Category Archives: Technology

Nanotechnology steps up for the big screens

Posted on by
Reply

Tech Radar UK blog/magazine: The future of touchscreens revealed: bigger, cheaper, bendier
IN DEPTH Silver is becoming the gold standard for touchscreen technology20130818-161523.jpg

The mesh of tiny silver nanowires, head on and at an angle (very much magnified)

Because it’s flexible it can be roll to roll printed and the silver nanowire ink can be printed to final patern which will enable rapid cost reduction and new options. Cool stuff.20130818-161939.jpg

After the plastic has been sprayed with the nanowires and dried in an oven, the machine rolls it up again

MIT’s Spidery Lego, The Future of large scale 3D ‘Printing’ by little Maker-Bots

Posted on by
1

When you think about it we’re built up from billions of smaller common modules with a lot of minor variations, why shouldn’t our infrastructure be the same?

MIT researchers have developed a lightweight structure whose tiny blocks can be snapped together much like the bricks of a child’s construction toy. The new material, the researchers say, could revolutionize the assembly of airplanes, spacecraft, and even larger structures, such as dikes and levees.

20130816-173029.jpg

Assemblies of the cellular composite material are seen from different perspectives, showing the repeating “cuboct” lattice structure, made from many identical flat cross-shaped pieces.
PHOTO COURTESY OF KENNETH CHEUNG

20130816-190438.jpg

Credit: © CC-BY-NC-SA Kenneth C. Cheung

20130816-185751.jpg

Part production for reversibly-assembled cellular composite materials, slicing from stock produced by a multiplexed fiber winding method. Credit: CC-BY-NC-SA Kenneth C. Cheung

20130816-190034.jpg

Test apparatus with reversibly-assembled cellular composite materials. Credit: © CC-BY-NC-SA Kenneth C. Cheung

If you can’t tell that last picture is a load cell, an instrument for applying precisely controlled loads to CRUSH YOUR ENEM…. uh, I mean… test the strength of a part or structure.

Read more at:MIT
or at:PhysOrg
or at: 3Ders

Obviously the MIT press piece is the base, but the others each have a little different insight.

10 story Grasshopper does a little daring

Posted on by
Reply

Slashgear.com : SpaceX Rasshopper aces side tracking reusable rocket test go check out the video at the link way cool as always!20130814-190927.jpgEven more exciting, there’s some more details on the next steps!

Of course, the system will have to go significantly higher if it’s to be of use to NASA. SpaceX plans to introduce a second version of Grasshopper – known as v1.1 – sometime after October 2013, which will stand 160 feet tall and use nine of the engines from the Falcon 9-R rocket, rather than Grasshopper v.1′s single engine.

When testing begins, Grasshopper v1.1 is expected to eventually fly to heights of 300,000 feet, launching from a specially constructed pad at Spaceport America, New Mexico.

3D printed parts resurrect Saturn V’s ferocious F1 first stage engines

Posted on by
Reply

Dynetics reporting “outstanding” progress on F-1B rocket engine20130813-224116.jpg

The prototype components were constructed not with welding and casting, but rather with selective laser melting—a 3D printing technique that uses hot lasers to fuse metal powder into complex shapes. Dynetics and Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne hope to lean heavily on advanced manufacturing techniques like this in order to massively reduce the part count—and hence cost—of the F-1B engine compared to its F-1 predecessor. Current estimates call for a reduction in the combustion chamber from more than 5,000 parts in the F-1 to fewer than 100 parts in the F-1B.

OK I loathe the senate taxripoff system (STS), otherwise known as the space transportation system, but this is absolutely cool. I have to say NASA engineers and scientists have done a lot of really great and innovative stuff, even in these tough times, but as an exploratory risk taking organization…..well they’re a bunch of engineers and scientists lead by bureaucrats and directed by politicians . . . what more is there to say?

Your .50 cal rifle not ‘doing it’ for you any longer, what about .905?

Posted on by
Reply

Gun company displays largest-caliber rifle ever created with bullets that cost $40 a piece

  • The .905-caliber rifle fires rounds about 2,100 feet per second
  • The gun also has 2,777 foot-pounds of recoil energy, which essentially makes it as powerful – and gives it about as much ‘kick’ – as firing 10 .30-6 rifles at the same time.
  • The company has only produced three of the uber-powerful rifles

20130803-185212.jpg20130803-185220.jpgRead more at the Daily Mail, UK, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2383113/Gun-company-displays-largest-caliber-rifle-created-bullets-cost-40-piece.html the American gun culture is a continuing horror show for many in the UK, as our home invasion and violent crime rates go down and theirs goes up.