RLT Industries, Inc. is a small family owned company that manufactures catapults, bridges and other educational projects, publishes books, CDs and DVDs, and sells great, hard-to-find toys and other unique items. (More information about the educational value of model building.)
http://www.rlt.com/
Por estas, e por muitas mais, devem ir àabout
OpenMaterials is a research group dedicated to open investigation and experimentation with DIY production methods and uses of materials.
In the spirit of the open source software and hardware movements, we hope to promote materials to be researched and developed in a public, collaborative manner. We see materials as an open resource, and wish to establish an open process for exploring and sharing knowledge, techniques and applications related to materials science.
Inspired by Eric Raymond’s comment in ‘The Cathedral and the Bazaar’, regarding the bazaar style which he described as “a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches”, we hope to encourage discourse and experimentation with the broadest range of materials and processes possible.
This website is intended as a platform to share knowledge, resources and discoveries, as well as document experiments and processes.
Colbert in spaceNow that MakerBot has a space program, homemade bots in the stratosphere can’t be so far off.This got me thinking about credit card sized stateliness, personal GPS triangulator balloons, and the future of private space travel. If Colbert can do it, we can do it.
The folks over at Makerbot, after their recent successes with remixing heads, decided to print their very own Stephen Colbert and send him aloft on a weather balloon. The mighty patriot reached a height of over 65,000 ft before condescending to return to us mere mortals below.
WikiHouse – the open source houseCNC mill a livable house.WikiHouse is a new project trying to make house construction open source. With WikiHouse anyone could download plans to CNC mill and assemble a house. The system relies on standard 2440mm x 1220mm (8′ x 4′) 18mm plywood. Besides a CNC mill, you only need basic hardware and hand tools. The plans can be altered in Google Sketchup and new designs can be offered back to the community.
There have been many open source projects over the last few years, but most focus on digital technology or, to a lesser extent, small scale physical products. Larger construction brings with it imposing practical challenges. WikiHouse is one of the few to try and overcome these challenges.WikiHouse is still in the early stages, so the plans are not yet available for download. The organizers are currently looking for collaborators, so have a look at the site if you are interested.
Air conditioned shirt has its fans
By Ben Coxworth
Last year we took a look at the EntroSys Motorcycle Air Conditioning system, which is a vest that's designed to blow cooling air across the torsos of leather-jacket-clad bikers. While the EntroSys needs to be attached to a bike-mounted air conditioning unit, there are doubtless many sweltering people who would appreciate a similar but more mobile garment, that they could wear while walking around or working outside. Well, needless to say, there is one - it's the Kuchofuku Air-Conditioned Cooling Work Shirt.
The shirt features two fans which run at high or low speeds, as selected on a back-mounted control box (we're assuming that's where the fans are mounted, too). Air circulation is 20 liters (5.28 US gallons) per second at high, and 12 liters (3.17 US gallons) per second at low. Everything is powered by two AA batteries, although no run times are listed.
Unimog by Lego Technic
By Gizmag Team
It seems like only yesterday, but Lego Technic has been with us now since 1977, and in that third of a century, the technical building blocks have no doubt stimulated the young minds of hundreds of thousands of would-be engineers.
Off-road trucking manufacturer Unimog (Universal Motor Gerät) celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, so the two companies got together and produced a functioning (with pneumatic crane with working gripper arm) 1:12-scale commemorative model. You can buy the 2,048 piece kit for GBP155 (US$255).
Doing away with the dentist’s drill by helping teeth regenerate themselves
By Darren Quick
The fear of having a mechanical drill crammed into one's mouth is enough to keep many people from regularly seeing a dentist. New technology developed by researchers at the University of Leeds that is based on knowledge of how the tooth forms in the first place could soon be providing a pain-free way of tackling the first signs of tooth decay. It uses a peptide-based fluid that is literally painted onto the damaged tooth's surface to stimulate the tooth to regenerate itself.
The fluid developed by researchers in the University of Leeds' School of Chemistry contains a peptide known as P 11-4 that will assemble into fibers under certain conditions. When applied to a tooth, the fluid seeps into the micro-pores that form when the acid produced by bacteria in plaque dissolves the mineral in the teeth.
Unlike another drill-free cavity solution called the DMG cavity infiltration system that uses a gel to open up the pores of a cavity so it can be filled with a resin, once inside the micro-pores the peptide-based fluid spontaneously forms a gel that provides a "scaffold" that attracts calcium and regenerates the tooth's mineral from within to provide natural and pain-free repair of the damaged tooth.
http://www.gizmag.com/regenerating-teeth/19608/
FurnLab open source CNC August 24
Kickstarter campaign to make production local again
According to Jeffrey Matthias, founder of FurnLab, precision manufacturing is something we should all have access to.
As a part of their recently launched KickStarter campaign, the FurnLab team are unveiling plans to release a unique production-ready open source CNC machine. This device will complement the existing range of DIY CNC offerings, while taking manufacturing capabilities to the next level in terms of both scale and speed.
...
So how big is this thing going to be? It’s no table-top device… FurnLab are getting serious here with three proposed units, each with their own very reasonable price point.
$2500 for a 2’x4’ machine$4000 for a 4’x4’ machine$7500 for a 4’x8’ machine
All kinds of users and production requirements have been considered, with the machine plans offering a lot more than a just full-size cutting area.How about this for starters -
Upgradeability: Designed for almost everyone to be able to afford a basic machine, it will be possible to upgrade to a larger size and better components without having to start over from scratch.Professional Construction: The plans call for robust, all metal parts and quality components.Detail Options: Limit switches, z-axis positioning system and an emergency stop button.3rd-Party Systems Compatibility: Each machine will be upgradeable with affordable 3rd-party options for an automatic tool changer and a vacuum hold-down system.
Metal Fluid is a mixture of metal grit in a resin binder which can be used in silicone rubber moulds to create metal models without smelting.
It produces a 95% pure sintered metal as the excess resin will be removed.
The models can be smoothed and polished to bring out the metalic shine.
http://www.mindsetsonline.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=1009841
Teagueduino: the snap-and-go Arduino
On August 22nd Teague Labs will launch the Teagueduino, an open source hardware system based on Arduino.
Teagueduino is an open source hardware platform that makes Arduino a whole lot easier! There’s realtime feedback, always-valid code creation, and no soldering required. Teagueduino is designed for anyone interested in quickly making electronic projects, regardless of their background.
The snap-and-go system is reminiscent of Gadgeteer, the open source hardware system about to be launched by Microsoft. Perhaps this plug-in system is an inevitable improvement to open source hardware.
If you’re in the Seattle area, you can go to the launch party:
Monday, August 22nd
6pm–9pm
Metrix Create Space (Capitol Hill)
623A Broadway East
Seattle, WA 98102
Otherwise, you can look through the flickr photo pool and pre-order the
http://blog.ponoko.com/2011/08/18/teagueduino-the-snap-and-go-arduino/
Flywheel Bicycle: KERS for pedal-pushersBy Ben Coxworth
In order to help boost their range, many electric and hybrid cars employ regenerative technology where braking energy is stored in the battery instead of simply being wasted. This idea can also be applied to electric-assist bikes, but what about bicycles of the plain old human-powered variety? Isn't it a shame that after having built up some good momentum, you just have to write it all off once you stop? Maxwell von Stein, a student at New York City's Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, thought so. As his senior project, he recently rigged up a flywheel to an existing bicycle, in order to harness the energy that's lost during braking. That energy can then be used to boost the bike when needed.
Beyond space-time: Welcome to phase spaceby Amanda Gefter
A theory of reality beyond Einstein's universe is taking shape – and a mysterious cosmic signal could soon fill in the blanks
IT WASN'T so long ago we thought space and time were the absolute and unchanging scaffolding of the universe. Then along came Albert Einstein, who showed that different observers can disagree about the length of objects and the timing of events. His theory of relativity unified space and time into a single entity - space-time. It meant the way we thought about the fabric of reality would never be the same again. "Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade into mere shadows," declared mathematician Hermann Minkowski. "Only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality."
But did Einstein's revolution go far enough? Physicist Lee Smolin at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, doesn't think so. He and a trio of colleagues are aiming to take relativity to a whole new level, and they have space-time in their sights. They say we need to forget about the home Einstein invented for us: we live instead in a place called phase space.
New Type of Flying Vehicle in Development
Mike O'Sullivan
A California company is developing a new type of airship for transporting cargo and, possibly, passengers. It is not an airplane and not a blimp, but has elements of both. The vehicle uses new technology and has commercial and military applications.
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/New-Type-of-Flying-Vehicle-in-Development-126449823.html
New photonic crystals have both electronic and optical properties
by Space Mart Staff Writers
In an advance that could open new avenues for solar cells, lasers, metamaterials and more, researchers at the University of Illinois have demonstrated the first optoelectronically active 3-D photonic crystal.
"We've discovered a way to change the three-dimensional structure of a well-established semiconductor material to enable new optical properties while maintaining its very attractive electrical properties," said Paul Braun, a professor of materials science and engineering and of chemistry who led the research effort.
The team published its advance in the journal Nature Materials.
Rare Coupling of Magnetic and Electric Properties in a Single Material by Space Mart Staff Writers
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have observed a new way that magnetic and electric properties - which have a long history of ignoring and counteracting each other - can coexist in a special class of metals. These materials, known as multiferroics, could serve as the basis for the next generation of faster and energy-efficient logic, memory, and sensing technology.
The researchers, who worked with colleagues at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research in Germany, published their findings online in Physical Review Letters on July 25, 2011.
http://www.spacemart.com/reports/
Fish Pad: New Woodworking Project Launch!
I wanted to design something that was literally “dead easy” and what’s easier to build than a dead fish! This fish pad is perfect for protecting table surfaces from heat or weight damage. It’s a quick to cut project and the physical kit comes with 3 clones… use the eye to keep them all together on a hook!
You can find this in CNC router DXF format, laser cutting EPS format as well as PDF and physical form under Shop by Category / Household Essentials.
Enjoy!Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,tell a friendabout it, and subscribe to the blog RSS fee
Rocket Stove Water Heater
Posted by Barbara Peterson
http://survivingthemiddleclasscrash.wordpress.com/2011/08/14/rocket-stove-water-heater/
Bristlebot: A tiny directional vibrobot
The BristleBot is a simple and tiny robot with an agenda. The ingredients? One toothbrush, a battery, and a pager motor. The result? Serious fun.
(YouTube video here.)
The BristleBot is our take on the popular vibrobot, a simple category of robot that is controlled by a single vibrating (eccentric) motor. Some neat varieties include the mint-tin version as seen in Make Magazine (check the video), and the kid's art bot: a vibrobot with pens for feet.
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/bristlebot
ixxi - a cheap and portable way to make BIG photo prints
By Loz Blain
t's hard to say whether this sort of product will unleash a stream of creativity or a gushing torrent of poor taste. Dutch printing company ixxi has come up with an innovative, inexpensive and very nifty way to print and hang large scale artworks. By breaking the photo or design up into lots of smaller cards, which are later joined together for presentation using funky little plastic x and i shaped connectors, ixxi avoids the prohibitive expense of larger scale printing, as well as making it easy to package a wall-sized piece of art up into a small box. In fact, the same technology lets you visit an art gallery, and take a life size, photorealistic replica of your favorite wall fresco home with you, ready to reassemble and hang.
http://www.gizmag.com/ixxi-large-format-photo-printing-modular/19491/
3D Printing for regenerative medicine
Posted on 2011/08/10 by sculpteo
Surgeon Anthony Atala demonstrates an early-stage experiment that could someday solve the organ-donor problem: a 3D printer that uses living cells to output a transplantable kidney
7:24 – This is actually a desktop inkjet printer, but instead of using ink, we’re using cells. And you can actually see here the printhead going through and printing this structure, and it takes about 40 minutes to print this structure. And there’s a 3D elevator that then actually goes down one layer at a time each time the printhead goes through. And then finally you’re able to get that structure out. You can pop that structure out of the printer and implant it.
http://blog.sculpteo.com/2011/08/10/3d-printing-for-regenerative-medicine/
É bom!MeshLab is an open source, portable, and extensible system for the processing and editing of unstructured 3D triangular meshes.
The system is aimed to help the processing of the typical not-so-small unstructured models arising in 3D scanning, providing a set of tools for editing, cleaning, healing, inspecting, rendering and converting this kind of meshes.
A model with self intersecting faces detected by MeshLab colored in red. Mesh courtesy of the Aim@Shape Shape Repository.
The different technologies behind 3D Printing
What we call “3D Printing” includes different fabrication methods. It would be more accurate to call it “Additive Manufacturing”. Only one technology works like printing and worth to be called 3D Printing: it’s 3DP.
- Stereo Lithography Apparatus (SLA) use a vat of liquid UV-curable photopolymer “resin” and a UV laser. Exposure to the UV laser light cures, solidifies the pattern traced on the resin. It was developed by Chuck W. Hull (co-founder of 3D Systems) in 1986
http://blog.sculpteo.com/2011/08/08/the-different-technologies-behind-3d-printing/
Graphene's 'quantum leap' takes electronics a step closer
by Staff Writers
Manchester UK (SPX) Jul 27, 2011
Writing in the journal Nature Physics, the academics, who discovered the world's thinnest material at The University of Manchester in 2004, have revealed more about its electronic properties.
Research institutes and universities around the world are already looking at ways to build devices such as touch-screens, ultrafast transistors and photodetectors.
Now the research from the creators of the material promises to accelerate that research, and potentially open up countless more electronic opportunities.
http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Graphene_quantum_leap_takes_electronics_a_step_closer_999.html
3d printed Mario Kart racersBored architect + Makerbot = totally awesome RC turtle shells
Michael Curry (aka Skimbal) has brought Mario Kart gaming nostalgia to life with his remarkably comprehensive Turtle Shell Racers.I think we can all agree, life would become much more interesting if I launched a turtle shell at you every once and a while.All of the .stl files are available on Thingiverse, including full assembly instructions and a parts list for the electronics, motor and other RC components needed to get those wheels turning.
http://blog.ponoko.com/2011/08/09/3d-printed-mario-kart-racers/
Halftone pictures drawn by CNC
DIY device gives a modern twist to nostalgic graphic artform
Finnish AllTheMods user Tomi has been cutting up some pretty impressive things since he first built his own CNC machine. One of the more interesting recent explorations is this series of halftone images, milled into a4 sized sheets of stained plywood.
Click through to see a great video of Tomi’s DIY CNC 2 in action, where he shows not only the cutting head zipping along but also a fairly comprehensive overview of the rest of the setup.
http://blog.ponoko.com/2011/08/07/halftone-pictures-drawn-by-cnc/
Discovery is the mobility device that started it all! Today it’s the bike children want for its funky design, bright colours and great ride. More than freedom, Discovery lets an individual create their own ‘sense of cool.’
From those with simple balance problems to more involved cases of cerebral palsy, spina bifida, downs syndrome, head injury, muscular dystrophy, autism and little people, Discovery offers therapy and fun.
With quick release mechanisms, Discovery adapts easily from one rider to another, making it the choice of many therapists, schools, and care facilities. Discovery is designed to provide excellent stability and fit through standard door openings.
The funky DCP 12 rides on 12” wheels and is packed with features.
http://bike-on.com/product/freedom-concepts-dcp-12-628.htm
Pentagon’s Lightning Gun Sold for Scraps on eBayÉ caso para dizer...
By Noah Shachtman
There was a time, not all that long ago, when the Pentagon sank tens of millions of dollars into remote-controlled lightning guns that it hoped would fry insurgent bombs before they killed any more troops. Now, disassembled parts from the one-time wonder-weapons are being sold on eBay. At least one buyer snatched up the gear, hoping to use it in his latest art project for Burning Man.
All of which would make for a funny little story, if that buyer didn’t discover that the multimillion dollar “Joint Improvised Explosive Device Neutralizers,” or JINs, were kluged together from third-rate commercial electronics, and controlled by open Wi-Fi signals. In other words, the Pentagon didn’t just overpay for a flawed weapon. On the off-chance the JIN ever worked, the insurgents could control it, too.
“This is the hack of all hacks,” says Cody Oliver, a freelance technologist in San Francisco. “And this is what they were selling to the government? Holy shit.”
OK, that story is kind of funny, too. In its own dark way.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/08/pentagons-lightning-gun/
Half of European men share King Tut's DNA
LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Up to 70 percent of British men and half of all Western European men are related to the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun, geneticists in Switzerland said.
Scientists at Zurich-based DNA genealogy centre, iGENEA, reconstructed the DNA profile of the boy Pharaoh, who ascended the throne at the age of nine, his father Akhenaten and grandfather Amenhotep III, based on a film that was made for the Discovery Channel.
The results showed that King Tut belonged to a genetic profile group, known as haplogroup R1b1a2, to which more than 50 percent of all men in Western Europe belong, indicating that they share a common ancestor.
Among modern-day Egyptians this haplogroup contingent is below 1 percent, according to iGENEA.
"It was very interesting to discover that he belonged to a genetic group in Europe -- there were many possible groups in Egypt that the DNA could have belonged to," said Roman Scholz, director of the iGENEA Centre.
Around 70 percent of Spanish and 60 percent of French men also belong to the genetic group of the Pharaoh who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/half-european-men-share-king-tuts-dna-180459757.html
.NET Gadgeteer - Microsoft’s open-source toolkit for building gadgets
By Pawel Piejko
DIY gadgets' makers have a new solution for quick and easy building of custom devices in the form of the .NET Gadgeteer platform. Utilizing .NET Micro Framework and C# programming language, .NET Gadgeteer is an open-source toolkit combined of a basic ARM CPU-equipped mainboard and a choice of easily attachable modules, including displays, buttons, camera, Ethernet, USB ports, or WiFi. The idea resembles the Arduino platform or EZ-Builder kit for DIY robotics projects like DJ Sures' WALL-E.
DIY Spy Drone Sniffs Wi-Fi, Intercepts Phone Calls
By Kim Zetter Email Author
LAS VEGAS — What do you do when the target you’re spying on slips behind his home-security gates and beyond your reach?
Launch your personal, specially equipped WASP drone — short for Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform — to fly overhead and sniff his Wi-Fi network, intercept his cellphone calls, or launch denial-of-service attacks with jamming signals.
These are just a few of the uses of the unmanned aerial vehicle that security researchers Mike Tassey and Richard Perkins demonstrated at the Black Hat security conference here Wednesday.
At a cost of about $6,000, the two converted a surplus FMQ-117B U.S. Army target drone into their personal remote-controlled spy plane, complete with Wi-Fi and hacking tools, such as an IMSI catcher and antenna to spoof a GSM cell tower and intercept calls. It also had a network-sniffing tool and a dictionary of 340 million words for brute-forcing network passwords.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/08/blackhat-drone/
Rich Decibels Brainwave Disruptor
Audio-visual brain entrainment using an Arduino
There are some interesting theories about the ability of low frequency light and sound to alter brain states. I created the Rich Decibels Brainwave Disruptor to investigate some of the theories.
Electrical activity in the brain is rhythmic. The frequency of this rhythm depends on the state the brain is in: an active, alert state correlates to rhythms in the range of 30-100Hz. As brain activity reduces in frequency, so the brain state changes: 8-12Hz is associated with relaxation, 4-7Hz with meditation, and below 4Hz indicates deep sleep.
The concept behind ‘brainwave entrainment‘ is the idea that you can induce different brain states by causing brainwave frequencies to fall into step with external stimulus.
Concept
My device generates this external stimulus with binaural beats, by creating two tones whose frequencies are separated slightly, along with flashing lights and a pulsating audio filter.
http://blog.ponoko.com/2011/08/05/rich-decibels-brainwave-disruptor/
