• Question: Have you ever invented something? What is its purpose?

    Asked by Sarah007 to Ted, S. S., Laura, Kevin, Ellen, Andrea on 5 Mar 2019. This question was also asked by Danica 149, raven123.
    • Photo: Ted Burke

      Ted Burke answered on 5 Mar 2019:


      I wrote a piece of software called CommandCam that lets people take photos automatically on their computer with a USB camera. People used it for all sorts of interesting things. One guy used it to make a time lapse film of plants growing. Someone else used it to automatically take a photo of his own face every time he logged in to his computer. I think people are still using it for a lot of things.

    • Photo: Ellen Simmons

      Ellen Simmons answered on 6 Mar 2019:


      Nothing exciting… but I’ve worked on lots of useful products. It’s not all about who “invents” it, but also who develops the product and makes sure it will work in its intended market and purpose.

      In consulting, we often don’t invent the thing, we just help the inventor make it work!

    • Photo: Andrea Pacheco

      Andrea Pacheco answered on 11 Mar 2019:


      I created a realistic optical phantom of the thorax of a neonate. This is like a silicone doll that has all the main organs (exactly the same geometry as those from a baby) as lungs, bones, heart, muscle, fat and skin. And I made it in a way that if I shine a laser over the doll, the light will behave in a very similar way if interacts with human tissue. 🙂
      This allow us to make studies with a new technology called GASMAS and optimise it to develop the clinical device to measure oxygen in the lungs of preterm babies.

    • Photo: Kevin OBrien

      Kevin OBrien answered on 12 Mar 2019:


      I have never created anything that could be considered an invention.
      All of my work has been around advancing existing systems or combining inventions to create a new product.
      Perhaps in the future I’ll have the opportunity to develop new solutions to problems that can be considered inventions.

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