To celebrate the most impressive innovations of the year that just ended, website Interesting Engineering published a ranking in which they listed twenty-two that are skinned like an advent calendar and wouldn’t have quite the right number of boxes.
Coincidence or not, the seventeenth place on this 2022 list is occupied by a young man aged 17, Robert Sansone, who caused a stir by proposing an electric motor model that could revolutionize this universe.
Last August, his invention won first prize at the 2022 edition of the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), which annually organizes the world’s largest competition for science and engineering students. By the way, he won an endowment of $75,000, which is about 70,000 euros.
Sansone hit
The young Floridian’s brilliant idea – which Interesting Engineering concedes is not 100% new – lies in the invention of a non-magnetic electric motor, more specifically a new type of synchronous reluctance motor whose performance (measured in torque) exceeds that of conventional motors by around 39%.
This type of motor is typically used for pump and aeration systems, but has never been used for electric vehicles. Here lies the ingenuity of Robert Sansone, whose invention could make it possible to reduce the cost of manufacturing engines. It would offer the possibility of doing without magnets, which are uneconomical and not very ecological – a pure understatement when you look at the way their materials are obtained.
American industrialists will also appreciate the fact that by not using certain rare metals for the development of their electric motors, they can increase their independence from China, the largest exporter and therefore currently considered an indispensable intermediary.
Continuation in ideas
It took Robert Sansone a year to design his prototype magnetless synchronous reluctance motor. For this he used a 3D printer, copper wires and a steel rotor; and with a laser tachometer, he was able to measure the torque of his creation, confirming he was holding gold between his fingers.
The young man did not get there by accident: in his young self-taught career he has already developed no less than sixty prototypes, including a robotic hand and a kart capable of driving at more than 110 km/h.
A few years ago he published a video demonstrating his passion for motors and explaining that the use of magnets to operate electric motors was both an economic and an ecological problem.
The anecdote, told by Smithsonian Magazine, shows how many ideas Robert Sansone has and proves, if need be, that he’s not just some guy making things up in his garage when he gets out, bored – which would be honorable. No, obviously we have a researcher here who is happy to contribute with his gray matter to answer fundamental questions.