Baby incubators made from Toyota 4Runner, Aunty Entity would be proud
By Laura June 
posted Dec 17th 2008 2:33PM
posted Dec 17th 2008 2:33PM
Developing nations are often the recipients of used, donated baby incubators, as new ones cost about $40,000 each. Often lacking either the technicians or the parts to fix them, however, most of the incubators don't actually work. Enter Jonathan Rosen of Boston University's School of Management, who's ingeniously devised an incubator out of the very abundant Toyota 4Runner. The device is cobbled together using headlights as the heating source, the filters for air purification and the door alarm for emergency notification. The resulting incubator costs about $1,000 to make and can be repaired by auto mechanics, which is obviously good news for hospitals in need. The bad news? Dr. McDreamy's in the garage, "fixing" your car.
Brilliant!
This guy should get a medal or something.
How do you expect people, who live for $1 a day to pay $1,000 for this incubator thing?...
Donating some smart technicians would do much more to developing countries, IMO.
Or, at the very least, start uploading very detailed instructions on how to build these things and how to repair them if anything happens and how to find what actually broke down.
Jonathan Rosen's idea is brilliant. Its just me having little doubts it will be of much use...
Because, Shinigami, as people privileged enough to not have to live on $1 a day, WE should donate the $1000 needed to give those newborns in poor parts of this world a chance.
@shinigami:
The HOSPITALS in the developing nations buy the incubator, not the $1-a-day individuals. I don't see a need for families to each own one in their homes.
So this is how Little Lamplight got overpopulated with little brats.
Now I know what to do with my 4Runner when it dies! Nice!
McDreamy? Ugh, I hate teeny bopper bull-shh..pit.
Alright! Now all the car dealers have incentives, donate your non selling cars and get a tax write off saving them money they can put towards research eliminating the need for an auto bailout. Two birds, one stone.
Oblivion modding had gone too far...
Where did that background picture come from? Looks a bit familiar (like my basement).
It's from Hellgate: London, I think.
Yes!
That's an awesome basement you've got there.
Why not make it out of an EZ Bake oven? Then a 5 year old could repair.
We're trying to help babies in third world countries survive, not turn them into delicious, easy to bake snacks.
As cool as that would be.
@ Trial "We're trying to help babies in third world countries survive, not turn them into delicious, easy to bake snacks. "
Doesn't this go against evolution theory? Not that I believe 3rd world babies should become part of the food chain.
Evolutionary theory doesn't suggest that the strongest one kills the weakest... just that the strongest one will survive where the weakest won't. Also, the strongest is usually the one exposed to a moderate amount of hardship which then develops into immunities or instinct in later generations. In effect, the third world person would likely endure hardship better than the "first world" counterpart who's ancestry was pampered, accepted for their flaws and carried those genes on to their offspring.
easy to bake snacks are people!!!!!!!
Where's iEye? Oh he must have gone Darwinian...
God damn! Engadget! That's atleast 3 photoshop jobs that have made me cringe today. Laura, you're guilty of two of them.
no no, its over 9000 hours in msPaint.
Or two minutes in Gimpshop..... All you have to do is download the gimp for free, grab that background image, which was already created, crop out the incubator with a manual-select tool, and drag the incubator onto the background image..... Vwaaallllaaa.
Oh, and don't forget making the glass slightly transparent.....
You ruined a joke by advertising free software. I hope you're happy.
This is just what we need! Now the automakers can ruin the medical industry! Wasn't it screwed up enough already? The new Ford Flex it's a Scion rip-off and a dialysis machine!
what do you mean? i like the way the ford flex looks. scion is not and has never been original with their designs, so how is the ford a rip-off. ford has been making mid/large-sized 4-door hatchbacks (recently renamed crossovers) for years before scion came into the picture.
don't get me wrong, i would not buy a ford today. but the flex looks pretty sweet.
What about the box thing
@oneMadRssn
The Ford Flex looks like a Scion to me, and last time I checked the Flex came out AFTER the Scion Xb
is that background from resistance 2 in the thames river level?
So um, who run bartertown?
This is exactly the sort of thing that the parts manufacturers and the like need to consider as the auto industry is crumbling. There needs to be a lot more Innovation like this.
Great!
You mean a Hilux?
Does this mean the baby will survive being placed on a high-rise building that is demolished winning James May £20?
So nobody factored in the fact that the 4Runner costs more than $1000 and the cost of importing on to many third world countries would be too great an expense?
Logic fail...
That's why you build it here first out of the parts, not send them the whole thing...
it clearly says in the article that you don't need a whole car to make it, just a few part. Still even if they don't say, think about how much smaller the incubator is compare to the car...
And so since a few part s smaller than a whole car, the cost of importing would be less
A LOT of you are missing the point. The 4Runner, better known as a Hilux or Hilux Surf in the world outside North America is EVERYWHERE. There are old Hiluxes EVERYWHERE, and most probably don't work any more. Instead of a shell of a 4x4 rotting on an African street, turn it into a functioning incubator is the point. BUILD IT THERE!!!
So this is how the Matrix begins...
I've owned 2 80s Toyota pickups, a 91 4runner, and a 96 Tacoma. Do the seatbelts still hang out the side of the door on this incubator?
A $25 incubator for developing countries was developed at Stanford as part of a course on design for extreme affordability. The developers of this product founded a non-profit organization called Embrace to promote it. More details at www.embraceglobal.org.
woooo BU!! If our management students can create this, imagine what our engineers do.....
Ive havent been to London for a while, but it looks like the recession is hitting it hard looking at the picture. Chin up old chap!
Isn't that St. Paul's Cathedral? Why? Engadget, you can be so irrelevant sometimes.
@ Laura June: Please don't ever, ever, ever, mention 'Dr. McDreamy' EVER again. This is engadget, not a shitty overdramatic fake hospital show.
Seriously?