Manu Prakash, PhD, a prolific inventor of low-cost scientific tools, has been named one of Popular Science magazine's "Brilliant 10" for 2014 - an award that recognizes the nation's brightest young minds in science and engineering.
In the last year Prakash has introduced two novel science tools made from everyday materials.
The first was a fully functional paper microscope, which costs less than a dollar in materials, that can be used for diagnosing blood-borne diseases such as malaria, African sleeping sickness and Chagas. It can also be used by children -- our future scientists -- to explore and learn from the microscopic world.
The second was a $5 programmable kid's chemistry set, inspired by hand-crank music boxes. Like a music box, users crank a wheel that feeds a strip of hole-punched paper through the mechanism. When a pin hits a hole, it activates a pump that releases a precise, time-sequenced drop of a liquid onto a surface. This low-cost device can be used to test water quality, to provide affordable medical diagnostic tests, or to design chemistry experiments in schools.
The inventions are brilliant in both their elegant simplicity and their use of emerging technologies, such as 3D printers, microfluidics, laser cutters and conductive-ink printing.
"In one part of our lab we've been focusing on frugal science and democratizing scientific tools to get them out to people around the world who will use them," Prakash told Amy Adams in a recent Stanford News story. "I'd started thinking about this connection between science education and global health. The things that you make for kids to explore science are also exactly the kind of things that you need in the field because they need to be robust and they need to be highly versatile."
Sometimes, just for the fun of it, I'll wander over to the Prakash lab to check out the team's new inventions. They never fail to impress.
I heartily agree with the Popular Science editors on this year's choices for the Brilliant 10: "Remember their names: they are already changing the world as we know it."
Previously: Manu Prakash on how growing up in India influenced his interests as a Maker and entrepreneur, Dr. Prakash goes to Washington, The pied piper of cool science tools, Music box inspires a chemistry set for kids and scientists in developing countries and Free DIY microscope kits to citizen scientists with inspiring project ideas
Illustration courtesy of Popular Science magazine
