Friday – JohnKu – AKA- TGIF – Fri-Yay/Good News

~ John W. Howell

 

Michael Chacon, Madison Morrison, Andrew Palacio, and Leen Alfaoury – credit WILL KIRK JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

Today’s good news comes from the Good News Network.

Students Invent Leaf Blower Silencer Attachment–Corporation Expects to Be Selling Them Soon

By

Andy Corbley –

Engineering students at Johns Hopkins have created a silencer module for the campus leaf blowers, reducing the devices’ overall noise pollution by 37%. At the same time, they succeeded in almost completely eliminating the high-pitched whining that annoyed them the most.

The design is patent-pending, and Stanley Black & Decker, who sponsored the students, expects to sell them in two years.

It’s not uncommon for leaf blowers to be banned by homeowners associations or following apartment tenant protests—their endless, up-and-down caterwauling of various frequencies is the delight of no one, and worse, landscapers often use them in the early morning to avoid the heat of the day.

“The sound that comes out of this leaf blower is very complicated, and it contains a lot of different frequencies,” said team member Andrew Palacio. “A lot of different notes on a piano would be a good analogy.”

The Johns Hopkins campus currently uses battery-powered leaf blowers, which are already quieter than gasoline-powered ones. Since last September, Palacio and his team members Michael Chacon, Leen Alfaoury, and Madison Morrison have examined the devices in depth—how many sounds are there and what is causing them.

Overall, they have workshopped more than 40 versions of leaf blower silencers. Many of them worked but diminished the power of the air coming out. They eventually came up with an easy-to-secure suppressor that functions much like the ones fitted to firearms.

“Our product takes in a full blow of air and separates it,” Alfaoury told Johns Hopkins. “Some of that air comes out as it is, and part comes out shifted. The combination of these two air sections makes the blower less noisy.”

“It ultimately dampens the sound as it leaves, but it keeps all that force, which is the beauty of it,” adds Chacon.

It’s one thing to come up with trumps in a class project, but this invention isn’t designed to win them any science fairs, but rather for going on Home Depot or Lowe’s shelves.

“It’s not just some cool theoretical thing that will sit on a shelf and never be heard from again—this is ready to be mass manufactured,” said Nate Greene, senior product manager at Stanley Black & Decker, who graduated from Johns Hopkins in 2017 with an engineering degree. “This is a scarce and dramatic level of success.”

WATCH the story below from JH University Press…

The good news in this story is that a problem that is not Earth-shattering has been solved through hard work. Although leaf blower noise is a first world annoyance it is good to see it has been overcome. Today’s JohnKu talks about solving problems.

Solutions by John W. Howell © 2014

Its not world hunger,

But a problem worth solving . . .

Shows genius at work.

79 thoughts on “Friday – JohnKu – AKA- TGIF – Fri-Yay/Good News”

  7. Fantastic news, John. Leaf blowers have already been banned from a neighboring town. I like that it was Hopkins students – both my husband and daughter went there.

    Liked by 2 people

  17. Indeed, this is great news! Good for the young people, who show us what perseverance can accomplish; good for everybody who hates having to listen to these noisy landscaping devices!

    Liked by 2 people

  19. It makes me so happy when our youth uses their ingenuity to create something beautiful or useful. Bravo to them and to the teachers who inspired them. Thank you, John, for sharing this sign of hope! 🌞

    Liked by 2 people

  21. Anything that helps our quality of life is a win. I hope someone can come up with a solution for chainsaws, which I find far more annoying.

    Liked by 2 people

  25. I love that students invented this.

    I love that they aren’t ripped off by a big company. Many inventors are.

    Okay, now that they’ve solved that noise issue, perhaps they can come up with one that makes air conditioners(domestic and industrial) more quiet!

    The JohnKu is right on.

    Thank you, John!

    Umm, do you allow leaf blowers in your hood?

    💨🍃 💨🍂

    Liked by 2 people

  26. That’s amazing! Good for them. And the timing of reading this is funny to me because when the gardeners were at the neighbors’ on Friday, I literally thought, “Man, I wish there was a way to make that quieter.” I can’t be certain it was the leaf blowers I was hearing. It could have been hedge trimmers at the time, but in any case, I get it! This is so cool.

    Liked by 2 people

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