Thank You to an Anonymous Donor Support for Public Invention and Open-Source Inventions Dear Anonymous Donor, Thank you for your recent generous anonymous gift to Public Invention. I don’t know who you are or why you chose to remain anonymous, but I respect your wishes. Your gift expresses confidence in the ability of our society […]
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The State of Open-Source Ventilator Projects I’ve written this topical piece on the current state of things as I see them in the effort to make open-source ventilators. Medium Link https://medium.com/@RobertLeeRead/the-state-of-open-source-ventilator-projects-as-of-march-21st-1f36bfb608b4
The State of Open-Source Ventilator Projects as of March 21st… Read More »
You Don’t Have to be an Engineer to be a Public Inventor Engineering skills are useful in many invention projects, but many of the people already working on Public Invention teams do not have an engineering background. Part of the rationale for Public Invention is that technical developments in the last couple of decades (including
You Can Be a Public Inventor! Read More »
“80% of projects are trivial. 20% are impossible. We must work in the thin boundary between these two classes.” — Edsger Dijkstra (quoted from memory) Public Invention fosters project-based invention teams that work “In the public, for the public.” Experience has shown this is a great way to learn, although learning is a secondary benefit
What Makes a Good Public Invention Project? Read More »
Science is about Truth. Engineering is about Compromise At Public Invention, we do both, but perhaps more engineering than science. Our goal is to have a large positive impact on many people; but time and money are always in short supply. How, then, to compromise on which projects to prioritize? In order to be able
The Fuller Scale: A Unit of Humanitarian Invention Impact Read More »
Leonardo da Vinci said, “The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.” But he was wrong — the greatest pleasure is successful collaboration to help others. We can perhaps forgive Leonardo this slip, as no doubt it was hard for him to find co-workers who could keep up with him; I have no such limitation.
The Joy of Collaboration: Math Tablet Project Read More »
The Mission of Public Invention is to “Invent in the public, for the Public” We invent things that help all people. We empower inventors, technologists, and students to publish, find, and collaborate on invention ideas through direct coaching, team formation, curation of work, publication, co-working and learning events, and, in some cases, material support. We
Mission of Public Invention, 2.0 Read More »
Invent things that help humanity. Please see below for an explanation of why the mission statement is being published at this time. If this mission statement appeals to you and you would like to learn more about Public Invention, please contact me <read.robert@gmail.com>, — or, respond here so that others can benefit from your response.
Public Invention: Mission Statement, 2018 Read More »
A prototype of a flying machine, constructed by Václav Kadeřávek in Prague about 1860–186 About twenty times in my career as a Computer Scientist and Public Inventor I have somehow informally presented an idea to someone or a group of people, only to hear them say, “That’s been done.” Sometimes they add some additional information
What to Do When You Hear: “That’s Been Done…” Read More »
A Journey to Invention Once upon a time there was a boy who wanted to be a great inventor. Books and comics and movies put that idea into his head. He was small for his age and was born pigeon-toed and cross-eyed. He was terrible at ball games. He thought that if he was a
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