaper as the extra weight is steel instead of copper.

SRMs had a high barrier to entry and benefitted strongly from better characterization and new electronics (SiC). Now that they're hear there isn't much point in going back to induction motors, unless copper becomes drastically cheaper.

I will also point out that neodymium is the most widespread and second most common REE, and is in fact unusually less common in China. Mines in the US are closed because of the capital and labor costs, not availability. Neodymium is >10x more common than most REEs.

> "The video explained that most electric car motors require magnets made from rare-earth elements"

For years, Tesla exclusively used induction motors with no permanent magnets. It's only relatively recently (when the Model 3 was released) that they started using permanent magnets in order to gain a few % better efficiency.

Even now, dual-motor cars often pair an induction motor with a permanent magnet motor. This configuration has various advantages: the induction motor can spin freely with no resistance when no power is required, so using one of each provides the best combination of efficiency and power.

I really like the EESM motors cars like the Renault Zoe use. It's basically a permanent magnet motor, but the rotor uses electromagnets that are energized through wireless power transfer.

A tesla Model 3 motor already is partially a reluctance motor. This youtube video describes it rather well, and I'd recommend giving it a watch [1]. Notice the air gaps - thats the reluctance part of the rotor.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esUb7Zy5Oio

> A tesla Model 3 motor already is partially a reluctance motor. This youtube video describes it rather well, and I'd recommend giving it a watch [1]. Notice the air gaps - thats the reluctance part of the rotor.

> [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esUb7Zy5Oio

I dont think he's using air gaps?

"Instead of using air gaps, Sansone thought he could incorporate another magnetic field into a motor."

That makes it sound like this could be used to improve Tesla's motors.

if you watch the video, tesla puts the magnets in the air gaps. (around 6m 40s)

Air gaps are the traditional way to make a reluctance motor. Sansone is exploring a different way to make a reluctance motor, improving performance at the cost of added complexity.

does anyone know how it works that towards the end of the video, it shows the resulting torque curve of the motor is actually negative for a decent span. Does this mean the motor actually resists rotation for that arc during every rotation?

Wouldn't that be a significant hit to efficiency, or do the benefits simply outweigh it for a net gain?

I think the idea is that the inverter's job is to always be continually changing the current to the motor's stator windings such that you'd always have close to the optimal angle between the rotor and the magnetic fields created by the stator. Kind of like how a gas engine might backfire if you fired a spark plug at the wrong time so a well designed engine would avoid doing that.

Cool article, engineers gonna engineer!

Two things that jumped out to me: it’s incredibly seeing copper being compared as the “cheap” alternative! Obviously it would be compared to rare earth but copper is typically “expensive” in general or household applications. Also, I had no idea Tesla motors spin at up to 18k rpm that’s just bonkers. Guess it makes sense because they’re single speed(?) Dang, old diesels (kind of an extreme example, I acknowledge) redline at like 3500 rpm.

This is great, I'm happy for him! But I miss the creative aspect in myself. I used to be so creative like him, with so many half-finished inventions scattered around the house.

Today there's nothing. I finally managed to carve out a day or two per week away from my job to work on personal projects after many years of failed attempts to get away at great personal expense. But the last 3 days that I went to work on something, I picked up the metaphorical brush and there was nothing there. No creative impulse, just worries about chores/bills/obligation and painful memories from 20 years of negative reinforcement after failing at business or going through traumatic life events in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2019 and during the pandemic. Probably many more that all blur together. Now I just project my frustrations onto the world with negativity and accomplish no forward progress towards my life goals.

Does anyone know a way to truly rekindle the creative spark after it's completely died? I feel generally happy and capable, but in borderline crisis that I can't self-start anymore or do work that isn't demanded of me externally. I'm coming to terms with the harsh reality that I'll likely never accomplish even one thing of any importance in all of the remaining years of my life. There's only work now and the daily grind. Pedal to the metal in first gear. Like I started out as Wesley Crusher but today am Paulie from Rocky with no prospects, only long slow decline.

Even though you're happy in every day life, it sounds like you could benefit from some therapy to help you unpack those painful memories. Moving past that might help your creativity flow.

When my creative juices feel depleted, I give myself permission to do nothing. Take a long walk, play a game, watch a movie, but don't make anything. I usually find that relieving the pressure of feeling like I should be more productive actually makes me more productive.

Your honesty was refreshing compared to others who jumped straight to hate, because there was no story about them as 17 year old inventors (so clearly he does not deserve it either).

But a magic bullet to rekindle the creative spark?

There is none.

Give it a rest and it will come back, or not.

Try something new, preferably somewhere else.

> Give it a rest and it will come back, or not.

I don't think this is right.

I think instead GP can pick up the brush over and over again and make things happen with or without the creative spark. The point is to get inspired by one's own creation, not to create ex nihilo.

When you pick up the brush with disgust, after a while you will feel only disgust with the whole art and never create anything inspired and beautiful again.

> No creative impulse, just worries about chores/bills/obligation

I think that's critical in many people's lives and I've felt it starting to creep in my, but I think I'm keeping it at bay. Based on personal experience, when you settle down and/or start family, chores/bills/obligations start creeping up on you massively. It's very easy to get sucked into a mindset that if you start falling behind on those, your life will start falling apart. In reality, a lot of those can be postponed with only minor downsides. Yes, you can live in a slightly dirtier/less organized house. Yes, the lawn can be slightly less maintained. Yes, you can probably postpone that car service another week. Just sit down, forget about the world [not] falling apart and enjoy your hobbies. Write some side-project code, start a hardware tinkering project that you're unlikely to finish. Disassemble a failing kitchen appliance to see if you can fix it. Those things bring way more to your life than the apparent utility!

I’ve been there, more than once. I seriously doubt the creative impulse can be eradicated, it is just hiding.

The way I’ve gotten past this is to commit to messing around, or trying to make some small thing, at a specific time on a schedule.

(Every morning, whatever you have)

Make no rules about what is “valid” to work on, and give yourself permission to quit after a certain amount of time if you still aren’t feeling it that day.

The creativity will return as a result of doing. And it may take a form that surprises you, and wasn’t what you set out to focus on, because currently you don’t know yourself well enough to know what you are even interested in.

One day, during one of those periods, I sat down at my regularly scheduled time and I produced computer music for about 60 minutes, listened back to what I made and was absolutely disgusted by how mediocre it was.

I stood up to walk out of my studio and on a lark picked up my trusty 6 string bass. I then wrote this entire song in one pass:

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/track/2erc0IdvaDh6xnprg8gthS?si=xX0...

Apple Music

https://music.apple.com/us/album/sometimes-you-need-sun-feat...

It just came out fully formed.

Relax, play, mess around, do little fun or interesting things. Let your mind wander. But sit down at your scheduled time.

Inspiration will return.

I was the same way only maybe not as productive as you. From a young age until some point I was always thinking always inventing.

I recall thinking if it was possible to not think since I was constantly thinking. I was well-known among my friends in pre-Internet times as knowing a lot of obscure facts. I was always reading anything from science journals to history mainly to get ideas for inventions.

One thing I have been toying with is a long fast. People say for them it reset their brain and they could think more clearly. And by long I mean days like a 7 day or more fast. At my age it would probably kill me.

Sympathies. If it's any consolation, Janacek wrote his string quartets in his 80s.

Go to Burning Man. I spent a month on site at a regional burn; in the month since then, I've published two personal projects and been much more productive at work. I never found that spark on return from "normal" holidays.

It's not gone, just rusted. The oil to fix that is simply spending time in a creative space. Keep making time for yourself to build something. Even if you sit at a bench for 2 hours and do nothing (I bet you won't) it's moving you more in the direction of creativity again than any amount of time on a computer or doing chores will bring you.

> Does anyone know a way to truly rekindle the creative spark after it's completely died?

I don't know about a "way" but falling in love definitely kicks things back in gear. Go and get yourself a muse.

For me, falling in love became a distraction, sadly.

You have to ask yourself what's my goal? And what's my reward function? Very different for everyone.

> creative spark

The harder you want it, the more elusive it is.

I've done a bunch of projects that I'm proud of (on a very minor scale, mostly 0 use outside of satisfying my own curiosity), but if you ask me now on the spot I would have no idea what is the next interesting personal project that I'll find really creative and fun.

When it comes it comes.

I recently created a Scanner Daybook from the ideas presented by the late Barbara Sher in one of her books. It's freed me to explore ideas on paper with no obligation to create the works I describe. The funny thing is that it strokes my mind and I actually get a lot of the projects done. I tend to work in an MVP fashion and create very simple things, however.

Therapy, therapy, therapy :)

> No creative impulse, just worries about chores/bills/obligation and painful memories...

and later:

> Does anyone know a way to truly rekindle the creative spark after it's completely died?

Take an unreasonably keen interest in your chores/bills/obligations. Do you need to cook dinner? Research the hell out of it to understand the underlying principles. Experiment with your techniques, take notes, and perfect. Learn the history of what you're doing. Do you need to do car maintenance? Really understand what it is you're doing and why. Do you need to manage finances? Become an expert in double-entry accounting. Actually watch how-to videos on it and maybe engage in an online discussion or two about it.

It's easy to ignore the mundane things we're all faced to do. It's also remarkable how interesting anything - no matter how seemingly unremarkable - can be if viewed from the right perspective and taken to sufficient extremes.

If you were to take this approach, I suspect you might find some interests you never knew you had. It's possible you can't make headway on your old interests because you yourself have changed. Those old interests don't in fact interest you in the same way anymore, but you haven't recognized that yet.

Part of the resistance to the creative process is the current demand from the market that version 1.0 of something has to be 'near perfect'.

In the old days (80s and 90s), a software startup could release their first version that did something truly unique even if it was still really rough around the edges. People would buy the first version with the expectation that a good portion of the revenue would be used for R&D which would make version 2.0 way better. You could boot-strap some really great projects that way.

It seems that today, a new product never stands a chance unless it has great funding up front with all the kinks worked out and tons of bells and whistles built-in before ever being introduced to the public.

I created a new kind of data management system that manages unstructured data (i.e. files) completely different than conventional file systems. It also does some amazing work with structured data using Key-Value stores to make really fast relational tables.

When I demonstrate how it can do something like file lookups thousands of times faster than file systems or how it can do a query against a big table 10x faster than Postgres; you would think that would capture people's attention and make them want to investigate it further.

Instead, most just point out what your little startup project is still missing when compared to 40-year old projects that are on version 15. They say, "Get back to us once you have A,B,C,D,... features working, tested, and perfected". When you lack the resources to do that, it can be soul crushing.

The creative impulse can be shy, when it's not all consuming. We forget that we need to play, without the expectation of a result.

The highest creative states are sometimes called "formless functioning". This is when you are fully immersed in creating, and the ego just dissolves. It's hard to be creative when you're standing over your own shoulder criticising your lack of creativity.

So I would be gentle with yourself. Play, do things you enjoy just because you enjoy them. The creative impulse will stir.

I don't know the answer to your problem. I've gone through periods of "lack of creativity" in my own life, usually when there's too many "life experiences" happening around me and my day job is spilling over in the number of hours it needs.

I will say that WFH has helped immensely, at 6PM-ish I turn off the VM that is my day job computer and flip over to whatever it is I want to be working on, or go in to my workshop. I have designated areas in my home office for - this is where I write, this is where I do electronics, this is where I write code, this is where do my day job, this is where I do woodworking. That compartmentalization prevents other activities from spilling over. Limited social media hours, just like limited TV hours, is also another boon.

I write a lot of what I call "lab notes" about my thought processes as I work through ideas, example here https://github.com/justinlloyd/retro-chores for a current project, take lots of pictures of things as I research, and see where it leads me.

I also abandon a lot of things too, when I am no longer feeling the spark. I'd rather have a hundred abandoned creative projects than a few that I feel guilty about not working on, or not feeling the urge to work on.

I'll try to give a more practical approach to complement other answers. I believe creativity (in specific field and broadly) is a skill like any other that you need to cultivate and practice. It's also much about problem solving, identifying needs, connecting ideas, and learning (i.e. having a good pool of knowledge), than apparent. The more of each of those you have, the better you become at innovating and creating in your field.

When you go into the world, you need to go asking yourself "What could we improve here? What could we change here?". If you're in a creative (artistic) field, it's a good idea to survey the work of others and develop "taste" -- i.e. your own perceptions of what's good material, and what things could be improved.

I'd suggest a few things:

(1) Develop a space. Decide what you want to create, and give yourself a dedicated space for it: 30 minutes a day, a few times a week, you name it. I'm pretty sure with the space you will star making things, whatever you like.

(2) Learn supporting skills and knowledge. Each field has necessary skills to really be able to create -- software skills, hardware skills, math, writing, drawing, art theory, etc.

(3) Survey what's out there. If you're a game developer, play games and develop your own ideas, what is my dream game like? What defines a good game? What's missing out there? What can I actually make with my means? You'll be able to feed back into your creations. If you're an engineer, the world is waiting to be improved upon as well :)

Find a way to challenge yourself. Maybe find some "off-the-shelf" projects to build that don't require creativity, but maybe do require some new skills or new technology you haven't used before.

> I can't self-start anymore or do work that isn't demanded of me externally

I've had similar feelings in the past. For me, the way out is to flip it around: I'm not neglecting my personal project out of a lack of willpower or motivation, I've lost interest in my personal project and it's no longer rewarding enough to be worth my time! The solution is to find something new to do, not run yourself into the ground trying to see it through.

It's not a job: you don't have to deliver something for your time. Focus on what interests and excites you, not what will get internet points or make money. If you want to allocate part of your free time towards making money, treat that like a second job and not as free time.

Also, a career culminating in a permanent fellowship with an inter-dimensional time traveling think tank in your early twenties is an unrealistic standard for achievement.

Maybe try magic mushrooms?

He has an amazing lab and access to a lot of expensive resources. There should be maker labs like this for pre-college kids all over the place, that are free.

Try going internet free for two weeks?

I'd suggest hanging out with some other creatives, of whatever flavour interests you. It's hard to light the fire all by yourself!

Thank you everyone, I'm blown away by your responses, which are too numerous to address individually :-)

After sleeping on it, I think what's going on with me has to do with midlife changes in perception. For example, a young artist might dabble in oil painting and not think about things like the carcinogenic effects of paint thinner or the sustainability of pigments. But at my age, I see opportunity costs in everything I do, which stifles my creativity. Even if the risk is simply the time cost of doing something and missing out on the chance to do nothing and rest.

My struggle seems to parallel the larger crisis humanity is facing in how we have to still go to work as the world burns. Like to save the world, we have to stop thinking about it for a time and do what we can with what we have. And this tough love concept applies to our individual realities. Somehow I have to suspend disbelief long enough to get ahead of my hangups. It's a bit like switching from technology back to magic. Or from science to religion. I know it works because I've felt the love and oneness of being in the zone for extended periods over much of my life. But so much of my psyche is grounded in survival now that reconnecting with my inner child feels decadent. Yet I must do it or the rest of my life is forfeit.

The only conclusion I can come to is that my belief system is sabotaging my goals so I must change myself before I can change the world. A bit pithy perhaps, but hopefully helpful to anyone in the same boat who happens to read this.

All the objections to this that I have are from the breathless tone of this article, and the many others in the past that have made big claims for the sake of precious, precious clicks. Whether or not this particular design revolutionizes the field is beside the point. As we know, most things do not. But if he's made something novel that expands our understanding, and he's done it in a garage without institutional backing, or investors, or even a mentor, then it's an impressive achievement.

So, how is it in terms of efficiency? The article mentions that it's 31% more efficient than existing reluctance motors, but doesn't give a comparison to the traditional electric motors.

That's a very good question. I have an EV motor control and calibration background so lots to say here. First off, peak efficiency tends to occur at mid to high speed and mid to high torque, in other words high power. Most EVs spend very little time operating anywhere near their peak power. It may take as little as 4kW to drive down the highway at constant speed, but a motor may be capable of 100kW or much more.

Efficiency at 500 to 1000 RPM is important, and reluctance machines tend to be very poor at those speeds and low torques. So maybe he increased efficiency from 30 percent to 61 percent, which would be really good. Or maybe he increased efficiency from 50 percent to 65.5 percent (65.5/50 = 1.31 but I hate looking at percent change of a percentage). What he did not do is increase the max efficiency significantly at an already efficient operating point where most motors are already over 90 percent, and that's OK because like I said we don't operate up there very often.

BTW, IMHO the best way to characterize electric machines like this is not to look at their efficiency, but to look at their losses. There's a really nice way to plot losses but it's a bit hard to explain in a comment. He also doesn't seem to have a dyno which makes taking data and testing a lot easier.

Anyway, he did a great job and will undoubtedly continue doing so!

>He also doesn't seem to have a dyno which makes taking data and testing a lot easier.

how do you test without a dyno? and isn't it easy to set up a electrical generator tied to a high wattage variable resistor to do it?

We often want the a dyno to maintain a given speed and do torque control with or motor under test. These roles can be reversed too.

When working on water pumps I didn't need a dyno, as the fluid provided sufficient load. It was a bit tricky to make before/after comparisons though be cause getting the exact same operating conditions (torque and speed) was not simple.

> Efficiency at 500 to 1000 RPM is important

Why is this? Thinking out loud: can't you gear your motor so that it's most efficient at cruising speed for the vehicle? But the problem is that the car still needs to be able to accelerate from zero and some gearings will make that impossible, so having an efficient band at 500—1000 RPM gives you the best chance of being able to accelerate from 0–500 RPM?

I mentioned that efficiency isn't a good measure. We need low losses at all operating point, and the "cruise" points in particular. The problem with measuring efficiency is that at zero speed (starting from a stop) or at zero torque (coasting) your output power is zero (torque times speed) and since there will be at least some input energy that means output/input = 0. Because of this, all motor efficiency maps show poor performance along both axis and a big region of "good" at higher power. There is a steep gradient of efficiency between those extremes and small changes in losses can really shift the "efficiency" a lot.

I like to plot Torque on the X axis and losses (in watts or kW) on the Y axis. Make a series of curves at different speeds (each curve is at a constant speed). These curves intersect the Y axis at zero torque, so friction can easily be seen on the Y axis. The curves have a parabolic shape (I^2 copper loss) forming a sort of butterfly. If the wings spread out at the tips (curves separate more at high torque) there may be magnetic issues. These maps are really nice, are easy to compare, and never mention efficiency at all ;-)

If the design is sufficiently low cost, and since it it wont have drag when free wheeling, multiple motors could be ganged to provide different peak/torque efficiencies. High torque to get off the line and a cruising motor to travel at speed. Given the power to weight densities of modern motors, having multiple compact motors will provide zero weight burden in a car.

Motors are no monolith, and the various scaling factors WRT bearing quality and air gap (among other construction tolerance issues) mean the smaller the motor is, generally the less efficient it is. What is motor efficiency is very much a "how long is a piece of string?" question.

All engineering is about tradeoffs and if the kid is replacing air gap with "something", that efficiency has to be balanced against better bearings vs better mfgr tolerances etc. Its still a valid tool in the collection of tradeoffs; but its unlikely to match the boosterism tone of the article as being "the solution to all our problems".

The problem with boosterism is not that its positive or criticism is good or complaining that contest he was in, is mostly a contest of parental income and willingness to spend, but the problem with boosterism is it can completely overshadow any actual science or engineering. The kid probably DID do something cool and interesting, but it's buried under the boosterism and exhilarating claims of world changing etc.

Its a valid criticism because this kind of popular coverage gives the false impression that actual science journal articles or EE component datasheets should consist of 99% boosterism with perhaps 1% content. From a journalistic perspective its worthy of criticism in the sense of this is NOT science and engineering journalism, its just a puff piece full of glory and sparkles. From an educational perspective its worthy of criticism in that the tone of the article implies kids should not go into STEM fields unless their parents are rich and easy spenders, which ironically would be a better match for a non-financially rewarding liberal arts degree; I assure you that a kid can grow up to be an excellent EE even if his parents can't afford a 3d-printer.

As a parent, my first question is what did his parents do to foster this and enable it, and can I do it too? I know my kids may not be interested in engineering, but I want to at least give them the chance. And I suspect whatever his parents did is applicable to other interests too.

If I had to guess, they probably let him try whatever he wants, without that knee-jerk impulse of saying "that's crazy, no way!" or "stop what you're doing and clean your room" or "you're always in the garage. go out and play, or get a part time job". Now it's possible he's able to do this because his parents can afford to let him spend time on this, but still. It's really easy as a parent to just say "no", but much harder to put your own prejudices and assumptions aside and say "yes". My daughter is 10yo and spends hours in her room drawing, painting, and making miniatures of everything out of cardboard, paper, and whatever scraps are around. She hoards all that stuff. So many times I say, no let's throw that away or you're spending too much time on art. Her best creations are when we leave her completely alone.

I recognize my own hypocrisy, because I'm a far better developer when there are few meetings - when I'm left alone.

Oh god I can related to this with my daughter. Our flat is an open garbage thanks to her hoarding of scraps, paper scraps, parcel cardboards etc.

I’m not a parent, but I had a less-than-supportive teenagehood. I think an unconditional support of your child’s interests and growth will go a long way. Be a yes man/say no as little as you can. I imagine this kids parents provided a lot of financial support from his parents too.

"Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their children than the unlived life of the parent." — Carl Jung

Good luck! I wish you the best!

> If his motor continues to perform with high speed and efficiency, he says he’ll move forward with the patenting process.

Is it a wise move? Shouldn't he just file a patent application instantly? (It is not a kind of a sarcasm or something. I really do not know, and I'd like to hear from people experienced with patent applications.)

Probably. Given some years back the US moved to a first-to-file system, getting an initial patent application filed to establish that date is probably not a bad idea and isn't too terribly expensive.

Can be done for just the filing fee. But you'd likely want to have council help, about $6k last I looked.

You don't need a completed application to get a provisional going. A suitable written description is enough, and is something an individual can probably do on their own. The USPTO even has a whole section providing resources and assistance for folks to do this:

https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics/using-legal-services/pr...

That said, promoting that to a full non-provisional application is not something most people should do without a patent attorney as it takes real skill in the art (ha!) to get the claim set right.

Just make sure to use the phrase “or plurality of” a lot.

Its kind of expensive. About $30-50k for the entire process. For a big company with deep pockets and IP lawyers already on retainer that price is just the cost of doing business and an investment of beating the competition. If your an individual $30k for a not sure bet is a hell of a lot of money.

A good friend patented a makeup applicator and she's not sure if she'll ever get that money back.

Why does it cost so much to file a patent? Isn't one able to draft and submit an application by themselves?

You can do a lot of things on your own and you may even be successful at it but there are so many roadblocks intentionally put in your way. If you don't have the expertise to file an application paying someone else to counsel may be prudent. If you do have the expertise you'll probably make more being hired to file than the actual patent filer.

Anyway, she thought of an idea. Sketched and prototyped it. Hired a lawyer to file it and that was step 1. She wasn't able to manufacture, license, or sell her patent.

She went back to being a makeup artist and was mildly successful streaming.

Other friends with patents work for large corps (Siemens, Microsoft, Motorola) who handle it all automatically. They might have got a plaque and a annual bonus for their effort. None are wildly richer for it.

I got a dollar, for mine...

It doesn't cost that much to file a patent. It costs a ton of money to hire lawyers though.

You can DIY-it for a lot less. I patented an invention for about $2k. I wrote the claims, specification, and produced the technical drawings myself. Then I had everything reviewed by a patent attorney. If you have a lot of spare money or you're hoping that your patent is going to be the next big thing you may want to shell out for patent lawyers though.

On the other hand, there are cases where even the pros make serious mistakes in drafting patents despite all of the money they charge, because no one really understands an invention like the inventor. So there's a lot to be said for understanding how the patent process works, especially if you might become a prolific inventor at some point, which it sounds like this teenager is well on his way toward. Then it's likely worth the time investment to understand the basics of IP law and patents.

Even publishing it gets him a 1 year inventor's grace period where his publication can act as prior art to stop others from patenting, but doesn't stop him from patenting, under the newish first to file rules. But I dont know about internationally.

The USPTO's grace period is very generous internationally. About 16 countries have comparable rules.[1] In most of Europe, any public disclosure beforehand completely prohibits you from getting a patent. So if you want protection outside the Americas and Eastern Asia, you should still not disclose anything before you get a patent.

[1]: https://www.mewburn.com/law-practice-library/grace-periods-f...

This next generation is finally fulfilling the promise of the Internet in my opinion. Every book, article, research paper and millions of high quality instructional videos, lectures and courses are there for the taking. And the Zoomers really are using all that information. It's like water to fish - it's all around them.

I've personally seen my son and his friends get into and then become proficient in a bunch of different topics, like motorcycle maintenance, programming games, film and video editing, drone racing/building, music and a ton of other real-world useful skills, all without a mentor being involved. I've personally learned more about a bunch of different topics I never had a handle on before, like physics and math, where my education was stuck at an 11th grade level until the past few years.

Compared to my teen years, the difference is breathtaking. I think the result will be a better society and a bunch of people doing what they really love for a living.

This is just so damn impressive. He has considered things from materials science, physics, making I.e. the reality of building things that others have funds of millions$ to try.

Hats off to him for this amazing achievement. It’s a path-making achievement and wish him every success.

Impressive to come up with this on his own, but possibly already patented. Tesla has been using magenets instead of airgaps in their Internal Permanent Magnet - Synchronous Reluctance Motor back in 2020. Hopefully his other inovations are more novel. https://uk.motor1.com/news/462107/video-tesla-model-3-electr...

This is awesome.

He mentions not having a mentor... "“I didn't have a mentor to help me, really,"

But I am skeptical about that claim-- I think good guidance by good parents is arguably mentorship.

A quick google search yielded a family run HVAC company, Sasone-AC in St. Lucie, Florida, which is essentially a suburb next to Fort Pierce, Florida, where Robert Sasone resides. Nicolas Sansone is an owner & Vice President of Sansone-AC. Nicolas Sansone who is related to Robert Sansone.

I think it's likely this kid's father, mother, uncle, etc. is an engineer and/or entrepreneur/business person (or engineer/scientist of sorts) and mentored him.

https://www.spokeo.com/Joseph-Sansone/Florida/Fort-Pierce--P...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-sansone-25111132/

https://www.sansone-ac.com/about/meet-the-team/

That said, Robert's Sansone's accomplishment here is really awesome.

My dad was an alcoholic doctor and all I turned out to be is a software engineer (I say this with sarcasm and jokingly :P). All kidding aside though: I think having parents who offer good guidance does make a difference.

Certainly Einstein's being born into a highly competent engineering-company family didn't hurt him any. Parents do know that if you teach well, the kid's think they did it all themselves. I'm highly amused that you're being downvoted for having done some research that provides context. That'll teach ya :) I voted for ya, but it didn't change the color of your comment.

I don't know how this motor works, but it instantly reminded me of my mentor's vintage guitar amp with a field coil speaker[1]. The key idea was that copper was cheaper than magnets, so they make an extra coil of wire on the speaker which generates a magnetic field. Then the voice coil drives the speaker by modulating that field. This article[2] seems like a decent introduction to the topic.

The thing that struck me about the amp was how lightweight it was. While newer amps may use rare earth magnets (which pack more magnetic field per gram) vintage amps usually had to use heavy inefficient magnets.

[1]: http://www.preservationsound.com/2010/10/the-field-coil-guit... [2]: https://www.edn.com/field-coil-speakers-obsolete-or-the-futu...

I normally try to avoid posting a comment that echoes others, but I will make an exception this time.

I am old enough to remember issue after issue in the 90s of Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, and other magazines wherein there’d be a breakthrough that promised to revolutionize the world. Then, you’d read news off Yahoo or Fark that would describe a young wiz kid’s new invention. Nothing happened. Ever.

Due to this inevitable hype train that lacks any kind of stopping ability, paranoid types would start thinking that the oil industry must be involved in stopping them. Not a bad assumption given things that megacorps have done in the past, but it is generally bad policy to invent large nefarious schemes with zero evidence.

As a younger guy, I was always intrigued and would then start drawing and writing about the world to come! It was so enjoyable and the crushing disappointment would come over the months as nothing more was heard or seen. I awoke to the reality that people run risk calculations on business, on machinery, on changes, and if the financials aren’t viable, things don’t happen. Additionally, young inventors are often seduced by patent purchase offers. Then if megacorp X has a bad culture that can’t produce a truly new product… it dies. Beyond all of those challenges, you have regulators to convince as well. Of course, here in the good ol’ USA, regulators don’t seem to care toooooo much about safety. Paper thin cars with zero crumple zones? okay. SUVs without doors, roofs, accurate steering? okay. Trucks and SUVs with very high rollover potential? sure. Non-lockable differentials? absolutely. Massive lithium batteries that catch fire somewhat easily? Why not.

Note, I am actually fairly libertarian and don’t support regulation in general, but I hear very frequently that automobile regulation is big reason for innovation being stifled, and in this case I do not see how that could be even remotely possible.

Somebody sign him up for YC. $500K is enough to build some good prototype motors and find out if this is commercially viable.

Impressive...we might actually get our next Tesla or Edison...as I've noted here before, why there's not more such prodigies these days with genuine determination and obvious ability given today's population, existing knowledge base and access to education and resources still somewhat eludes me.

What exactly is novel about this? I've participated in ISEF before and the amount of marketing/hyping and the lack of knowledgeable judges is frustrating. ISEF also clearly have a thorough fetish with patents. If you check the box on your form suggesting you may look into patenting in the future, your project performs a lot better.

> Instead of using air gaps, Sansone thought he could incorporate another magnetic field into a motor. This would increase this saliency ratio and, in turn, produce more torque.

This appears to be the novel part. It's an SRM but it appears to replace, or augment, the airgaps using some additional technique to increase the saliency ratio.

The text sort of implies that it's using a rotor winding, but I'm not sure; that would arguably make it no longer an SRM. Maybe he's added conductors into the airgaps to exclude magnetic fields via eddy currents.

Or maybe something else!

Whatever it was, it's very impressive to be making and testing motor prototypes on one's own, at his age or any age. There's a ton of work that goes into every little detail, like coil winding, or bearing alignment. Definitely great work!

The only thing that saddens me here is the patent aspect. I really wish we had a more open and effective IP mechanism.

Wow. This is inspiring — will be interesting to see what else he does in the future. Selfishly I hope he stays focused on innovative hardware stuff rather than getting dragged into advertising optimization or some other big software project.

Good luck if he gets a patent and helps improve the world.

This feels like another story on a revolutionary battery which is 20% better but has 3x parts and is 10x the final cost. I hope it's just bad reporting.

I wonder how much classical education hinders this kind of people. I can see a point in networking, however creating a network of randomly assigned people doesn’t seem so effective. It might be better to create a network from clubs, etc.

I never created anything so impressive while young but I was always curious and building or taking apart stuff. I always felt school got in the way.

in the end I stayed all the way until PhD and later changed careers, but that’s a different story

If it does not pan out for cars it sure will for sailboat engines, golf carts, lawnmowers and more! That is a lot of magnets taken out of the rare earth equation.

The article teases by opening with a casual mention of "high speed running boots" but I'm having a devil of a time finding any info about that.

I've thought about this a bit myself. About 15 years ago my unpowered prototype allowed me to speed walk about as fast as I could sprint. Only problem was my ankles kept hitting each other... Very painful.

Sounds like a very inventive and interesting guy rather than a one trick pony. Good luck!

Minor grammar point: I assume the engineering professor was consulted by Tesla. 'Consulting with' would mean that he asked them for help, which would be somewhat less remarkable.

Kudos to this kid and all his accomplishments to this point. Here’s to a future of many many more. I sure as hell wasn’t this accomplished at 17.

Even if it's never used commercially, this is still so cool. He made his own synchronous reluctance motor! That's super fun!

“But eventually on the 15th motor, I was able to get a working prototype.”

me, on 3rd try: "Nope. FTFAL, Ima watch a film."

When I first began using social media I was excited at the potential ability in the future to look back over my life. In reality I have almost completely abandoned social media and I am very happy with the Google photos remember this day feature which for me goes back at least 15 years. The only worry is how long Google maintain Photos

What? Wrong post, maybe?

Yup, thanks, was supposed to be posted here.

This is how we do it. Not 30-somethings in STEM for the cash and clout, or Twitter warriors frantically retweeting, or the green PR industry, or authoritarian rules.

More people like this lad, motivated, smart, and hard-working, and we'll become sustainable. Just need to get out of their way.

We do "it" (what's "it"?) with... 17 year olds' spare time, for free? Maybe they get a patent if it all pans out?

> (what's "it"?)

"It" is this:

> we'll become sustainable

> with... 17 year olds' spare time, for free?

With:

> More people like this lad, motivated, smart, and hard-working, and we'll become sustainable. Just need to get out of their way.

Part of the problem is that there's very little cash in the S or M parts of STEM.

Tesla’s electric motor evolution is an interesting journey that has taken them at this point to the permanent magnet synchronous reluctance motor (PMSRM). Their history is very interesting. The early Model S was RWD using an induction motor. The AWD Model S then got a smaller induction motor on the front, keeping the larger sibling in the rear. They then ditched the larger rear motor and just used the same smaller motors front and rear. All the while they were also evolving the software to optimize for torque split, acceleration, and range. They released a feature that they called torque sleep in which the rear motor would pulse off leaving just the front motor driving the car during low torque conditions. The AWD was effectively FWD during these moments, squeezing additional range.

When the Model 3 was released, it had a completely new motor, the permanent magnet synchronous reluctance motor. Various names and acronyms called it PMSRM, IPM-SynRM, PMa-SynRM, but the main difference was that now Tesla was moving away from the asynchronous induction motor (and no permanent magnet), to the PMSRM. Having permanent magnets now allowed it to have true “one-pedal” driving, where the car can bring itself to a complete stop without using the physical brakes. With the magnetless induction motors, the driver has to induce a brake hold during a stop, then release, which was still better than keeping the foot on the brake, but one-pedal driving was the luxury feature to have if just for the lazy look-ma-no-pedals stop.

Wait there’s more.

Tesla in its genius still had inventories of the induction motor, so at first they created an AWD configuration that had the extra-large watermelon-sized induction motor in the rear and cantaloupe-sized PMSRM on front. Software was used to optimize for power or range. Stomp on the power pedal and electricity went to the induction motor. Cruise for range and this load was tasked to the PMSRM. There was enough combined torque and power to go around that Tesla could make these modulations hundreds of times a second.

They also sold these combinations as the Performance or Plus version. There was also the LR for Long Range, the LR Plus, the Standard Range, Standard Range Plus). You can guess as to which combination of AWD, RWD, induction, or induction + PMSRM each car model had based on the badging. They did this for a few quarters then went all in on purely PMSRM front and rear. Some Tesla old-school purists still scour the used car listings to find the pure induction models.

If you haven’t experienced it you have to try how smooth the Tesla motors are when it comes to one-pedal driving. It’s really good compared to other makers. One-pedal driving isn’t unique to Tesla but there’s something different in their recipe. It’s available in the latest Model S, 3, X, Y with PMSRM. Tesla engineers are a brilliant lot and maybe Robert Sansone can join them and continue the arc of motor evolution and who knows maybe go back to motors without a permanent magnet someday.

Now I want to know more about his "high-speed running boots".

Bright youngster indeed and very hard working too. Congrats!

Bright kid indeed and very hard working too. Congrats!

Smart kid indeed and very hard working too. Congrats!

Supercool, keep at it, never mind the bollocks!

That's so cool! Nice job!

Very cool congrats to him.

It’s always the same, “<minor> creates revolutionary thing”. And then nothing comes out of it.

Waiting for the "yeah, but..." comments now.

'Could'...

That's because the "rest of the story" isn't as good. With a little digging you often find <minors>'s parent(s) are a researcher that studies that exact <thing> <minor> was building, or <minor> somehow got a job working at a lab that works on <thing>, or <minors>'s <thing> isn't as novel as article leads you to believe often with <thing> being known and unused due to some obvious flaw.

Very true. I bet Sam Zeloof's parents are rich as hell.

That's fine, as long as it's not some phoney PR thing like "...well and their parents happen to world experts of the same thing", or own a business around this, etc.

Usually because <minor> has made a prototype of an already well-established phenomenon, and the really difficult part is making a production-ready design.

A bit like the "10-year-old makes a heart pump for just $10" stories. It's really easy to hook up a motor to some pipes, it's absurdly hard to make that pass medical regulations.

A lot of this stuff dies on the industrial engineer’s desk where it can’t be made viable at scale.

This is also true for a lot of research done by adults at a large cost. Every "New Battery Technology Will Run Your Phone For 1 Million Years!" story ends like this once they go to the real world with it.

Because most of these stories are sensationalized omitting a lot of facts around who's that kid, who are his parents and how much help did the provide him. It's also often a PR stunt to promote an underlying company or organization. This kid didn't developed anything in his parent's garage, he had access to sophisticated industrial equipment and you bet someone helped.

Of course, there are outliers, but most often it's borderline fake news.

Also, would be good to see any proper research done on the correlation between kids like that winning prizes and how they fare in the future in terms of driving first-rate innovation wherever they go.

I have a hunch there's hardly any.

Better than Clock Boy

"I heard some guy invented a car that gets 100mpg and lasts for 30 years, but the auto industry and oil industry had him killed."

Aren't most anti aircraft missiles heat seeking? Could also be a reason why 60% of the engine energy need to go into creating heat. Otherwise cheap gas engine drones that can't be intercepted and can fly thousand of miles could be really dangerous.

stan meyer (infamous for claiming his dune buggy ran on water) did a hilarious talk where he described pvc tube rockets filled with water used both as the propellant and the explosives. Mass produced they would cost 5 dollar[sic]

The war we could give..

Yes, it's called Carnot's conspiracy.

There's this car that runs on WATER, man!

It adds to the humor that the two numbers you quoted might actually be achievable.

My own conspiracy theory is that the only reason this story got traction is because it carefully sends the message "EVs are not sustainable, and might never be".

There's enough people being paid to tell clear lies that I don't feel I'm paranoid to suggest that writing such an article (which seems very careful to not be particularly positive about current EVs) might get you money from fossil fuel interests and/or they'd hype it for visibility.

Oh. No, Volkswagen and Mercedes sold cars like this 20-40 Years ago. I.e. the VW T4 or the Mercedes 200 D. That was the time where german cars were still good.

> Instead of using air gaps, Sansone thought he could incorporate another magnetic field into a motor. This would increase this saliency ratio and, in turn, produce more torque. His design has other components, but he can’t disclose any more details because he hopes to patent the technology in the future.

ah well great, we'll all just twiddle our thumbs waiting on that then instead of collaborating on how to integrate the good ideas here into existing large scale manufacturing.

While many of us are against certain types of patents, this is exactly what patents are for- protecting the invention of an inventor for a very limited time (20 years, it used to be 7 if I recall). In return, society gets the invention "source code" in the form of what is essentially exactly how to reproduce the invention.

> ah well great, we'll all just twiddle our thumbs waiting on that then instead of collaborating on how to integrate the good ideas here into existing large scale manufacturing.

So what's your alternative? Inventors are required to share everything freely, and never profit from their work?

Firstly, I didn't indicate anyone is required to do anything. Secondly, you present a false choice. I innovate with software every day, have published millions of lines of code with almost no restriction on re-use, I certainly "profit" via my employment and donations; I'm just not a billionaire. This inventor is certainly in a great space to get incredible, lucrative job offers via his fame and notoriety.

put another way, what if instead of him inventing a novel way for a motor to be enhanced, he instead were a physicist who discovered some new property of physics that basically allowed the same thing to occur? Do scientific discoveries get "patents" that prevent anyone else from making use of that new information for 20 years?

It’s not that hard to get a provisional patent. And like it or not the USPTO is a vital institution for incentivizing innovation and driving growth.

Why are there no improvements in traditional petrol engines? They basically convert 60% into heat. Like use the heat to run a steam engine?

There have been huge improvements since the first petrol engine, and huge improvements in the last 20 years as well. Petrol engines are some of the most studied and meticulously engineered things ever created.

What do you mean? The amount of improvements in standard ICE engines are mind-blowing. The fuel efficiency and power they manage these days is insane. You’re quoting that 60% figure and neglecting that most of the losses from that are thermodynamic and mechanical losses at transfer points that can’t really be overcome. At some point you have to lose some heat along the way.

We’ve been improving them for like 150 years, and they’re still getting better. For example, Mazda’s Skyactiv to increase compression ratios.

There has been a myriad of improvements in traditional petrol engines?

Yet our cars still can't fly, and still emit greenhouse gases...

Are you waiting for a petrol engine that doesn't emit gases? I don't understand your comment.

Why not? We've been promised carbon capture forever...

We do have flying cars.

Can you name a single person you know of with one?

Isn't this called a helicopter? Aside from the noise, etc. issues with them, what would be the difference between a flying car and a helicopter? The need for a pilot's license to fly one?

Price and ease of street parking come to mind!

It's amazing what we do have. Just the computers alone are more than anyone could have ever imagined. But as for flying cars, they do exist, but we just don't need them.

I know a person who built one (actually more than one). Issue is that I don't think it's a good idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf3I0ORN3ac

Turbochargers do exactly that. They take waste gas/heat to turn a pump and provide more oxygen for combustion. Also look into the F1 ERS systems that recover waste energy.

Drive a car from the 1980s for a little while, then come back and we can discuss how much better engines are today.

Lots!

One big limitation is the Carnot efficiency - for any heat engine (which internal combustion engines are) there's a maximum upper bound on the efficiency, which for gasoline and diesel is around 37%. Beyond that point you can't extract any more energy out of the waste heat without removing energy from somewhere else in the system.

Petrol engines can physically only achieve around 55-60 % efficiency, so getting up to ~35-40 % vehicle efficiency is actually really good. Large scale Diesel engines get really, really close (within a few points) of the hypothetical frictionless-no-heat-radiation-no-flow-losses efficiency possible with their parameters.

There is a fundamental limit to ICE efficiency dictated by the laws of thermodynamics. You can push that theoretical limit up, but it is dependent on having a higher compression ratio. Diesel engines use higher compression ratios for ignition, but they are dirty (in comparison). Higher compression ratios tend to result in more NOx emissions too, so for the regular car makers there is a direct trade between efficiency/emissions/reliability. But even if you aim for highest efficiency at all cost, you'll never get close to 100 percent, as the theoretical max never goes there (or does it at infinite compression ratio?).

The term to google for is cogeneration. Sometimes all people need is the correct search term.

The problem with cogeneration is its usually incredibly heavy and there aren't many uses for very low temperature process heat in most real-world applications.

Another problem with cogeneration is you might get a small percentage boost by connecting a backup generator to the HVAC system but the capex can be VERY high if done safely and reliably, and system complexity seems to scale at an exponential rate. It seems a no-brainer to dump the radiator heat from a backup generator into an office building thereby burn less natgas to heat the building; however you factor in that you have to frost-proof it all and its going to be hundreds of gallons of anti-freeze in those pipes which is expensive and all pipes leak eventually with has ecological issues, and you can't have exhaust leaks into the building and over half the time you need cooling not heating anyway and the HVAC cannot be made smaller because you still need to heat even when the gen is off and the HVAC system will be less reliable because it'll be more complicated and the backup gen will be less reliable because its more complicated, perhaps making the backup gen less reliable than wall power. So shrug shoulders and dump the gen heat using an air cooled radiator, even in the winter.

There is, especially in Racing. In Formula 1 some engines have reached 52% thermal efficiency [1], but the amount of hardware required in order to capture the excess heat (see MGU-H)[2], makes this costly and difficult to improve upon, and currently with the new F1 engine regulations they are dropping some complex systems so the barrier to entry is less expensive.

[1] https://www.racefans.net/2021/11/11/how-f1-can-push-the-worl...

[2] https://www.quora.com/What-are-MGU-H-and-MGU-K-in-an-F1-car-...

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