Observations that May Change the World

You may have heard this: one day when Newton was reading a book under an apple tree, an apple dropped on his head and he came up with theory of gravity. This is the dawn of modern science!

Another one you may have heard: James Watt was watching his mother boil water on a kettle and came up with the steam engine. This is the dawn of the Industry Revolution!

I wonder: if *I* can observe something and change the world! Why not? You can too.

Observation 1: Flying
It's man's dream for centuries... FLY. Sure, airplanes have already achieved that. Why not a simpler, WING approach? This observation is from playing the classic Joust game.
Build a (big) wing like a bird, with a motor, make it FLAP hard like a bird, and I think eventually you may fly. Sure you hands can't flop fast enough to move your body, what about a motorized wing? Every wing I see is hard and straight (and doesn't move).


Observation 2: Stir Fry Machine
I visited a Panda Express and have this interesting scene: a Chinese fastfood restaurant without one Chinese worker. Hispanic folks making Chinese food to you. If it does not have "Panda Express" sign, you probably won't buy because it is not so authentic? Then I look through the glass and see a young Hispanic man cooking with the wok like a pro! There is no ethnic barrier in cooking.
Working in the kitchen is hot, exhausting, repetitive. It is very tough job. Here is the mathematican (at least a math student)'s instinct: can we generalize it so a machine can do this?

Look, all recipes are basically algorithms. Computers love to follow them. Look, that fried-rice is actually pretty simple to make, add stuff in the right order and stir-fry it up! Ingredients: A motorized wok shovel. Tanks to hold salt, sugar, corn starch, etc. Programs to control a oil tank pouring the exact amount. Programs to spray exactly certain amount of sugar, salt, etc. Robotic arm to move raw stuff to the wok like motorized chess programs to move that pawn. I can run the world's first automatic restaurant!

But yikes, a successful machine will put millions of chef out of work.

However, I don't have an ounce of engineering ability. I made the weakest Popsicle stick bridge in high school. I don't think I can build any motorized things in my garage.