But shooting things completely out of the air just because at present they're not "quite there" in terms of practicality, that's equally as bad.
I do get what you are saying Steve but in this particular example I think it's different to the value of inspiration and thought to what you describe.
To me, this specific devise and the hydro one are nothing short of con jobs in that they purport to have a practical functionally they charge a premium price for but cannot deliver. they are taking advantage of that intreauge in the magic you had many years back and lies within a lot of us. I see a detrimental effect with these things in them being far more likely to turn people off creatively thinking about them than being inspired.
You buy the Hydro thing and then realise the thing is useless because the water you put it in is not flowing at the unusually high speed required. You pay over 500 bux for something that you have to near cook yourself with and work at wasting firewood just to charge a small battery.
The end result is the though you wasted money and these things, Hydro/ peltiers don't work the way they are made out and are dismissed and leave a sense of disappoint as well.
The creators of these Priced to kill products know their shortcomings and their very narrow and impractical window of living up to the created hype. To me that makes them con men.
The fact the hydro thing won so many awards is just a bloody sad indication of how Gaa gaa the world has become about anything touted to be " Green" and how so many will turn a blind eye to the shortcomings of such products because they feel obligated to gush over and never criticise the green religion.
Again, to me this is detrimental rather than helpful.
What would be much better in my mind would be to be honest, admit the shortcomings and work on solutions so they did live up to the expectations created and be able to be used in a practical, everyday way.
There is still this ridiculous and often dishonest/ self serving attitude or excuse that things that are lacking need to be built so they can be learned from even if they do fail spectacularly. I have seen this applied to things like electric cars and many other things.
It's a complete crock of ship.
You don't need to build anything thse days to know what it's going to do, it can all be computer modelled. If they can design things like aircraft from passenger airliners to cutting edge Fighter jets and the things take off and fly round without problem and go into production with virtually no modification, there isn't much else you need to build a bunch of to see how they will perform.
There is a big difference between something that's sold as a Toy which will inspire creative minds and some priced to kill gimmick who's one and only function is to remove money from peoples wallets under largely false pretences.
I too had one of those little solar cells driving a little motor you could put a fan on or a swirling coloured disk in one of the tandy ( radio Shack) 100 in one electronic kits.