Collaborate Disseminate
[Fraens] has been designing a number of fantastic 3D printed machines and making great videos that demonstrate how they work. The last installment was an automatic cigarette stuffing machine, and …read more Continue reading See the Forbidden Cigarette Machine in Action
In the “Automate the Freight” series, I’ve concentrated on stories that reflect my premise that the killer app for self-driving vehicles will not be private passenger cars, but will more likely be the mundane but necessary task of toting things from place to place. The economics of replacing thousands of …read more
Continue reading Automate the Freight: Amazon’s Robotic Packaging Lines
On the face of it, keeping fluids contained seems like a simple job. Your fridge alone probably has a dozen or more trivial examples of liquids being successfully kept where they belong, whether it’s the plastic lid on last night’s leftovers or the top on the jug of milk. But deeper down in the bowels of the fridge, like inside the compressor or where the water line for the icemaker is attached, are more complex and interesting mechanisms for keeping fluids contained. That’s the job of seals, the next topic in our series on mechanisms.
One of …read more
Of all the things evolution has stumbled across, the eye is one of the most remarkable. Acting as sort of a ‘biological electromagnetic transducer’, the eye converts incoming photons into electrical and chemical spikes, known as action potentials. These spikes then drive the brain of the host life form. Billions of years of natural selection has produced several types of eyes, with some better than others. It would be an honest mistake to think that the human eye is at the top of the food chain, as this is not the case. Mammals underwent a long stint scurrying around in …read more
Continue reading Hyperuniformity — A Hidden Order Found in the Greatest Set of Eyes