Sure, the gear may look like it came straight out of Avatar or Battlestar Galactica. But all of the laser weapons, robots, sonic blasters and puke rays pictured here are real. Some of these weapons have already found their way onto the battlefield. If the rest of this sci-fi arsenal follows, war may soon be unrecognizable. Read on for a look at some of these futuristic weapons being tested today.
In November, I had the opportunity to travel to Seattle for a Magic: The Gathering tournament. While I was there, I visited the headquarters of TwinTech, a small company run by identical twin brothers, Steve and Chris Burrows, who manufacture a small rack-building set called MicroRAX. At the time, a similar set, called MakerBeam, was hot in the news for its innovative funding angle -- getting capital via the microfunding site KickStarter. I was intrigued because MicroRAX was a nigh-identical product, lacking only MakerBeam's marketing moxie. But also unlike MakerBeam, it was a product already on the market, with starter sets available from TwinTech's online store.
Chris Burrows picked me up at my hotel and we drove to TwinTech's workspace. The company works out of a small warehouse, sharing it with other small industrial firms. Set up in one corner of the space, the workshop was gloriously messy, filled with a variety of machinery and half-finished projects.
TwinTech's core business is making couplers that let you connect multiple tubes at once, however, it was the MicroRAX that interested me. Obviously they had tons of beam lying around. In addition to boxes of beam waiting to be cut -- both plain aluminum and their awesome black anodized version -- there were numerous examples of the MicroRAX used for practical purposes. The Burrows' rule is that they won't build anything for the shop (e.g., shelves or an iPod stand) using any other material besides MicroRAX.
Unlike some systems where you're expected to use the sizes of beams you're given, MicroRAX fully assumes you're going to hack off specific lengths off the standard .9-meter beams available from their store. This also means that if you had a need for larger pieces, the guys can cut it special for you -- I saw lengths of MicroRAX beam in the 5-10' range used for practical purposes around the shop, as well as huge cardboard boxes holding uncut 12' beams they'd gotten back from the extruder.
I asked Chris about the open-source angle. One aspect of MakerBeam which appealed to potential donors was their claim to be open source, though this is not the case thus far -- still in alpha, it lacks the documentation, user-contributions, and open standards that are the hallmarks of open projects. A better example might be Contraptor, a fantastic VEX-esque building set that sets the benchmark for openness and community cooperation.
While MicroRAX isn't open, Chris told me that when you deal with engineers, you can't hold anything back. A company can't really have an industrial product like TwinTech's multi-tube couplers or MicroRAX without divulging everything to a potential customer. They'll want to know the precise dimensions and characteristics of your product before they'll buy it. From an end-result standpoint, how is that really different from publishing your 3Ds?
The brothers are thinking about taking MicroRAX open, but in the meantime, they published their core product design, the "snowflake" cross section of the MicroRAX beam, to Thingiverse, potentially allowing anyone to extrude their own beam.
I love these swarm robots and the relative simplicity of the design, the means on motility (BEAM-style direct-drive pager motors), and the charging scheme (the bots in the lower image, to the right, are at the charging rail). The wiki that's been set up doesn't have too much info yet. There's even going to be a kit you can buy of a mostly-assembled bot (you just have to solder on the motors, battery, and a few through-hole components).
This is the community portal for the formica project which has developed and built a swarm of miniature robots. The robots, only 30x28x15mm are fully autonomous with programmable and natural emergent behaviour. The robots work using biological algorithms to complete a task as a group. They also exhibit a collective swarm memory.
The robot designs are completely open source and have also been released as a kit which is an ideal beginners soldering project for individuals or groups. The robots are currently programmed using an inexpensive programming tool.
This light sculpture by German multimedia design collective lab binaer may look like a persistence of vision (POV) display at first glance, but in fact works on a very different principle. It's built from a record player, and the turntable has been treated with a phosphorescent pigment. Messages are printed on the pigment by an array of bright lights on the tone arm, and slowly fade to black as the phosphorescence wanes. It's titled »Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod« or "Death calls the tune." [via Hack a Day]
Need to build a custom rotary encoder wheel for that precision motion device you are making? Well, Nick Ames has you covered with his encoder wheel generator script.
What would you want this for, you ask? Well, a rotary encoder is a device that uses a fixed-position sensor (in this case an optical one) that measures a series of markings to determine the speed, position and direction that a part is spinning in. By using a generator like this one to print a custom pattern, you can create one that works well for the application that you want to use it for.
With GPS units shining from dashboards and Google Maps just a click away, maps have never been more of a part of our culture than they are now. Joshua Huyser's cartographical explorations embrace such concepts as travel, movement, paths, and directions.
Here's what Huyser's cryptic artist's statement has to say:
My senses are to blame. I am immersed in life and, suddenly, I am moved. Not physically, but inside. This internal shift must be reconciled. It is the spark that initiates locomotion. It is nothing but a morsel, a crude statement. It is a notion, a note... a thought. It requires clarification, elaboration, but there is a delicate fog obscuring the path. In the murkiness I am confronted with options, forks stumbling to dead ends. Backtracking. It seems impossible, but I try to trust myself. I must, for the answer comes from a secret place unbeknownst to me. The undertaking is frenetic in the beginning. There is unrest. The vibrations continue to propel me forward. My mind's eye is filled with the potential that must be negotiated. I push forward and build as I would a novel or piece of music, slowly wading through the mist. Eventually the quivering stills and it is done. A successful culmination is a symphony. It was inside of me and now it is out. It is a soliloquy. It is the world through me. It is from me to you. Don't analyze. Just allow it to pass through you.
See Huyser's mnartists.org page for more information.
I've been toying with homemade steadicams lately. The gimbal joint usually gives people a fit. The roundness of the acorn nut fits into the indentation of the opposite screw/nut and freely rotates.
Michael Vorfeld creates sound installations using the noise that light bulbs make when they are turned on and off in a controlled manner. I like that the lights and sound are literally integrated, because they come from the same source. I'm assuming that the sounds are created because the metal conductors in the lamp are deformed due to magnetostriction- anyone have a better explanation? [via neatorama]
Artist, traveller, & inventor Joost Conijn spent the better part of a year building his own very custom automobile - almost entirely from wood. And what more fitting way to power such a vehicle, than with an onboard wood-burning stove! You might assume such a novel machine wasn't intended for any lengthy excursions, but in fact that was Conijn's aim from the project's onset.
Free from the trappings of petrol-dependent transportation, Joost ventured through remote & tourist-free terrain of Eastern Europe documenting his journey in video. Fueled by donations from local villagers (and forests), he managed to explore - "Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Slowakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldavia, Transnistrië, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Italy, France, The Netherlands" Epic road trip indeed, Conijn explains some of his motivation and experiences -
Today I'm at MIT visiting the Media Lab's High-Low Tech (HLT) group, headed up by Leah Buechley. I'm hanging out with her and her grad students Hannah Perner-Wilson, David Mellis, and Emily Lovell, as well as e-textile education maven Kate Hartman. More later this week including video, but for now check out mine and Kate's photos! Yesterday we met with all sorts of education and e-textile superstars and had a knitted sensor workshop. Pictured above is Hannah showing Kate how to finish her machine-knitted conductive yarn stretch sensor.
Rob Cruickshank repurposed the spherical printhead from an old IBM Selectric typewriter for use in a new gallery installation. Under strobed illumination, the Selectric's 'typeball' certainly is hypnotic - beautiful, in a sort of William S. Burroughs way. Rob's kinetic sculpture will be on viewable at Toronto's Fly Gallery until the end of the month.
(It's worth noting - The 60s era Selectric seems a pretty awesome piece of engineering - just reading over how it prevented simultaneously keystrokes had me inspired.)
Originally published in 1928, Puzzles in Wood: Simple Patterns for Creating 45 Classics, presents more than 40 unique puzzles to challenge the woodworker's hands and mind. Projects include bewitching cubes, caged balls, intricate banks, locked links, and perplexing burrs. Skills such as squaring stock, mortising, and mitering are developed through projects of various skill levels, each of which includes a detailed diagram to simplify the process of turning scrap lumber into a fun novelty puzzle.
Twitter user orkboi, also known as Tony Dowler, has created some humorous mini D&D dungeons for his new website microdungeons.com, where he plans to publish three a week in 2010. My favorite is the bird-shaped dungeon in the style of cartoonist Ape Lad's Twitter avatars.
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