Because Robots!

Knife Orchestra

By Owen Li | Published: July 28, 2015

Have you ever been in the kitchen, slicin’ and dicin’, and just wondered to yourself, “Man, this experience would be so much better if I had some Bee Gees and automatic knives!” Well, look no further!

Created by Niel Mendoza, the Electric Knife Orchestra consists of 16 knives and 1 meat cleaver, which combine to make 6 different musical “instruments”, through which the Bee Gees’ 1977 hit Stayin’ Alive is played. The orchestra is also made possible by an Arduino, stepper motors, with music arranged in Logic. The Jacob’s Ladder(shown below) uses a rely controlling 3 machines connected to solenoids and car door lock actuators and a 12,000V neon sign transformer.

Jacob’s Ladder with Knives

So now this musical group can stay as an art masterpiece, or slaughterhouses and kitchens around the world have some catching up to do, both in productivity, and in entertainment.

Posted in Images, Videos | Tagged Art, COOL, Fun, knives | Leave a comment

Origami Batteries

By Owen Li | Published: July 27, 2015

Battery technology has been improving at a crazy rate in past years, getting smaller and more powerful with each passing year. Concurrent with all the previous advancements, this new innovation in battery technology is sure to make people…bend over backwards. Didn’t get that joke? Let me explain.

Hanqing Jiang, an associate professor at Arizona State University in Tempe, has recently created lithium-ion batteries that can stretch to over 150% of their original size. After talking with “an origami artist who showed [him] some famous origami patters,” Jiang used a variation of origami, kirigami, to create the stretchable batteries. (Just FYI, another style of origami, the Miura-ori fold, which is used to fold large maps into small rectangles, was originally used to help pack solar panels nicely into spacecraft)

The solar panels on the ISS were folded using an origami technique.

The batteries are made with slurries of lithium cobalt dioxide and graphite, which together can store and release electricity. They were then coated with aluminum foil, at which point the origami technique was used to cut the sheets into nice stretchy serpentine shapes.

Posted in Images | Tagged compact, Convenient, COOL, foldable | 5 Comments

Greased Lightning

By Owen Li | Published: July 26, 2015

First off, no, it’s not that song by Grease. Second off, who ever thought greasing lightning was ever a good idea? Apparently NASA did, when they created a 10-foot wide, 62-lb, 10-engine drone, capable of vertical liftoff like a helicopter, and regular flight like an airplane.

As they continue to scale up the tests and the model drone sizes, NASA hopes to be able to someday convert this tech into a 1-4 person-size personal air vehicle. Greased Lightning, or GL-10 is a quiet flier, as its engines are battery powered, with NASA describing it as quieter than a neighbor using a gas-powered lawnmower in the adjacent yard.

NASA is currently looking at reconnaissance and agricultural uses for the drone.

Posted in Images, Videos | Tagged Convenient, COOL, Engineering, Flying, Fun, NASA, Vehicles | Leave a comment

Giant Robot War!!

By Owen Li | Published: July 12, 2015

Ok, now this isn’t going to be an article about a cool new innovation, but a little splurt of nerdgasm instead.

Japan has officially accepted the USA’s challenge to a giant robot battle!

Taking place in one year, the battle will pit American brute force against Japanese finesse to determine which nation is the supreme ultimate (robot) fighting champion.
The Americans will be fighting with Megabots Inc.’s Mark 2, and the Japanese will be fighting with Suidobashi Heavy Industry’s Kuratas. The Mark 2 runs on tank treads and can fire giant paintballs at speeds over 100 mph, while the Kuratas runs on 3 wheels and has dual gatling guns.

Posted in Images, Videos | Tagged Competition, COOL, Engineering, Fun, Robot, Robot Battle | Leave a comment

Robot Cheetah-Hurdler

By Owen Li | Published: June 13, 2015

This robot world just took a huge leap into the future. Literally and figuratively.

Developed by MIT researchers, this Cheetah bot has improved from its last showing last year, where it was able to run at 10 miles per hour. This time, it’s shown to be able to jump hurdles, much like a human can. Using lidar (Light detection and ranging), the robot is able to detect obstacles from a distance and can clear them in a running jump, without any human assistance.

The days of robot bunnies hiding from robot cheetahs are drawing to a close.

Posted in Images, Videos | Tagged cheetah, COOL, Engineering, Fun, hurdle, Robot, Walking | 7 Comments

Grape-Stitching Robot

By Owen Li | Published: May 15, 2015

Doctors have to have to calmest hands ever to be able to do some of the work they do, which includes stitching up a laceration wound, incision…etc. Now, even robots can do those tasks, as demonstrated by this robot.

This robot is extremely precise, and Da Vinci uses it to perform minimally invasive procedures.

Posted in Videos | Tagged COOL, Engineering, Fun, Medical, Robot, surgery | 1 Comment

$9 Computer

By Owen Li | Published: May 14, 2015

Next Thing Co. has just released CHIP, a mini computer with an open source operating system, pre-installed software, 1 GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM, and 4GB of storage. In other words, you may want avoid processor-intensive tasks.

While users still have to provide their own peripherals (mouse, keyboard) and monitor, Next Thing Co. is certainly on the right track of trimming the fat that comes with many other computers sold at much high price ranges.

Posted in Images | Tagged computer, Convenient, COOL, Engineering, Fun | Leave a comment