Feats of engineering are constantly coming to fruition, big and small, from students across the country. This particular feat might not be moving mountains for humanity, however the “outside the box” nature of this innovation has quite a few potential real world applications.
The innovation I speak of is a fire extinguisher that uses focused, low-frequency sound waves (bass) to blow out fires. Created with just $600 of personal investment, these George Mason students have already patented the idea and are working on ways to bring it to market. However, this might be more of a future technology, a fact which co-creators Viet Tran and Seth Robertson are well aware of…
“Eventually I’d like to see this applied to, maybe, swarm robotics, where they would be attached to a drone and that would be applied to forest fires or even building fires where you wouldn’t want to sacrifice human life.”
Another potential cash-out for this idea are its applications in space, where sound waves can be directed without gravity, compared to normal fire extinguisher contents that would spread rapidly, potentially damaging expensive equipment.
H/T Gizmodo