Amazing solar-powered fridge invented by British student in a potting shed helps poverty-stricken Africans
About this project
Blocklets are a system of interlocking building blocks that can be used to make anything, from sculpture to furniture, and soon Arduino-based robots. Made of laser-cut wood and acrylic, they snap together with a satisfying 'click' and they feel great in your hand.The goal of this project is to not only set up a production facility to make Blocklets, but to also build a community to use and develop Blocklets. And here's the best part. When we reach our funding goal, we will release the designs for Blocklets under a Creative Commons license. We can't wait to see the amazing things you can make with Blocklets, and the amazing ways you can modify, remix and repurpose and redesign Blocklets. We want your help to expand the capabilities of the Blocklets system with wheels, gears, hinges, shafts and many other components. We've got some great ideas in store, including an Arduino-based robotics kit, lamp kits, word art kits and more, but we need your support now to get started. Support us today to bring Blocklets to the masses.
Best Sun Images From Solar Space Telescope’s First Year
By Lisa Grossman
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, a space telescope charged with watching the sun in unprecedented detail, revealed its first look at the sun to the world one year ago today.Since then, the telescope has watched the sun shift from its quietest period in years to the beginning of a new, active solar cycle. It's seen loops of plasma that dwarf the Earth tracing the sun's magnetic field, early stages of massive explosions that send hot charged material ripping through space, and sunspots dancing across the solar surface
New Graphene Material is Paper-Thin and Ten Times Stronger Than SteelBy Clay Dillow
Researchers at the University of Technology Sydney have created a new material that is lighter, less dense, harder, and stronger than steel. But this material isn’t one of those breakthroughs that only sounds good on paper. It is paper, and it could be a game-changer for materials science if it can live up to researchers’ hopes.
This graphene paper is constructed of graphite reformed by chemical processes into monolayer hexagonal carbon lattices stacked as thin as a sheet of paper, and it is remarkably strong. To quote a press release from UTS:
Compared to steel, the prepared GP is six times lighter, five to six times lower density, two times harder with 10 times higher tensile strength and 13 times higher bending rigidity.
That’s no incremental improvement on the qualities of steel, but a huge leap forward in terms of overall material strength (plus, like paper, it is flexible). And because it is graphene, it is also imbued with some interesting electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-04/new-graphene-material-paper-thin-and-ten-times-stronger-steel
The EUR65,000 Cavalon side-by-side, fully-enclosed gyrocopter
By Mike Hanlon
The newest addition to the gyrocopter genre arrived at Aero Friedrichshafen this week in the form of a side-by-side, fully-enclosed, composite construction Cavalon gyrocopter. The gyrocopter is to the helicopter what the microlight is to traditional small aircraft. Invented in 1923 by Spaniard Juan de la Cierva, the gyrocopter uses quite a different layout to the helicopter to give it stability at low speed. It is cheap to run, takes off and lands on a ridiculously small footprint, and has a powered pusher propeller in addition to an unpowered main rotor.http://www.gizmag.com/cavalon-fully-enclosed-gyrocopter/18444/
Por isso, têem acesso a uma Impressora 3D?3D print a mini-lathe
The EZ Lathe: a printable small-scale lathe.
by Ponoko on Monday, April 18, 2011 at 11:29pm
As exciting as it always is to see a digital design made physical with 3D printing, there is something particularly special about 3D printing another machine. Machines making machines brings to mind robots bent on world domination and fully automated moon-based factories. While it’s pretty unlikely that this mini-lathe will subjugate the world, it should still be a useful tool.
Video: Railgun Blasts an Aerodynamic Round Seven Kilometers Through A Steel Plate
This amazing video, created by Defense Tech, shows the latest test of General Atomics' high-speed railgun. Where earlier attempts have fired ungainly missiles that tumbled end-over-end through the air like "hypersonic bricks," this one uses a sabot round, which flies straight and smoothly for a distance of seven kilometers, AFTER punching through a solid steel plate.
Researchers Succeed in Quantum Teleportation of Light Waves
In a real-life use of Schrödinger's theoretical paradoxical cat, researchers report that they were able to quickly transfer a complex set of quantum information while preserving its integrity. The information, in the form of light, was manipulated in such a way that it existed in two states at the same time, and it was destroyed in one spot and recreated in another. The new breakthrough is a major step toward building safe, effective quantum computers.No felines were harmed in the making of this experiment, which actually studied wave packets of light that existed in a state of quantum superposition, meaning they existed in two different phases simultaneously. This phenomenon is described in Erwin Schrodinger’s quantum mechanics thought experiment, in which a cat is simultaneously dead and alive, depending on the state of a subatomic particle.
Discovery paves way for “optical battery” to generate solar power without solar cells
By Darren Quick
It has long been thought that, even though light has electric and magnetic components, the effects of the magnetic field are so weak that they could effectively be ignored. Now researchers at the University of Michigan (U-M) have discovered that under the right conditions, a light field can generate magnetic effects that are 100 million times stronger than previously expected. The researchers say the discovery paves the way for the creation of an "optical battery" that could harness power from the sun without the use of solar cells.Stephen Rand, a professor in the departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Physics and Applied Physics, and his colleagues found that if light focused to an intensity of 10 million watts per square centimeter (W/cm2) is traveling through a material that does not conduct electricity, such as glass, the light field can generate magnetic effects with the strength equivalent to a strong electric effect.
New coatings could protect jet engines from volcanic ash
By Ben Coxworth
Following last April's historic eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland, commercial flights were cancelled within most of Europe for several days – it was the largest disruption of air travel since the Second World War. Well, while no one is suggesting that airliners could now merrily fly right through clouds of ash, researchers from Ohio State University (OSU) have developed a coating that they say could allow jet engines to better withstand small amounts of volcanic ash that are ingested over time.The metallic parts of jet engines are already coated with a ceramic thermal barrier coating, that allows them to withstand the 2500F (1371C) temperatures that occur during regular operations. When volcanic ash is sucked into an engine, however, it melts onto the coating and penetrates it. That ash becomes a brittle glass upon cooling and it flakes off, taking the coating with it.
Inexpensive plastic developed that indicates freshness of food
By Ben CoxworthWhen it comes to buying packaged meat and fish, consumers usually just have to go by the "best before" label to know that it hasn't begun to spoil. Needless to say, the dates on those labels are just estimates and certainly won't tell you if the product has sat through a lengthy power failure, or been left out of the cooler for several hours. Researchers from the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Modular Solid State Technologies in Munich, however, have developed an inexpensive plastic film that will change color in the presence of rotten foods.The film would be applied to the inside of food packaging, where it would respond to the biogenic amines produced by decaying meat or fish. If a sufficient amount of amines were present in the air within the sealed packaging, they would cause dye in the film to turn from yellow to an obvious blue.
Quem se lembrar do Blitz Basic, bem, isto é MUITO MELHOR!Diatom Studio, the folks responsible for the SketchChair project that’s been mentioned here before, have created a neat library for Processing called CodeThread. It can be used not just for making objects, but for developing new styles of printing. As Diatom says on the CodeThread page on Thingiverse:“One of the things we love about makerbot in contrast to commercial printers is that you have complete control over every aspect of the print technique. We think there is a lot of opportunity to develop new printing styles with makerbots, beyond traditional solid prints.
We wanted to experiment with the materiality of makerbot prints by working directly in gcode with processing, so we made this small library that provides some simple functions for generating gcode commands, and prints a gcode file.”
Spider-silk-producing silkworms to be commercially developed
By Ben Coxworth
Although cobwebs may seem very fragile when we see people like Indiana Jones crashing through them, the fact is that spider silk is an incredibly strong and flexible material. It has a tensile strength similar to that of high-grade steel while only being one-fifth as dense, it can stretch up to 1.4 times its relaxed length without breaking, and it can maintain those properties down to a temperature of -40C (-40F). Given that spiders don't secrete huge quantities of the stuff on a daily basis, however, what's a biotech firm to do if it wishes to harvest the fibers for use in human technology? In the case of Sigma Life Science, it's getting genetically-modified silkworms to spin spider silk.
Cleaner-burning cook stove designed for use in developing nations
By Ben Coxworth
Chances are that even if you own a propane camp stove, you've tried cooking over an open fire at least once. When you did, despite your best efforts, you probably ended up sucking down a lot of smoke in the process. Now, imagine doing that for every meal. For many women in the developing world, breathing in toxic smoke while cooking over a wood, kerosene or coal fire is part of their daily routine. Not only can it have a detrimental effect on their own health, but it also worsens local air pollution and (in the case of wood fires) deforestation. The Eco Fire Pot Stove, however, is designed to allow these women to cook while breathing clean air.The device was invented by Adama Kamara, a natural therapist who was born in Sierra Leone, but moved to Australia in 1996.
Radical-looking RoundTail bike claims radically smoother ride
By Ben Coxworth
If you banged a pole and a hoop against the road, which one would transmit more vibrations to your hand? Given that the flexing action of the hoop would absorb some of the energy, it's probably safe to assume that the pole would give you a numb hand quicker. Well, Canadian cyclist Lou Tortola applied the same sort of logic to the frame design of his Tortola RoundTail road bicycle. Where most other bikes would have a rear triangle consisting of straight seat stays, chain stays and a seat tube, the RoundTail simply has two shock-absorbing joined rings.
Earth Has an Orbital Companion Stuck in a Horseshoe-Shaped Orbit Around the SunLargest horseshoe companion knownBy Clay Dillow
Near-Earth asteroids aren’t all that rare, but today two researchers at Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland say they’ve found an extremely rare near-Earth object in an orbit very similar to Earth’s. Asteroid 2010 SO16 is not exotic because of it’s closeness to the home planet, but because it is stuck in a rare horseshoe orbit.
Horseshoe orbits only happen under a specific set of circumstances, so it is believed they are pretty rare. The name “horseshoe” is derived from the shape of the object’s orbit as seen from Earth--that is, it doesn’t stop mid-orbit, turn around, and travel in the other direction. It has everything to do with shifts in the object’s orbital path and our perspective of the object as it gets closer, shifts orbit, and then gets further away without ever passing Earth.
New advanced composite material lends itself to aircraft safety
By Frank Leonard
A combination of light weight AND strength makes advanced composite materials very useful when building something that's designed to go fast while being subjected to physical stress ... like an aircraft. On the downside, bulky equipment is required when it comes to inspecting these aircraft for damage – a problem that is MIT researchers hope to solve with the development of a new type of composite material that incorporates carbon nanotubes.
Aircraft composites consist of high-strength fibers, such as carbon or glass, embedded in a plastic or metal matrix. Unlike aluminum, they are not a uniform surface which means they can look fine on the outside despite being damaged internally – there's no noticeable crack or dent, so it's difficult to tell if there is damage?
http://www.gizmag.com/advanced-composite-materials-mit-aircraft/18366/
Video: New Dutch Superbus Carries Two Dozen Passengers At 155 MPH
By Rebecca Boyle
High speed trains are so passé — for comfortable superfast travel, hop on the Superbus.With a top speed of 155 MPH, the new Superbus, which sort of looks like an elongated Batmobile, could be an efficient way to reduce congestion at a lower cost than building new trains or other public transit systems.
http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2011-04/video-new-dutch-superbus-carries-two-dozen-passengers-155-mph
Folks we are hosted at a University and we have been on break for the past two weeks. Thus, we haven’t really been doing Open3DP things. However, we are back in session now.AdderFab is the combined result of three separate Capstone student design teams over a span of over four years. The original name of the project was P3P (personal 3D printer). The original team (Version #1) was composed of Kory Koyamatsu, Kristina Olson, Erik Roby Nathaniel, and Thompson Tri Truong. Their project produced a prototype 3D printer which almost worked. They filed a group report Design and Fabrication of a Powder-Based Personal 3D Printe
http://open3dp.me.washington.edu/2011/03/adderfab-some-history/
3DTin is a free modeling tool developed by Jayesh Salvi (India). It lets you draw 3D structures made of cubes. If you’re a Minecraft addict, you’ll probably love 3DTin.
With 3DTin you can
- Design models by placing cubes of different colors on top of each other.http://www.3dtin.com/
- Save your artwork in cloud. Login with your Gmail ID.
- Make realistic models by applying “Smoothing” tool on your Voxel art (Voxel = volumetric pixel)
- Export models in standard 3D file formats (OBJ, STL) and use them for 3D printing or import in other CAD tools.
- Run some preliminary checks to prepare your model for 3D printing (Manifold violations)
Apresentação
Vejam mais, aqui:A Fundação Cidade de Guimarães é uma pessoa colectiva de direito privado de utilidade pública e tem duração indeterminada. A Fundação foi criada, e os seus estatutos aprovados, no Conselho de Ministros do dia 9 de Julho de 2009, tendo sido constituída pelo Decreto-Lei nº 202/2009, de 28 de Agosto. É regida, subsidiariamente, pela legislação aplicável às fundações.A Fundação tem como fins principais:a) A concepção, planeamento, promoção, execução e desenvolvimento do programa cultural do evento Guimarães 2012 Capital Europeia da Cultura;
b) Findo o evento, a Fundação poderá vir a assumir a gestão do património cultural e dos respectivos equipamentos, propriedade do município de Guimarães, e de outros que lhe sejam afectos, com vista à promoção da cultura, desenvolvendo a criação e a difusão em todas as suas modalidades, bem como o apoio a acções de formação com relevância na área da cultura, promovendo a formação técnica especializada dos agentes e profissionais deste domínio ou domínios afins.
É com grande satisfação que a Rede de Laboratórios da AZ (Associação Audiência Zero) anuncia o primeiro evento da FabriCulture: o FabriCamp Lx1!
É verdade, será um dia inteiro ao estilo barcamp , dedicado à fabricação digital. Vários membros e amigos dos hackerspaces da AZ (LCD, altLab e xDA) irão demonstrar as suas máquinas de prototipagem rápida, impressoras 3D e CNC Mills.Caso tenha uma máquina para fabricação digital, seja de que tipo for, acabada, por acabar, avariada, etc., traga-a consigo. Ou então traga os amigos e a família (é um evento também para crianças).
http://altlab.org/category/3d-printer/
Steampunk Printer
by Ponoko on Friday, April 1, 2011 at 1:43am
Jeff recently posted this 3d printer on Fab@Home, a place where it can be pretty tough to stand out from the crowd when it comes to DIY fabbers.With brass detailing and stained timber this fine machine would be at home in a High Street antique store, but instead it is contributing to the manufacturing revolution of the 21st century.The project was conceived along similar thinking to the way personal computers are customized by enthusiasts, for a visual panache that goes beyond everyday functionality.
Video: Elektra One All-Electric Plane Makes Successful Maiden Flight
German company PC-Aero is trying to win NASA’s CAFE Green Flight Challenge, and Saturday they took a big step toward doing just that. The company’s Elektra One aircraft, designed by PC-Aero’s founder and president Calin Gologan, made its successful first flight. But this one-seater isn’t your average single-prop. Elektra One flies on electricity alone.The Green Flight Challenge seeks a demo aircraft that can fly 200 miles in less than two hours on the energy equivalent of less than one gallon of fuel per person. Elektra One didn’t push the envelope that far just yet--the maiden flight hit a ceiling just above 1600 feet and lasted just 30 minutes, burning just half the 6 kWh stored up in its batteries. But the fact that the lightweight aircraft was able to comfortably circle the airfield for half an hour-- more or less silently, we might add--is nothing short of impressive.
