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November 15 2010
Science Idol! Arab Reality TV Show Puts Inventors in the Spotlight
If America’s Got Talent, then the Arab World’s Got Science–that’s if you believe the messages in reality shows, anyway. The Arab reality show Stars of Science, currently in its second season, takes young (18-30) inventors from around the Arab world and pits them against each other, American Idol style.
The show, presented by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, hopes to encourage entrepreneurship and creativity in both the contestants and the show’s viewers, Abdulla Al-Thani told AME info:
“The aim is to showcase the whole process of innovation — from inspiration, to the elaboration of a concept, its development and finally, its application,” said Dr. Abdulla Al-Thani, Vice President, Education of Qatar Foundation. “Science and technology will now be given an entertaining twist through the very popular reality TV show format, making the topic accessible to all. We hope ‘Stars of Science’ will promote the innovative spirit of young people in the Arab world.”
The competition includes weekly eliminations based on challenges involving the engineering, design, or business of the contestants’ inventions; daily shows following the contestants as they work, educating the audience about the science behind their inventions. The students have just five weeks to engineer and design their preliminary idea into a workable prototype.
For each competition, 16 inventors are picked from thousands of applicants from across the Middle East. Its format differs a bit from the typical reality show template: When one project is voted off by the judges, the contestant stays with the show, joining one of the remaining teams. AME info explains:
One of the main features of this original format is its non-eliminatory process: at the end of each prime-time episode, half of the projects remain in competition, while the candidates form teams evolving all along the contest. From 16 candidates and 16 projects at the beginning, the show ends with 2 teams of 8 students and 2 projects facing for the finale.
The final winning project gets $300,000. Last year’s winner was Bassam Jalgha with his invention of “Dozan,” an automated tuning device for stringed instruments. Some of this year’s projects: An air-conditioned vest for working in the field, designed by Maha Al Amro; a motorized walker from contestant Ahmad Al Ghazi; and heart-rate measuring swimming goggles from Hind Hobeika.
This season will wrap up with the final voting round on November 28. This year’s competition should be hot, one of the shows judges, Fourad Mrad, told The National:
“This is a lifetime opportunity and these innovators are very anxious, hoping to prove to the world that their idea is valid, is scientifically sound and can be packaged into something useful to society. As long as they work hard, stay on track and are committed to their goal, we should see an exciting competition.”
Applications to participate in the show’s third season are open until November 30.
Related content:
Discoblog: “Whale Wars” TV Show Leads to Real-Life Feud Between Activists
Discoblog: Real Reality TV: David Hasselhoff’s Very Public Intervention
Gene Expression: The decline of Survivor
Bad Astronomy: Bad TV on the Science Channel: The Apollo 11 “UFO”
DISCOVER: Peer Review: The Dark Side of Reality TV
DISCOVER: 20 Biotech Geniuses to Watch
Image: Stars of Science
September 28 2010
Bicycle Bubble/Monorail Transportation System—Crazy or Genius (or Both)?
A human-powered monorail system called Shweeb won $1 million from Google’s 10^100 innovations contest.
The company that manufactured the Shweeb is one of five to be awarded a total of $10 million from the competition. They will use the money to develop the Shweeb for use as a city commuter transport option.
The Shweeb efficiently uses human power from a rider sitting in the recumbent seat, pedaling the bubble-shaped pod through the air. This vision for public transportation is a little out there, but the Shweeb has some promise, says Gearlog:
Like all truly forward thinking ideas, Shweeb seems completely nuts at first glance. As a tech blogger I’d love nothing more than to mock Google and it’s choice of Shweeb with its poor-man’s take on the Jetsons opening sequence. But the more you read about it, the more Shweeb’s innovative take urban transport makes a whole lot of sense.
The pod gives you your own personal space (literally a personal bubble) while traveling and allows you to choose where you need to stop – without adhering to a timetable, like a subway or bus. The company will soon announce where the first public Shweeb will be built, and it could soon start cropping up in adventure destinations or cities near you, says PopSci:
Shweeb may not be practical for everyone or every city, but for some cities it might make both environmental and fiduciary sense. Compact cities like San Francisco or Boston could have Shweeb lines instead of open-air bus tours, or massive parks like Manhattan’s Central Park could avoid clogging up bike lanes with tourists by sticking them up in the air on a monorail.
The pods at the test track, which also doubles as a $30 adventure ride at Agroventures Park in Rotorua, New Zealand, can travel faster than Lance Armstrong in a bike race, but in use as urban transportation the Shweeb would be limited to around 16mph. The company’s website even claims that the Shweeb is easier than walking:
On firm, flat ground, a 70kg man requires about 100 watts to walk at 5km/h. The power required to move a Shweeb along a rail at 20km/h is only 33 watts. We rest our case!
And even if you get stuck behind a slow-poke, the pods can hook up to each other, and using the combined power of two go faster than either one alone. The website even claims that the pedaling is so leisurely that you can catch up on your email, phone calls, or texting and not even break a sweat.
If you’ve gotten this far in the post, you probably have a bunch of other questions or objections about how there’s no way this thing could work. Shweeb has anticipated many of these (or at least fielded them before) and put some useful info on their FAQ page.
Related content:
Discoblog: Bizarre New Treadmill-Bike Lets Gym Rats See the Outside World
Discover Magazine: Reviews: The Incredibly Strong See-Through Bicycle
Cosmic Variance: Get L.A. Moving
Cosmic Variance: An Easier Way to Get Around
Image: Shweeb
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