"Education, Assistance, and
Networking for the Inventor"
The Nevada Inventor Newsletter
of the Nevada Inventors' Association, Inc. Post Office Box 11008, Reno, NV 89510-1108 http://www.nevadainventors.org February, 2000
--MIT Student Wins Prize for Design Innovations to Aid Developing Countries--
--Team of Students Wins Unisphere Solutions-backed Telecommunications Award--
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (February 9, 2000) -- The Lemelson-MIT Program announced today that Lexington, Massachusetts native Amy Smith has been selected as the recipient of its sixth annual $30,000 Student Prize for inventiveness. The Lemelson-MIT Student Prize judging panel selected Amy Smith, an MIT graduate student, because of her inspiring dedication to applying her mechanical engineering design skills to invent devices with appropriate technologies for use in developing countries.
At the same awards ceremony on the MIT campus today, a separate $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Team Prize - sponsored by Unisphere Solutions, Inc. and recognizing innovativeness in telecommunications and networking technologies - was given to three MIT students for their fabrication and design research in integrated optical devices. Methodology developed by the winning team of Michael Lim, Jalal Khan and Thomas Murphy should pave the way for breakthroughs in the high-capacity telecommunications transmission industry.
The Lemelson-MIT Student Prize is awarded to an MIT student who demonstrates remarkable inventiveness and who serves as an inspiring science and technology role model for young Annericans. "While technology is often seen as increasing the 'digital divide', technology is also needed to decrease that divide. Amy Smith is the perfect example of an inventor-innovator who's using technology to close that gap," Lester C. Thurow, Chairman of the Lemelson-MIT Awards Board said. "Her dedication to appropriate technologies invention is refreshing - Amy's mechanical designs could benefit thousands."
"Invention is a challenge to utilize the design skills I have learned and apply them to situations where they can be put to good use," Smith says. One of her remarkable inventions is a grain mill adapted for rural areas of developing countries, where women traditionally spend up to four hours a day grinding grain by hand. Smith notes that "while this task could be done in about a minute using a motorized hammermill? these devices often break down and the screen used to collect the flour is expensive to replace since it can't be built locally." She designed and built this new screenless harnmermill and tested it in Senegal. The mill was created at one-fourth the cost of conventional mills, used less energy and produced a superior product.
She has also invented a laboratory incubator that does not require electricity, using a novel approach to temperature maintenance that utilizes a phase-change material instead of relying upon delicate instruments like thermostats or electronic controls. "Necessity is the mother of invention, but it has often struck me that the most needy are often the least empowered to invent", Amy Smith noted recently. To that end, she is participating in a project to redesign medical laboratory equipment for use in remote clinics and field laboratories in developing countries.
Smith has a tireless commitment to innovation in the field of international health. She is working on a new clamp for regulating the flow of intravenous fluids, which will be especially critical during epidemic outbreaks in rural areas, enabling nurses to control the flow rate quickly and reliably and thereby serve more patients. Using the same phase-change technology that she applied for her laboratory incubator, she has invented a microscope slide warmer to prepare the slides for rapid tuberculosis diagnosis.
Smith plans to finish her Master's in the Technology and Policy Program, focusing on technology transfer to developing countries, in 2001. She earned her Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering from MIT (1984) before spending four years in Botswana with the U.S. Peace Corps - double the standard Peace Corps assignment. Upon returning from Botswana, Smith earned a Master's in Mechanical Engineering from MIT (1995).
Reprinted courtesy: Invention Dimension Internet links:
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Schweitzer [45] Date of Patent Dec. 19, 1989
| [54] REBAR CUTTING AND BENDING MACHINE [76] Inventor: Len Schweitzer, 3272 Susileen Dr., Reno, Nev. 89509 [21] Appl No.: 208,351 [22] Filed: Jun 17, 1988 Related U.S. Application Data [63] Continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 59,703 Jun. 8, 1987, Pat No. 4,798,078. [51] Int CL B21D 28/00 [52] U.S. CL ............. 72/332; 72/324; 72/389; 83/200; 83/605 [58] Field of Search 72/389, 324, 325, 326, 72/479, 384, 212, 213, 332; 83/600, 605, 602, 673, 674, 199, 200 [56] Reference Cited U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS 812,4S2 2/1906 Richards................... 83/200 1,265,34S 5/1910 La Rock .................83/200 3,996,782 12/1976 Sgariglia.................. 72/332 FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS 388561 8/1908 France............................... 83/200 0683862 9/l979 U.S.S.R ........................... 83/200 657997 lO/1951 United Kingdom ...............83/200..... |
Primary Examiner-David Jones Attorney, Agent. or Firm-Townsend and Townsend [57] ABSTRACT A hand~operated rebar cutting apparatus including first and second discs carried by a shaft mounted on a frame. The discs are pivotable relative to each other and each includaes grooves which can be aligned for receipt of a bar to be cut. The first discs is pivotal on a shaft carried by a frame and moves incrementally through a predetermined arc such that the grooves become substantially axially offset from each other. The appartus is attached to a manually operable bender and straightener having a linearly reciprocable slide mounted within a guideway. As the slide is reciprocated, the first and second discs of the apparatus arc Pivoted relative to each other. The apparatus includes a ratchet mechanism for allowing incremental pivoting of the discs relative to each other through the predetermined arc, while allowing reciprocable movement of the slide to its initial position without returning the first and second discs to the position in which the grooves are aligned. The apparatus also includes return means for pivotally returning the first discs in a second direction through the entire predermined arc during a single return stroke of the slide. When the grooves are substantially Axially offset from each other, a bar placed in the aligned groove is thereby cut. 30 Claims, 3 Drawing Sheets |
"Education, Assistance, and Networking for the Inventor"
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Created May 6 2000
Updated November 29, 2005