What types of problems or dilemmas similar to those that Griffith encounters are you aware of in your own design field?
- No plumbing on outside walls
- Lack of detailed measurements on any property that they are working on
- Making customers happy
- Keeping within the budget
- Following all zoning and building codes
- Buildings not being handicap accesible
How are these problems being solved
- Having inspectors periodically check on a site
- Creating groups to enforce laws about accesibility in buildings
- Resaerching information about properties
- Draw building with owner and engineers there to watch for mistakes before building occurs
Try to identify the types of problems that Owen describes. Some of these are encountered directly by Griffith; others are articulated by him. There are at least six. Note these on the article, and be ready to discuss in class.
- We know that there are winds with altitudes that are higher than that of conventional turbines, but we can't figure out a way to store that energy
- We can't make as big of turbines as we need because lengthing the blades increases their weight and their surface area, consequently, thier vulnerability to destructive stresses
- Since Internet is becoming so popular, it's carbon footprint now exceeds those of air travel
- Moving Makani beyond the prototype represents a trememndous challenge because the world is so used to transformative technological changes taking place almost instantaneously that they don't give hardware a chance becuase it takes longer to "update."
- Even when money is given to these kinds of projects, the money is distriputed to so many groups, some that already get money from other groups, that ones such as Makani doesn't recieve enough to start a business
- Global recession has put a stop to many inventive groups
- Many of their projects have a great idea but are waiting for the right application and "in" to the world
- Cover all the roads with solar cells: smart idea but very energy intensive way to build a road, but the negative point is that you're unlikely to get that energy back
- For the Squid Labs, the partners who started them left to run them
- After failing to produce an amazing invention the temptation grows to become a very vanilla consulting company
- No battery comes anywhere close to holding energy as efficiently as the fuel tank of a car
- The real problem with cell phones isn't technological; it's cultural. Coveting slightly fancier models, we abandon flawlessly functioning devices after just a year or two, long before their components have degraded
