If you go to the same school that Bill Gates and Paul Allen attended and, by age 15, you have already started your own company on something you invented that could possibly change the world, you are, quite possible, headed for greatness.
Only time will tell, of course, but there is little doubt that Suman Mulumudi, an ingenious kid from Seattle (WA), has a lot of good ideas and, of equal importance, perhaps more so, the will to make them become reality. And to do that he’s utilising desktop 3D printing technologies.
Allowing anyone, including a young teenager, to prototype something that could be revolutionary is exactly what 3D printing is all about. That seems to happen more and more often, lately, because the best ideas are often the simplest ones, the ones that everyone else has overlooked, but when realised seem so obvious. Kids are particularly good at coming up with those.
Like many other new-owners of a 3D printer, as soon as his parents bought him a Makerbot Replicator 2, Mulumundi created an iPhone case. Growing up with a cardiologist father, however, he added a little twist: a diaphragm that collects low-frequency sounds and sends them through a tube to the microphone, turning any iPhone into a stethoscope.
Being able to visualize the heartbeat while comparing it in real time to audio data from a regular stethoscope can help doctors evaluate more accurately the presence of the “S3” sound, a third sound that the heart makes when it is failing. In developing countries, where medical tools are not readily available, but cell phones and smartphones are now widespread, and this technological development can potentially help save lives.
Suman Mulumudi partnered with his father Mahesh and founded a company they called StratoScientific. Their goal is to patent and market the Steth IO and it is difficult to imagine a more productive father and son DIY project.
