Segway Inventor Drinks His Own Pee

Mr. Kennedy · 12-18-2005, 08:42 PM

I saw this on another board and thought I would share it with you all.
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Quote:

Dean Kamen holds 150 patents. He invented the Segway, oversees a national high school robotics competition. Owns his own island, even, in the Long Island Sound.

So it may seem strange and slightly sad that he found himself drinking his own pee last year in South Carolina.

Hold it: Things aren't as bleak as they sound.

To explain -- Kamen sank several million dollars and more than three years of his life into developing a portable water filter that will purify through distillation any type of tainted liquids poured into it. His 200-employee DEKA Research and Development has produced about 30 of the prototypes. About the size of a dorm-room fridge, they use about 2 percent of the energy required by traditional distillation systems.

To prove the technology would work, at a medical and information technology conference held in October 2004, he and organizer Richard Wurman ... well, let Kamen take it away:

"I pull out the bottle and I pour a couple of glasses on stage," he told asap from his New Hampshire office. "And it really was the water that really did come out of the machine. And amid a whole lot of laughter and applause, both Wurman and I drank the water. It's the first time we ever bothered to actually collect peoples' urine and purify it and drink it."

With that, here are Kamen's top four reasons he drank his own urine:

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No. 1: IT'S CLEAN

"It's actually pure, distilled water. Any bottled water you have has far more minerals and other contamination. Our machine literally makes pure distilled water. It really doesn't matter what the input was, the only thing that comes out is pure water. It's not like a tablet that people will use chlorine or something to disinfect it or make it biologically inactive. We didn't take urine and add something so you now have urine plus something to make it safe. ... Nothing from his biology gets through the machine."

___

No. 2: TO PROVE HIS TECHNOLOGY

"I want people to understand this whole concept of point-of-use, immediately accessible water. It shouldn't be big municipal base stuff. The 21st century is going to see computing being personal, and communications by cell phone being personal. And I think things like power and water will come down to being that way. The industrial revolution is over and the big model, grid and everything else, seems to be not the most efficient solution for the future. And that's a good opportunity for the developing world, because they can step in on the shoulders of giants."

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No. 3: TO DRAW ATTENTION TO WORLD WATER PROBLEMS

"We call the project our slingshot project. ... To me the interesting part of the David and Goliath story was it was a little piece of technology (the slingshot) that allowed the little guy to take on the big problem. And I think one of the world's big problems is that 1.1 billion people out there don't have access to water. That is a Goliath of a problem. ... So I thought a neat solution would be to give people a small box that can take any source of water and turn it into pure, distilled water."

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No. 4: FOR PUBLICITY, OF COURSE

"We're getting some very serious organizations that I think are starting to see this micro-scale model is exciting and very real. They're seeing our micro-scale hardware is maturing and might really fit the bill. ... One of the people who I know has been speaking about the machines is Bono. He had heard about our machines and he spends a lot of time traveling to Africa. We talked about it and apparently every night this week at his concerts in Boston, he's talked a little bit about it. We're going to try to work with him and leverage his visibility and access in some of these developing places to get some machines out quickly."

Would anybody here be willing to try this machine out?

Inogenius · 12-18-2005, 08:45 PM

I don't think I'd be able to use it just knowing what went into it.

thirty7 · 12-18-2005, 11:34 PM

I'm with Terry, i could not be able to do that

Mr. Kennedy · 12-18-2005, 11:40 PM

I wouldn't be able to do it either, but i'm sure this would be great in places like Africa where famines aren't that rare.

Inogenius · 12-19-2005, 01:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TJ Spyke

I wouldn't be able to do it either, but i'm sure this would be great in places like Africa where famines aren't that rare.

That's true. Drought stricken areas could use this thing with much success. I imagine this could also be included in space in some sort of fashion.

Disco Raheem · 12-19-2005, 08:46 AM

I saw Waterworld (unfortunately) and it didn't look too bad...

12-18-2005, 11:40 PM	#4 (permalink)
Mr. Kennedy Wii #1 Status: Offline Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Rochester, New York Posts: 11,938 vBookie Cash: 500 Rep Power: 15	I wouldn't be able to do it either, but i'm sure this would be great in places like Africa where famines aren't that rare.
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12-19-2005, 08:46 AM	#6 (permalink)
Disco Raheem Senior Monk Status: Offline Join Date: Jan 2001 Posts: 3,507 vBookie Cash: 500 Rep Power: 11	I saw Waterworld (unfortunately) and it didn't look too bad...
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Segway Inventor Drinks His Own Pee

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