Collaborate Disseminate
[Tom Stanton] is right about one thing: flywheels make excellent playthings. Whether watching a spinning top that never seems to slow down, or feeling the weird forces a gyroscope exerts, …read more Continue reading Magnetic Bearings Put the Spin on This Flywheel Battery
China has produced the first of a new breed of maglev trains capable of speeds up to 600 km/h (373 mph), or nearly half the speed of sound. It says these will be the fastest ground transport services available on the planet.Continue ReadingCategory: Tr… Continue reading China unveils new 600 km/h ultra-fast maglev train
When we look back to the 1970s it is often in a light of somehow a time before technology, a time when analogue was still king, motor vehicles had carburettors, and telephones still had rotary dials.
In fact the decade had a keen sense of being on the threshold of an exciting future, one of supersonic air travel, and holidays in space. Some of the ideas that were mainstream in those heady days didn’t make it as far as the 1980s, but wouldn’t look out of place in 2018.
The unlikely setting for todays Retrotechtacular piece is the Bedford Levels, …read more
Most of our readers are already going to be familiar with how electromagnets work — a current is induced (usually with a coil) in a ferrous core, and that current aligns the magnetic domains present in the core. Normally those domains are aligned randomly in such a way that no cumulative force is generated. But, when the electric field created by the coil aligns them a net force is created, and the core becomes a magnet.
As you’d expect, this is an extremely useful concept, and electromagnets are used in everything from electric motors, to particle accelerators, to Beats by …read more
Would you use your tech prowess to cheat at the Pinewood Derby? When your kid brings home that minimalist kit and expects you to help engineer a car that can beat all the others in the gravity-powered race, the temptation is there. But luckily, there are some events that don’t include the kiddies and the need for parents to assume the proper moral posture. When the whole point of the Pinewood Derby is to cheat, then you pull out all the stops, and you might try building an electrodynamic suspension hoverboard car.
Fortunately for [ch00ftech], the team-building Derby sponsored by …read more
Continue reading Fail of the Week: Pinewood Derby Cheat Fails Two Ways
