School Desk Competition Fiasco

the gorgon

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Sep 16, 2010
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a few months back, a competition was held to design the best Dominican school desk. the winner's prize was a million pesos, and the runner up got half a million. i wondered why it was not a winner take all, since only one design was going to be used.

well, quite a few of us speculated that since school desks have been around since the days of Noah and his watercraft, there should be a raft of designs on the internet. what was there to stop some guy from purloining a design from the galleries, call it his own, and grab some coin?

seems like that is exactly what happened. problem is that it is useless, because the fabrication of that particular desk apparently necessitates a specific piece of proprietary equipment, which cannot be obtained. therefore, the design cannot be implemented. the botellas and others are currently looking at other existing designs to see if they can salvage this entire debacle.

el pais de las maravillas...whee..
 

suarezn

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Feb 3, 2002
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...and why in the world have a competition for this? You'd think that as many designs as there are already, created by companies that are experts at this, they could find one that would be suitable to The DR's environment and budget. Are we expecting some kind of breakthrough design to come out of this? What a waste of money.
 

dv8

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Sep 27, 2006
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and i believe the price of that piece of crap was supposed to be something like 2000 pesos?
 

the gorgon

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Sep 16, 2010
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...and why in the world have a competition for this? You'd think that as many designs as there are already, created by companies that are experts at this, they could find one that would be suitable to The DR's environment and budget. Are we expecting some kind of breakthrough design to come out of this? What a waste of money.


my exact questions. did someone actually believe that a Dominican guy was going to come up with a design for a school desk that has evaded the imagination of people from other countries for centuries?
 

the gorgon

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Sep 16, 2010
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and i believe the price of that piece of crap was supposed to be something like 2000 pesos?

now we will never know, since it has gone the way of the dinosaur. well, almost. at least they had a lifespan
 

Robert

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Jan 2, 1999
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It's cultural. They often come up with different way's to do something, despite the fact that the rest of the world does it a particular way.
 

the gorgon

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Sep 16, 2010
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It's cultural. They often come up with different way's to do something, despite the fact that the rest of the world does it a particular way.

i saw the desk that they plan to look at tomorrow. it looks like every normal classroom desk i have seen for most of my lifetime. nothing out of the ordinary.
 

caribmike

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Jul 9, 2009
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They won't. Ain't anybody who can solve that here. Well at least since the last 17 years I know of... And nothing there to copy / paste from Google :)
 

Expat13

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Jun 7, 2008
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The kid is the son of some polito who got the million pesos, same old, so what, next...............
 

suarezn

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Feb 3, 2002
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They won't. Ain't anybody who can solve that here. Well at least since the last 17 years I know of... And nothing there to copy / paste from Google :)

True, but that wouldn't prevent them from having a "contest" to offer a few millions for the "best ideas" on how to solve it. Actually they already have done this many times, it's just that instead of being "open to the public" only consulting companies get to "compete" and paid hundreds of dollars an hour for the chance to put together powerpoints that then get tossed into the waste bin as soon as the assessment project is done.
 

the gorgon

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Sep 16, 2010
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True, but that wouldn't prevent them from having a "contest" to offer a few millions for the "best ideas" on how to solve it. Actually they already have done this many times, it's just that instead of being "open to the public" only consulting companies get to "compete" and paid hundreds of dollars an hour for the chance to put together powerpoints that then get tossed into the waste bin as soon as the assessment project is done.

kinda like "rigged".
 

the gorgon

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Sep 16, 2010
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Designing a desk is like designing dresses. I have a niece who is going to school to study dress designing. Since there aren't any new designs of women how can there be people so nuts still looking for some new design for a dress? Hvane't all possible designs already been invented sometime in the last few thousand years?

i agree. haven't desks been around since the days of Socrates?
 
May 29, 2006
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i agree. haven't desks been around since the days of Socrates?

Socrates made due with some stairs. In related news, DR government to hold contest to design stairs for public schools with $RD 1,000,000 as first prize~ public official's son to enter and win. 14" run by 9" rise leading in national polls.
 

Criss Colon

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Jan 2, 2002
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Picture in ?Diario Libre?today, showing some kids sitting on boxes, and 5 gallon buckets in the classroom.
They said that some had to sit on the floor!
BUT!!!
We do have a lot of nice big ?MALLS?, and a ?Metro?to brag about!!!!
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
 

the gorgon

Platinum
Sep 16, 2010
33,997
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Picture in ?Diario Libre?today, showing some kids sitting on boxes, and 5 gallon buckets in the classroom.
They said that some had to sit on the floor!
BUT!!!
We do have a lot of nice big ?MALLS?, and a ?Metro?to brag about!!!!
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

you forgot that we are also on the Gold Standard, and have helicopters with gearboxes that convert torque to horsepower.