This 20-cent whirligig toy can replace a $1,000 medical centrifuge
Centrifuges, which separate materials in fluids by spinning them at great speed, are found in medical labs worldwide. But a good one could run you a couple grand and, of course, requires electricity — neither of which are things you're likely to find in a rural clinic in an impoverished country. Stanford researchers have created an alternative that costs just a few cents and runs without a charge, based on a children's toy with surprising qualities.
It's a whirligig, and it's a simple construction: a small disc, probably a button, through which you thread a piece of string through twice. By pulling on the threads carefully, you can make the button spin quite quickly. You may very well have made one as a child — as Saad Bhamla, one of the creators of what they call the Paperfuge, did.
"This is a toy that I used to play with as a kid," he says in a video produced by the university. "The puzzle was that I didn't know how fast it would spin. So I got intrigued and I set this up on a high-speed camera — and I couldn't believe my eyes."
Source: Tech Crunch (link opens in a new window)
healthcare technology, medical devices, public health, rural healthcare delivery
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