Polish Genius : Piotr Gorski / Just Pen

a pen for the disabled, a touch-sensitive flashlight? Inventors don't sleep / Google Science Fair is an international competition aimed at students aged 13 to 18. One of the awards you can win at GSF is the honorable title of Inspired Idea. They are awarded to the author of the invention who has the greatest chance of changing the world. Voting will start in August. In addition to pride, the luckiest people will also receive, among others: a trip to the Galapagos Islands or $50,000. His chances of winning include: fifteen-year-old Ann Makosinski, who created a flashlight that operated under the influence of the heat of a human hand. In the description of her unusual flashlight, Makosinski wrote: "Using Peltier plates and temperature differences between the inside of the hand and the air around it, I designed a flashlight that emits bright light without the use of batteries or moving parts." The teenager spent only twenty-six dollars on the production of the invention, which allows us to predict that the invention will one day be widely used.
The idea that necessity is the mother of invention fully reflects Marek Jurek's success. An engineer from Warsaw dreamed of a bicycle that could be quickly and efficiently folded to fit, for example, into a car. He drives it around the city every day, arousing the curiosity of passers-by and drivers. His Easy Rider Bike has no... chain, the pedals are on the front wheels, and the saddle is located extremely low. Unfortunately, there are disadvantages to this invention. The bike is heavy, slower, and buying it would not be the cheapest. However, the bicycle was appreciated at the International Fair "Ideas, Inventions, New Products" iENA 2011 in Nuremberg. Another extremely interesting Polish invention, which may appear in stores in a few weeks, is the "Just pen". This is a pen designed for people who cannot write due to health reasons. Operating it is similar to using a regular pen, but the patient only needs one finger to be able to use it. Moreover, it is completely easy to maneuver. Author Piotr Górski told us what the last decade during which this product was created was like. The road to the invention was long, and it began during the first year of studies in 2003. I am a graduate of industrial design at the Koszalin University of Technology. My studies involved constant observation of the surrounding reality. I have always focused on simple activities such as... playing on the beach. Children teach us many things because they act naturally and intuitively. They don't pick up sticks when they want to draw something in the sand. They use their finger. So I asked myself: why don't we do that?
Who is this device intended for? What types of diseases do its future users struggle with?
I started the design process only at the end of my studies, because it was related to my master's thesis. Just pen is intended for people who cannot write. Surprisingly, there are many of them. The reasons also vary. The pen will work well, among others: in people who have had finger amputations, spinal injuries or cerebral palsy. www.apdizajn.pl