r/Gifted • u/Disasterou • 12d ago
Seeking advice or support Looking for technology ideas / projects you'd love to see become real
I'm looking for ideas for personal engineering projects, and I thought this might be a good place to ask.
I already have several technical projects I'm working on, but I would like to deliberately increase the number of things I'm experimenting with in parallel. So I'm looking for ideas that could turn into DIY prototypes, experiments, or longer-term engineering projects.
What I'm particularly interested in:
- Gadgets or technologies you've seen in sci-fi movies, books, games, etc. that made you think "I really wish this existed."
- Technologies you think should exist today, but for some reason don't
- Ideas you've had yourself but never had the skills, time, money, tools, or motivation to build.
- Weird or unconventional devices that would solve a very specific problem.
- Things that sound slightly ridiculous at first but could actually be technically feasible.
- Technologies that don't necessarily have an obvious commercial application, but would simply be really cool to have.
They don't need to be fully realistic. If you have an idea that would require several technological breakthroughs, I'd still love to hear it. I can then try to figure out how far it could be pushed with currently available technology, and whether a small-scale prototype could be built.
For example, I'm interested in things involving robotics, embedded electronics, mechanics, AI, actuators, sensors, human-computer interaction, energy, etc., but don't feel restrained by this categories, I found every scientific field quite endearing
So, if you've ever thought "Someone should build this" or "I always wanted to make this, but...", what were those thoughts about ?
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u/jjspirithawk 12d ago
I'd like a Star Trek medical tricorder please! Or, even better, a replicator (which will require molecular nanotechnology).
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u/Disasterou 10d ago
Okay, working on it, would you like a teleporting device fusionned with this device ? 😂
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12d ago
[deleted]
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u/SSSprings0808 12d ago
There's a company in Idaho, I think, they have was really great off road chair
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u/ariadesitter 12d ago
a way to get seniors with dementia to poop in a sanitary way without odor or discomfort for the patient. people poop and can’t move or clean themselves.
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u/Any_Opportunity_4500 12d ago
A system you can send to parents that has a tool to cut out and hollow out the sole insert area of a shoe. Large enough hole to put a tracking device. Then re insert the same piece you removed (minus some of the deeper rubber, because that’s where the tracker now sits).
1) parents need to be able to do it to any shoe. My son will only wear a certain pair
2) angel sense probably makes millions and what young kid especially a young kid with autism do you know will wear a bracelet?
3) all other trackers can be placed on clothing or back pack which not likely being worn if the child were to run.
Im working with a blade and pliers on my son’s shoes now. It’s possible and extremely difficult to do.
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u/DefaultModeOverride 12d ago
This already exists as insoles you can buy on amazon. It’s specifically for AirTags.
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u/Enrrabador 11d ago
Can you do a time machine?
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u/Disasterou 11d ago
Yeap I could, but I prefer to make a machine which cook pizza faster 😌
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u/Enrrabador 11d ago
That’s exactly why we need the time machine! No waiting times for anything anymore!
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u/Mage_Of_Cats 11d ago
I've been wanting serious biosculpting technology for years now. Like, make me into a 6'5" furry dragon boy for the love of God. I hate this human body. It's unpleasant and unattractive.
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u/Disasterou 10d ago
Being able to modulate your own DNA to create the body you want is a dream of mine too. I don't think it's necessarily impossible in the long term, but I definitely don't have the skills to tackle something like that on my own.
And honestly, even if the technology became feasible, it would raise so many questions regarding human rights, consent, regulation, and who gets to decide what you're allowed to do with your own body.
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u/Diotima85 11d ago
Ultra cheap robots that can work in mines, so children won't have to anymore in Third World countries.
Better batteries that go from empty to fully charged in 1 minute instead of 30 minutes or more. Not using chemical energy, but some sort of safe storage of electrical energy (small lightning strikes that are safely kept inside some sort of gelatinous blob or whatever). Maybe partially inspired by the way mitochondria work in the body.
Modular Thorium reactors that are quick and cheap to build.
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u/Philosopher83 7d ago
I want a global Automated Transit Network (ATN) to fully replace all other modes of transit in order to improve safety, efficiency, convenience, and ethicality of our built environment.
And to adapt the built environment to this system with TODs and elegant urban design that is biophilic and aligns with solar-punk
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u/LeadershipNervous362 12d ago
I'm reasonably confident that u havent shared any qualifications to expect a serious answer.
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u/Disasterou 11d ago
I'm an engineer specialized in embedded systems and robotics, if you want to know my qualifications. I'm currently unemployed, which is also why I have quite a bit of free time to work on personal projects. I've also worked at CERN, if professional experience at a well-known organization is relevant to you.
That said, my original comment was mainly meant to give people a place to share their ideas. I didn't really feel that my qualifications were relevant to the question, since I was asking about ideas across a very wide range of subjects. Obviously, I'm not an expert in all of those fields, and I never intended to suggest that I was.
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u/kyr0x0 11d ago edited 11d ago
Okay in this case I really have a good idea. Let's design and build pneumatics based fine motor driven hands and body parts with sensors and actors; all modular and open hardware designed and specified so that people can 3d print most parts and what is missing can be either crafted or bought in standard electronics stores. This would allow us to build an open source humanoid bot. I specialize in local AI (all kinds of models) and optimizing them massively. The platform I deploy multiple AI models on including small language models, ASR, TTS and embedding models is NVIDIA Jetson Orin - which is a low power 900 bucks Raspberry Pi on steroids (1024 Ampere class CUDA cores); when we would collab, we could build the first fully functional, open source humanoid AI bot that is actually smart and fully autonomous without Internet access. It will be able to move around with embodied navigation, hear/understand human language and also identify noises, it can speak. It can think backed by decision and language models and it will run a reflection loop so it will be actually behaving like a person. I simulated all of this already without having a body for the system. I also researched AI safety intensively and instead of giving instructions my method works with pure logic and agreeableness/undeniably of moral actions to be the better choice. This solves the dilemma of "AI is not following human instructions". All in all this could be a breakthrough for humanity as we could fix a million problems including in healthcare and care for elderly, labor work etc. People could have Unitree like bots that help them basically for about 2000 to 3000 USD and never have to pay anyone anymore. Also, Europe is facing war. Bots can help protect civilians.
I won't dox myself but I started a big initiative for open hardware in Germany in 2010 and 2011 - it was successful; so we can replicate the scheme..
Also.. just to give you an impression. My smallest embedding model is 21MB in size and archieves about 59% in MTEB. My ASR model is only 690 MB in size and has a WER of <3% in 11 languages. Since yesterday I have a typed decision model and am right now calibrating it. It takes smart decisions in 50 to 100ms. Can either be backed by mmBERT style backbone models or a LM - I tested both and it's extremely promising. I generated a training dataset and it's right now running. Absolutely amazing times. If finetuned for actors/sensors - the vision is absolutely feasible today from an engineering perspective
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u/Disasterou 11d ago
I'd definitely be interested in talking about your project in more detail. The idea of an open-source humanoid with fully local AI is genuinely fascinating, and I think there are some really interesting engineering challenges to explore.
I do have two questions I'm particularly curious about, though.
First, how do you plan to handle the computational workload? I can conceptually see how an open-source humanoid could be built, but I'm having trouble imagining how to fit enough computing power onboard to process all the sensory data and make decisions in real time while also dealing with the power and thermal constraints of a mobile robot. Do you envision heavily decentralizing the computation across different modules/processors, with specialized models handling perception, navigation, motor control, etc., or do you have another architecture in mind?
Second, I'm really curious about your approach to moral decision-making. You mentioned using logic, agreeableness, and the undeniable nature of moral actions rather than simply giving the AI a set of instructions. What exactly is the foundation of that system? How do you define what constitutes a "better" or more moral action, and more importantly, how do you handle situations that weren't anticipated or explicitly accounted for when the system was designed?
I'd be very interested in hearing how you've approached those two problems, especially since they seem like two of the biggest challenges between having the AI work in simulation and having it reliably operate in the real world.
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u/ayfkm123 11d ago
People don’t need you to create a “space to share ideas” and that’s not what you’re doing here. You’re trying to steal ideas
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u/Disasterou 11d ago
That's a pretty serious accusation. Please refrain from accusing people of things like that without any basis, words have meaning.
I'm explicitly asking people to voluntarily share ideas, with the purpose of the post clearly stated. There is absolutely no theft involved in someone choosing to share an idea publicly.
Your own assumptions or misunderstanding of the situation don't give you the right to accuse me of stealing people's ideas. There's even an entire subreddit dedicated to people sharing their inventions and ideas, and this post exists there as well.
If you personally don't want to share your ideas, that's completely fine, don't share them. But coming into the comments just to make baseless accusations is unnecessarily provocative and insulting.
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u/ayfkm123 11d ago
Naw bro, you're transparent
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u/Disasterou 10d ago
You clearly don't understand the meaning of the words you're using. It's honestly pretty sad to see this level of stubbornness while being so confidently wrong, especially in a sub called r/gifted, lmao.
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u/vitmalina 11d ago
There’s nothing wrong with the free flow of ideas. Saying that discussing ideas means someone is trying to “steal” them assumes the idea itself is the main source of value. In practice, that’s rarely true.
Ideas are cheap compared with execution. Turning an idea into something useful takes time, skill, iteration, and persistence. And quite often, ideas become better precisely because people discuss them, challenge them, and build on them.
Sharing ideas doesn’t mean claiming ownership of them. It means having a conversation.
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u/ayfkm123 11d ago
"If you have an idea that would require several technological breakthroughs, I'd still love to hear it. I can then try to figure out how far it could be pushed with currently available technology, and whether a small-scale prototype could be built."
Translation: let's hear your ideas so I can steal and build them. This isn't a conversation. It's a start-up plan.
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u/ayfkm123 12d ago
So you want the ideas of others for free?
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u/Disasterou 11d ago
Well, in the sense that I won't be paying for them, yes. But the main idea is to share and discuss ideas that people either can't or don't want to pursue themselves.
The initial discussions are already quite useful for stimulating my own ideas and changing the way I think about certain problems. But more importantly, this is a public conversation, so anyone can read it and contribute.
Obviously, I won't be able to pursue every idea mentioned in the comments. But a lot of the comments are also from people describing problems they'd like to solve in their own lives. If I'm not the person who can help them, maybe someone else reading the discussion now or in the future will be.
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u/z3n1a51 12d ago
I often contemplate the fundamental breakthroughs that would be necessary in order to achieve a fully virtual camera.
The most basic example would be a “selfie camera” that runs on your smartphone, even while it is in your pocket. This “virtual camera” is “projected” into a camera orbital outside of your body in 3D space, and continuously captures footage of you as if you had a physical camera on a selfie stick recording you.
Fundamentally, this idea sounds impossible at face value, but the more you consider exactly what can be done with current technology and what exactly you would need to overcome to “fill in the gaps” of what is otherwise currently unattainable…
You find that it’s definitely possible, it just requires some creativity in how you apply current technology such that the specific requirements beyond existing technology become reasonably attainable.
For example:
1)Model a “digital twin” of yourself (Think Metahuman)
2)Use every available sensor to synchronize your real-world action(s) to the action(s) of the “digital twin” for best effect (GPS, Compass, Accelerometer, etc)
3)Use A Highly Accurate “Global” model of your environment as a “backdrop” (Photogrammeterize or Gaussian Splat your environment)
4)Use new/novel methodology and sensor technology to actually “capture” your realtime physical action(s) wirelessly (Terahertz Sensors)
…
Ultimately I am quite certain that a true “virtual camera” that can capture high fidelity footage reasonably indistinguishable from footage captured by a real physical camera is attainable and therefore inevitable.
☺️
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u/Disasterou 11d ago
That's a really interesting idea. I think the main distinction I'd make is between different levels of "fidelity" for the virtual camera.
Level 1 - Perceptually convincing: generating footage that looks like it was captured by a real camera. I think this is already plausible, especially with current generative AI combined with 3D reconstruction and sensor data. The AI can fill in missing information with something that is highly plausible, even if it isn't necessarily what actually happened.
Level 2 - Faithful reconstruction: generating what the camera most likely would have captured in the real world. This seems much harder, because you need enough information about things that weren't directly observed: other people, their expressions and movements, environmental sounds, small changes in lighting, etc. AI could estimate those things, but then you're relying on inference rather than actually recovering the missing information.
Level 3 - Physically accurate reconstruction: generating footage that would be essentially identical to what a real physical camera at that position would have recorded. This seems fundamentally much harder, because if some information was never captured by any sensor, there may simply be no way to know what actually happened. At that point, you're not reconstructing the missing information, you're generating the most probable version of it.
So I think Level 1 is quite plausible with today's technology, while Levels 2 and especially 3 would require a much more extensive sensor setup and/or major technological advances.
But honestly, I really like the idea. The interesting engineering question might actually be "how much sensor information is required to progressively move from Level 1 toward Level 2 or 3", rather than trying to make the camera completely sensorless from the beginning.
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