The folks over at the Additive Manufacturing Lab, GE Global Research, sent us this video about their 3D-printed jet engine Christmas ornament design. They’re looking to see what sorts of other 3D-printed and science-tech-themed tree ornaments makers are creating. If you’ve made any, post them to their Edison’s Desk Facebook page. GE Global Research  
I love the look of this Prusa Mendel RepRap 3D-printer fork designed by Thingiverse user Mecano. Shown uppermost is a concept rendering of his second prototype, Prusa Air 2, which hasn’t been built yet, and immediately above, the physical prototype of Prusa Air 1. Among Manuel’s stated design goals for the project were “a little beauty,” which I daresay he has already achieved, admirably.  
Japan’s Sony generates power from paper. As an environmental products fair opened in Tokyo, Sony invited children to put paper into a mixture of water and enzymes, shake it up and wait for a few minutes to see the liquid become a source of electricity, powering a small fan. “This is the same mechanism with which termites eat wood to get energy,” said Chisato Kitsukawa, a public relations manager at Sony. While academic research has previously taken place on this kind of power generation, proof-of-concept demonstrations are rare, he said. The performance was part of Sony’s drive to develop a sugar-based “bio battery” that turns glucose into power.
Read more  
Want to send secret messages over a distance but are wary of your communiqué being intercepted? After all, transmissions can be listened to with the right equipment, and you don’t want to run entire spools of wire to say “Hello world.” I know, how about a Simple Laser Communicator! This Weekend Project is quite simple, and relies on two parts: an audio transformer and laser for sending, and a photoresistor and crystal earpiece for receiving. Most of you probably already have a laser (or lasers) in your possession, so how you wire up that component (see diagram below) will vary, but the premise is the same: the laser will interpret the output from the audio transformer as pulses of light. Those laser pulses hit a photoresistor or solar cell, which in turn causes the diaphragm inside the piezoelectric earphone to vibrate, making light audible! This does of course require very precise line of sight, and communication is only one-way, but is a great combination of two generations of technology into a contemporary Weekend Project.
The transmitter consists of a microphone, mini-amp, audio transformer and laser.
The receiver consists of a photoresistor and crystal earpiece.
While Simple Laser Communicator is our final Weekend Project of 2011, we’re by no means done. Please continue to send us your stories, photos of your builds, and your questions. Sign up below for the Weekend Projects Newsletter to access the projects before anybody else does, get tips, see other makers’ builds, and more. Sign Up for the “Weekend Projects” Newsletter More:
See all of the RadioShack Weekend Projects posts (to date)  
A fluoride-ion battery. A fluoride-containing electrolyte separates the metal anode from the metal fluoride cathode. (Credit: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology/Science Daily)
If ever there was a persistent choke-point in untethered tech development, it’s battery power. It seems as though, while there are advances each year, they don’t end up moving the ball very far down the field. And when new battery life averages are increased in mobile devices, oftentimes, those gains are in power management or hardware/software optimization, rather than in the battery technology itself. I’m no battery expert, but in tracking science and tech sites this year, there seemed to be more promising developments in the field than in previous years. Let’s hope so. Here are a few of the recent headlines that caught my attention on Science Daily: Nanoparticle Electrode for Batteries Could Make Grid-Scale Power Storage Feasible – Stanford researchers have used nanoparticles of a copper compound to develop a high-power battery electrode that is so inexpensive to make, so efficient, and so durable that it could be used to build batteries big enough for economical large-scale energy storage on the electrical grid — something researchers have sought for years. New Technology Improves Both Energy Capacity and Charge Rate in Rechargeable Batteries – A team of engineers has created an electrode for lithium-ion batteries — rechargeable batteries such as those found in cellphones and iPods — that allows the batteries to hold a charge up to 10 times greater than current technology. Batteries with the new electrode also can charge 10 times faster than current batteries. Fluoride Shuttle Increases Storage Capacity: Researchers Develop New Concept for Rechargeable Batteries – Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) researchers have developed a new concept for rechargeable batteries. Based on a fluoride shuttle — the transfer of fluoride anions between the electrodes — it promises to enhance the storage capacity reached by lithium-ion batteries by several factors. Operational safety is also increased, as it can be done without lithium. Novel Energy-Storage Membrane: Performance Surpasses Existing Rechargeable Batteries and Supercapacitors – Dr Xie and his team have developed a membrane that not only promises greater cost-effectiveness in delivering energy, but also an environmentally-friendly solution. The researchers used a polystyrene-based polymer to deposit the soft, foldable membrane that, when sandwiched between and charged by two metal plates, could store charge at 0.2 farads per square centimeter. This is well above the typical upper limit of 1 microfarad per square centimetre for a standard capacitor. Have you heard about any new advances in battery science this year? Please share in comments below. BTW: If you’re looking for a good one-stop shop for battery-related information, you can go wrong with The Electropedia.
This post is sponsored by the Chevy Volt.  I’m a huge drawbot fan, but Eske Rex’s Drawing Machine surprised me by not being powered by motors. Instead, it uses the pendulum-like motions of two big concrete weights, creating super Spirograph style art. Sweet! [Via The Donut Project]  
Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool, this clever idea for recycling dead tires (or storing new ones) from Pittsburgh’s Joe Katrincik. It’s two smaller plywood circles for the base, a larger one for the top, 6 castors, 6 screw eyes / eyebolts, and 3 ratcheting tie-down straps. I bet if one were to counter-bore the top holes, a bit, and used T-nuts instead of hex nuts to secure the top eye bolts, one could avoid having the nuts sticking up above the work surface. If one thought it mattered. More:  
While on a trip to Mendoza, Argentina, I came across a man sharpening scissors using a bicycle to power his grinding wheel. It’s a clever lo-tech combination. 
He was performing this service in a pedestrian mall. After filming him, I walked away and when I looked back, he was gone, in pursuit of another place to ply his trade.   Well, after a little downtime (who am I kidding, things have been freakin’ insane), I haven’t (yet) fallen off the face of the earth, and have another “Tiny Yellow House” episode for you. I designed, pre-fabricated, hauled, and then re-assembled a treehouse I’ve dubbed “The Wolfe’s Den” (Wolfe being the last name of the woman I built it for), and luckily had Steven Sherrick of Modern Vintage Productions to help document the laborious process. This triangular treehouse was assembled in the Catskills over two weekends, and stands as one of the larger projects I’ve tackled for the show. My only given parameters for the design: “It must receive a good deal of natural light, and have enough space to sleep two (floor space)”. Its another design loosely based off my “Humble Homes, Simple Shacks” book- a new version will be out through The Lyons Press on February 1st (available for preorder on Amazon). Subscribe to the Tiny Yellow House podcast in iTunes, download the m4v video directly, or watch it on YouTube and Vimeo. Check out all the episodes of Tiny Yellow House.  
| 
No comments:
Post a Comment
Keep a civil tongue.