Talk-Polywell.org

Darpa Eyes Crowd-sourcing To Generate Ideas

vehicleforge.mil

I suspect there is large enough community of secret-level people to make up a DARPAForge "secret but not proprietary" source site.

As for engineering, that could be done with a "secret clearance" BBS/Wiki.

Both, of course, would have to have secure user access, because keeping a technological lead is directly involved in the superiority of American arms in the field.

NASA should attach a crowd-sourced "vehicle forge" forum to their Challenges program:
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/ipp/innovat ... hallenges/
I doubt that anything really innovative would get funded, but researchers with access to supercomputer time might find it a source of inspiration.

My idea for a remote controlled self propelled anti-tank vehicle would be based on the Swedish S tank and the Hetzer. Use the chassis to absorb the recoil and the suspension to raise and lower the gun, tracks for side-to-side. Oh, and the main gun, 155mm.

This appears to be [yet another] press title that fails to understand some basics.

It reads "The agency’s first experience with this approach to problem-solving" which is a different activity to coming up with ideas. You have to have ideas before you try to solve problems with the idea. Is there a more authoritative link to what DARPA are trying to acheive here - is it "mass brain-storming on how to make a concept work" or "new ideas for concepts"?

It seems to me to be a key failure of 'modern science' that the ethos is that ideas no longer come from individuals, but from collectives, instifutions and committees, &c..

It's after the typical kind of conversation;
Individual: walks up to University/Institution/DARPA/&c. "er, I have an idea how to solve fusion energy",
University: "but we have a thousand people thinking on the idea, and have had 3 generations before them, and if we haven't come up with a solution, then why do you think you, alone, can come up with one by yourself!?".
Individual: "because ideas come from individuals - collectives cannot do anything until then have a singular idea to begin collectively assessing and working on".
University: "and why do you think you are the person to come up with a new breakthrough idea"
Individual: "why do you think I am not?"
University: "because we are a collective coming up with ideas"
Individual: "show me an idea that has been generated in a committee, not by an individual"
University: "err..... well that's how we do it.... and we're working on the tokamak right now and have no time to stop and actually think about whether this is actually the right thing to do, so we are all too busy to think about any new ideas"