The designs seem to show an interesting facet of DIY design. It's better to focus on what something should do rather than what it should look like. The most hopeless of the designs are those that try to mimic the appearance of a successful design.
I suspect the hopeless cases are vastly over-represented because they make for an easy news story fluff piece. Actual innovation is frequently subtle and boring unless you look at the detail.
I think jdietrich has a point about the implication that this is a Chinese specific phenomenon. Every country has people working on projects like this. I'm in New Zealand and we got jetpacks and cruise missiles made by guys working in sheds. Neither the crazy people nor the brilliant geniuses are representative of the population as a whole.
I suspect the hopeless cases are vastly over-represented because they make for an easy news story fluff piece. Actual innovation is frequently subtle and boring unless you look at the detail.
I think jdietrich has a point about the implication that this is a Chinese specific phenomenon. Every country has people working on projects like this. I'm in New Zealand and we got jetpacks and cruise missiles made by guys working in sheds. Neither the crazy people nor the brilliant geniuses are representative of the population as a whole.