Putting Additive Manufacturing to work across critical rapid prototyping, custom tooling and part production processes, Stratasys is bringing to market advanced elastomers and enhanced materials for its leading FDM and PolyJet machines. Enabling customers to make it today with 3D Printing, the FDM elastomer solution is intended to provide manufacturers with new levels of elasticity, durability with…
Toilets of the Future Must be Designed with People in Mind, Not Technology
Most of you reading this article probably have a comfortable toilet that you use on a daily basis. As Steve Sugden wrote: “In more developed areas of the world we have forgotten the horrors of using a disgusting toilet and we now take for granted that toilets are comfortable, well lit, smell-free, private, pleasant places to…
Cadence Inc. and Valley Career and Technical Center invest in future of manufacturing
Cadence Inc. recently partnered with Valley Career and Technical Center (VCTC) located in Fishersville, Va. to help get their new Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) program up and running to help train the next generation of the manufacturing workforce. Cadence donated funds that provided a UR5 collaborative robot to be used in the lab’s Robotics &…
Students Seek to Launch Rocket into Space
You don’t have to be Elon Musk to launch a rocket into space. At least, that’s what a daring group of engineering and computer science students at Stevens Institute of Technology will attempt to demonstrate. They’re nearing their $200,000 funding goal to build and launch a rocket past the Karman line from Truth or Consequences,…
DIY Paper Airplane Debuts as Drone
Now, a simple paper airplane can be made into a drone-flying piece of paper. With the PowerUp X FPV, paper plane makers can connect their plane to their phone and control it with intuitive head movements. The Google Cardboard can be folded into any plane design you want, which then attaches to a PowerUp X…
Using Behavior Trees to Improve the Modularity of AUV Control Systems
Researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and National Oceanography Centre have recently used behavior trees (BTs) to design modular, versatile, and robust control architectures for critical missions. Their study, pre-published on arXiv, specifically applied a BT framework to the control system of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). AUVs are underwater vehicles used for a…
Deconstructing a 1974 Harley-Davidson Piece-by-Piece
WIRED recently released a new episode of [De]constructed about a mechanic who breaks down a 1974 Harley-Davidson shovelhead motorcycle piece-by-piece. The Brooklyn mechanic explains each part’s importance as he deconstructs the bike.
Sailing Towards a Fully Electric Ferry
The Danish island of Aeroe, located in the Baltic Sea, is one of the few islands not connected to the mainland by a bridge. As a result, it is dependent on car ferries. Aeroe also has another distinction: it aims to become 100 percent carbon neutral by 2025. Although it has already made big strides towards…
When You Can’t Fly a Plane, You Build One
When a Chinese garlic farmer’s dream of flying an airplane didn’t pan out, he decided to build one instead. The full-scale replica of the Airbus A320 built by farmer Zhu Yue is now nearly finished, permanently taxied on a short piece of tarmac surrounded by wheat fields in northeast China. Zhu didn’t finish middle school,…
Robust Fuel Cell that Runs on Methane at Practical Temperatures
Fuel cells have not been particularly known for their practicality and affordability, but that may have just changed. There’s a new cell that runs on cheap fuel at temperatures comparable to automobile engines and which slashes materials costs. Though the cell is in the lab, it has high potential to someday electrically power homes and…
General Dynamics Launches Autonomous Unmanned Underwater Vehicle
General Dynamics Mission Systems released the new Bluefin-9 autonomous unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) at Oceans 2018 in Charleston, South Carolina. The completely reengineered vehicle combines high navigational accuracy, outstanding sonar resolution, and precision manufacturing to deliver defense, commercial and academic customers highly-detailed subsurface data in minutes rather than hours. The two-man portable UUV provides the same…
Whiskers, Surface Growth, and Dendrites in Lithium Batteries
As our love of gadgets grows, so do demands for longer lasting batteries. But there’s a problem. To make a longer-lasting battery, it needs to be bigger, and bigger isn’t better when it comes to cell phones or electric cars—not to mention pacemakers. Lithium ion batteries already have a less-than-stellar reputation: think exploding cell phones or fires on…
Aerodynamic Robotic Bird, Feathers Not Included
Inspired by the beauty and flying ability of birds, Leonardo da Vinci strived centuries ago to create a human-powered flapping-wing flying machine. But his designs, which da Vinci explored in his Codex on the Flight of Birds, were never developed in any practical way. Even today, mimicking bird flight still presents challenges due to the…
Gas-Detecting Laser Device Gets an Upgrade
University of Michigan researchers have refined a gas-sniffing device so that it can detect poisonous gases and explosives in less than half a second. The laser-based method could be used as a security device in airports or to monitoring for pollutants or toxins in the environment. The physicists’ findings build upon a method they developed last year that…
Optimizing Winglets for Minimum Drag, More Efficient Flight
Although, winglets have been around since the mid-1970s, there is still a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and angles. If you’ve ever taken a photo out the window of a commercial airplane, you most likely have a great shot of a winglet—that part of the wing at the tip that angles upward. That little change…
Building a More Perfect Flying Vehicle
When designing flying vehicles, there are many aspects of which we can be certain but there are also many uncertainties. Most are random, and others are just not well understood. University of Illinois Professor Harry Hilton brought together several mathematical and physical theories to help look at problems in more unified ways and solve physical…
It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s…a Chocolate Drone!
Want to really impress your friend with a birthday gift? How about flying a drone to her front door that is MADE OF CHOCOLATE! It can be done, and it has been done, by a team of three Duke undergrads, with help from a chocolate maker called Chocolove. About a year ago, mechanical engineering student…
Part 2: Applying Lessons From Flight Simulators to Develop Safer Robots
Marc Gyongyosi, CEO and founder of Intelligent Flying Machines, discusses in the second of this two-part story how he leveraged his research in robotic safety into developing safer, more accurate forklifts. As time progressed and technology advanced, designers focused more so on humans and robots working cohesively, rather than two separate units. “Now, we’re finally ready…
Part 1: Applying Lessons From Flight Simulators to Develop Safer Robots
When Marc Gyongyosi was 15, he started working on connecting the physical world to the digital world. Gyongyosi was excited about flight, so, like any teenager, he built a 737-flight simulator, connecting hardware interface to software. “This was the first time I saw potential from the entertainment aspect of connecting digital to the physical world,”…
Hydrogen Car Prototype
HYPROSI uses a process patented by these researchers that allows the efficient production, storage and safe transport of hydrogen for using it in fuel cells through so-called liquid organic hydrogen carriers, or LOHC. The organic liquid carrying hydrogen is the result of the combination between a silane and an alcohol that, in the presence of a catalyst,…
Researchers Unfold Secret Stability of Bendy Straws
Collapsible dog bowls, bendable medical tubes and drinking straws all seem to work on a common principle, snapping into a variety of mechanically stable and useful states. Despite the many applications for such “designer matter” structures, however, the fundamental mechanisms of how they work have until now remained mysterious, say materials scientists at the University…
Gaia: A 3D-Printed Hut Made from Mud
The Italian 3D-printing firm, World’s Advanced Saving Project (WASP), has been working on quite a few clay and straw shelter projects, but its latest project is a 3D-printed hut, known as Gaia, made mainly from a mud mixture for approximately $1,000, according to New Atlas. Gaia’s mud mixture is a combination of 25 percent soil…
3D Printers Have ‘Fingerprints,’ A Discovery That Could Help Trace 3D-Printed Guns, Counterfeit Goods
That’s the takeaway from a new University at Buffalo-led study that describes what’s believed to be the first accurate method for tracing a 3D-printed object to the machine it came from. The advancement, which the research team calls “PrinTracker,” could ultimately help law enforcement and intelligence agencies track the origin of 3D-printed guns, counterfeit products…
High-Performance Flexible Transparent Force Touch Sensor for Wearables
Researchers reported a high-performance and transparent nanoforce touch sensor by developing a thin, flexible, and transparent hierarchical nanocomposite (HNC) film. The research team says their sensor simultaneously features all the necessary characters for industrial-grade application: high sensitivity, transparency, bending insensitivity, and manufacturability. Force touch sensors that recognize the location and pressure of external stimuli have…
G-Light: Automatic Turn Signal for Your Bike
G-Light is a brake and turn light for bikes and electric skateboards that automatically switches off as soon as you’ve made your turn—similar to what a car does, according to New Atlas. As you apply your bike brake, an ultra-bright brake light turns on, and as you stop applying the brakes, the lights go back…