A new composition of germanosilicate glass created by adding zinc oxide has properties good for lens applications, according to Penn State researchers. This marks the discovery of a novel glass family. The researchers invented a new family of zinc germanosilicate glass that has a high refractive index comparable to that of pure germania glass. The samples also showed high transparency, good…
Two-Armed 3D Printing
Twin robotic arms work together as part of a project to construct what will be the largest, most complex object ever 3D printed in titanium: a test version of the 3-m diameter ‘optic bench’ at the heart of ESA’s Athena X-ray observatory. The first multi-axis robotic arm builds up each new layer of metal using…
Latest Updates from NASA on 3D-Printed Habitat Competition
The 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge is a competition to create sustainable shelters suitable for the Moon, Mars or beyond using resources available on-site in these locations. The multi-level 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge puts teams to the test in several areas of 3D-printing, including modeling software, material development and construction. In addition to aiding human space exploration, technologies…
Startup Has Plans to Build 18-Seat Hybrid Bio Electric Aircraft
British aerospace start-up Faradair has recently revealed it has plans to build and sell an 18-seat, Bio Electric Hybrid Aircraft (BEHA) by 2025. The craft is designed to be both quiet and quick in its takeoff capabilities, and can be used for passengers or cargo air transport. Dubbed the BEHA_M1H, the aircraft will use its…
MIT and NASA Engineers Demonstrate New Kind of Airplane Wing
A team of engineers has built and tested a radically new kind of airplane wing, assembled from hundreds of tiny identical pieces. The wing can change shape to control the plane’s flight, and could provide a significant boost in aircraft production, flight, and maintenance efficiency, the researchers say. The new approach to wing construction could afford greater…
Make It Extreme Creates Double Piston Rod
Make It Extreme has put their efforts into making a double acting cylinder with a double piston rod. The team says that while the rod at the common piston exerts and moves from one side of the cylinder, the rod from this specially made piston moves in both sides of the cylinder. Make It Extreme’s…
U.S. Military Gets Help From Plywood Drones
Logistic Gliders has created drones made from plywood that they hope will resupply ground-moving military forces. Currently, the gliders have completed 12 prototype flight tests, where six were deployed from a helicopter sling load, six were deployed from a Shorts SC-7 Skyvan, seven were flown via radio control, and five were flown autonomously. These low…
Scientists Discover Potential Sustainable Energy Technology for the Household Refrigerator
While many advancements have been in improving its efficiency, the refrigerator still consumes considerable amounts of energy each year. “Energy efficiency of a normal refrigerator is affected by the heat-insulating property of the thermal barriers of the freezer. This is due to its low inner temperature,” explained Jingyu Cao at the University of Science and…
Electrospinner Made of Lego Pieces Used to Create Strands of Starch
A new technique to spin starch fibers using Lego pieces could have future applications for lab-grown “clean” meat, according to a team of food scientists from Penn State and the University of Alabama. “There’s a lot of interest in natural fibers,” said Gregory Ziegler, professor and director of graduate studies, Department of Food Science at…
SLS Engine Section Approaches Finish Line for First Flight
NASA and Boeing have completed the majority of outfitting for the core stage engine section for the first flight of the agency’s new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The engine section, located at the bottom of the 212-foot-tall core stage, is one of the most complex parts of the rocket. Technicians at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans have…
Boeing to Make Safety Feature Standard on Troubled Max Jets
The equipment, which had been offered as an option, alerts pilots of faulty information from key sensors. It will now be included on every 737 Max as part of changes that Boeing is rushing to complete on the jets by early next week, according to two people familiar with the changes. The people spoke on…
Research Team Uses Artificial Muscles to Develop an Air Conditioner for the Future
It can be used to cool or heat the air in a room or to cool or heat liquids. And it looks like something that Q—the tech specialist and gadgeteer in the James Bond films—might have come up with. The prototype device, which has been developed by a research team led by Professors Stefan Seelecke…
Wide Area Detection among Eight Finalists for AFIMSC’s Inaugural ‘Innovation Rodeo’
John Shackell, a force protection business consultant with the Air Force Security Forces Center at JBSA-Lackland, once had an idea “before its time.” “Over a decade ago, I worked in the Force Protection Battlelab and developed an initiative called REDCAR (Remote Detection Challenge and Response) using unmanned ground vehicles in support of the security forces…
Building a Life-Size Truck Piece by Piece from Legos
We’ve seen a life-size Lego Bugatti, but now Chevy has tasked students from Oxford Community School and Ralph Waldo Emerson Elementary to create a Lego rendition of its 2019 Silverado 1500 LT Trailboss. Once the 18 students assembled, they intricately pieced together 334,544 Lego pieces and spent over 2,000 hours on assembling the masterpiece. The…
OnRobot Announces Availability of Gecko Gripper Built with NASA-Inspired Tech
OnRobot, a company focused in end-of-arm tooling for collaborative robots, is kicking of 2019 with its newly-available Gecko Gripper, that uses millions of micro-scaled fibrillar stalks that adhere to a surface using powerful van der Waals forces — the same way that geckos climb. The Gecko Gripper lets robots pick up flat, smooth objects with significant…
3D-Printing Urban Furniture from Plastic Waste
Print Your City has gone from prototypes to the real thing with New Raw’s Zero Waste Lab in Thessaloniki, Greece, where individuals can have their trash turned into urban furniture. Although plastic is designed to be reused, we often chuck it, tossing out a potential glorious bench. “Plastic has a design failure,” said New Raw…
Make it Extreme Tinkers with DIY E-Bike Battery
Make it Extreme, notorious for their DIY tinkering product designs, has honed into the electric vehicle world by creating a custom E-bike battery. The group took lithium batteries 3,7n and attached each battery with another in every row. Every cell of battery contains 13 batteries, so in the end after each battery was connected with…
3D Printing 100 Times Faster with Light
Rather than building up plastic filaments layer by layer, a new approach to 3D printing lifts complex shapes from a vat of liquid at up to 100 times faster than conventional 3D printing processes, University of Michigan researchers have shown. 3D printing could change the game for relatively small manufacturing jobs, producing fewer than 10,000…
Battery Prototype Incorporates Cartilage-Like Material
Your knees and your smartphone battery have some surprisingly similar needs, a University of Michigan professor has discovered, and that new insight has led to a “structural battery” prototype that incorporates a cartilage-like material to make the batteries highly durable and easy to shape. The idea behind structural batteries is to store energy in structural…
How Two Drones are Working Together to Dig Holes, Deploy a Parachute, and Plant Sensors
Drones that dig holes and plant sensors sounds seemingly easy, but it’s not. The NIMBUS Lab at the University of Nebraska has been developing drones that carry a portable digging system, locate a spot to dig, land, verify that the landing spot can easily be dug into, dig a hole, install the sensor, and finally,…
Make it Extreme Constructs Hydraulic Puller for Multiple Uses
Make it Extreme has created a tool that can be adjusted to avoid using multiple other tools. Often, individuals have to remove pulleys from a motor and ball bearings from an axis, so to mitigate using a bunch of different tools, Make it Extreme created a hydraulic puller. They made the tool work similar to…
Foldable Shelter Provides Safety at Sea
In response to a potential earthquake, Istanbul-based architecture firm SO? has created a prototype floating shelter with a unique design. The company says that Istanbul would not have enough sufficient land for emergency housing in case of an earthquake, so they’ve moved to the waters. The water-based shelter, known as Fold&Float, is made from steel…
Service Provides Production Quality Parts at Prototype Speeds
Fictiv, the company democratizing global manufacturing, revealed a new category of injection molding manufacturing services enabling production quality parts at prototype speeds at CES. The Rapid Design Mold Service is part of Fictiv’s Agile Manufacturing Solution(AMS) and offers customers access to fast production of high quality, complex parts at low volumes. “CES provides a first look…
Boeing Pairs World’s Largest Twin-Engine Jet with GE Engine
Boeing just released the first pictures of the world’s largest twin-engine jet, the 777X, equipped with the world’s largest jet engine, the GE9X. The plane is scheduled for its maiden flight this year. The 777X will be “the most-efficient twin-engine jet in the world, with 12 percent lower fuel consumption and 10 percent lower operating…
Creating a Hovercraft from a Plastic Bag and 3D Printer
Using an interesting array of material, RCLifeOn created a hovercraft using a 3D printer, a plastic bag, and other basic electronics, such as a brushless motor from a drone. After addressing a few challenges along the way, such as the plastic bag skirt being too thin and potentially susceptible to rips, RCLifeOn successfully created a fully-working…