The video above is from a team of Mechanical Engineers at National Taiwan University who used NI LabVIEW and CompactRIO to build a wheel to leg transforming robot that can drive around and also navigate more complicated terrain with its curved legs.
I wasn’t overly impressed with the robot until I saw the transformation. The variety of terrain it can traverse is pretty awesome. It looks just a like a turtle making it’s way over obstacles.
Side note: During college, I worked at National Instruments — the company that created the LabVIEW software used by this robot. It’s a graphical programming software that is really intuitive to use. Even if you have no experience with computer programming, you can pick it up pretty quickly. Instead of creating “for loops”, you physically draw a loop around a bit of code and a loop is created. Check it out if you have some free time.
I came across this space suit on a blog called The Fox Is Black (they run a Space Suit of the Week column which is a must read!), and I knew I had to share.
Wu Ershan is a Chinese artist from Inner Mongolia who created the space suit shown above using white felt and metal inserts.
Description of the artwork from the curator:
The artwork presents part of the project ‘Nomadic Plan in Outer Space’. This artwork is an example of imagining the future, with parallels to the ‘Secret History of the Mongols’ (regarding the birth of Genghis Khan). buy fildena ct online https://pavg.net/wp-content/languages/en/fildena-ct.html no prescription
This uses the metaphor of the wolf and the deer and the blood clot in Khan’s hand, which can be seen as similar to Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. Both these visions are drawn from inspired imaginations and non-linear methods of linking the past, future and present times, presenting them as both separate and concurrent, an extension of the spirit influenced by Eastern Buddhism. These can all be seen as the future predictions.
I really like the neutral color palette and the mixture of traditional Mongolian design with futuristic space suits. It would be interesting if every country had a space program and designed their suits with their respective cultures in mind.
The video above combines two of my favorite things, NASA & Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear. NASA burns up nearly half a million gallons of fuel to power these solid rocket boosters that provide thrust to send astronauts into space, but first, they need to be tested. So in the wetlands of Mississippi, they fire these engines off and out comes a rain cloud!
Yes, you are seeing correctly, we can make RAIN FALL FROM THE SKY! And while it may not be the most energy efficient process, I’m still amazed.
Our society certainly owes a lot to caffeine. The National Coffee Association reports that around 54% of Americans drink coffee every single day, and another 25% drink coffee occasionally. And when you add in other drinks that contain caffeine like soft drinks and tea, it’s estimated that over 90% of North Americans consume caffeine daily. The drug performs its magic by acting as a central nervous stimulant, warding off drowsiness and restoring altertness. Because caffeine is both water-soluble and lipid-soluble, it readily crosses the blood–brain barrier that separates the bloodstream from the interior of the brain.
Artist Michele Banks from Washington, D.C. wanted to pay tribute to this wonderful drug by creating the excellent coffee-inspired watercolors shown above. She describes her process below:
I’ve never hidden the fact that much of my inspiration comes from caffeine. I added some to my explorations of the wonders of the human body and came up with Coffee-Stain Brain, an original watercolor painting, combining the beauty of the brain with the wonders of that most excellent elixir, coffee, without which not much progress would be made in either the arts or sciences…
I put down a background wash in a rich coffee brown shade, and then “painted” on it with a paper coffee cup dipped in paint in a dark, espresso brown. The paint spreads out a little, creating that coffee-ring-on-paper pattern familiar to many of us from studying or working late. The background is a rich, creamy, cafe au lait shade.
I really enjoy how she implemented the idea of the coffee stain into the watercolors. It almost feels as if the works were created by accident late in the night as she worked on other projects.
You can find more coffee brains and other science-inspired watercolors for sale from her website here. They would make a great addition to the lab.
Inside the human body lies a universe of astonishing structures – the internal wonders of nature that enable us to live. While most people don’t get much opportunity to see what we’re made of, I promise you, it’s worth it. buy sildenafil citrate tadalafil vardenafil online https://apwh.org/wp-content/languages/en/sildenafil-citrate-tadalafil-vardenafil.html no prescription
I have become a big fan of Anatomical Art, but the work above by Lisa Nilsson takes my interest to a whole new level. She created these masterpieces by meticulously rolling and shaping narrow strips of Japanese mulberry paper in a technique called paper filigree or quilling. As you can imagine, each section takes several weeks to complete. buy viagra black online https://apwh.org/wp-content/languages/en/viagra-black.html no prescription
I’m truly amazed by the accuracy she attained in her pieces. If you put these images in an anatomy textbook, I’m not sure you’d appreciate the difference.
Check out this swarm of flying nano-quadrators developed by the robotics team from University of Pennsylvania’s GRASP Lab. It is truly eerie/amazing to see the team of robots jetting around through the air in perfect formation. And it seems only a matter of time before you’ll find these outfitted with cameras roaming the city streets or maybe with machine guns patrolling a war zone. buy prednisone online buywithoutprescriptionrxonline.com no prescription
I would also like to add that this robotic swarm has a Space Invaders/Galaga feel to it. I’m seeing a real-world version of these games in the near future! buy plavix generic buywithoutprescriptionrxonline.com over the counter
