Collaborate Disseminate
In most surf parks, surfers ride artificially-generated waves down the length of an oblong pool. Unfortunately, such an arrangement limits the number of people who can rides the waves at once … which is where the 5 Waves system comes in.Continue Readin… Continue reading Pool packs in more surfers by making waves from the middle
Although seawalls certainly do protect coastal communities from storm surge waves, those walls can be unsightly, plus they restrict access to the water. A proposed new system gets around those problems, by doubling as a canopy when not serving storm du… Continue reading Seaside canopy could tilt to block storm waves
The winners of this year’s Nikon Surf Photo and Video Awards have been revealed, highlighting an incredible array of images spanning the entire coast of Australia and the world. The top prize went to a spectacular shot looking down a turquoise barrel t… Continue reading Take to the seas with Nikon’s best surf photography of the year
[Michael] volunteers with emergency services, and sometimes has to monitor radio traffic. Sometimes there’s a lot to review, and to make it easier he wrote a noise gate — think of it as a squelch — to break apart recorded audio into parts. Rust has been gaining popularity for writing …read more
Wind storms can cause a great deal of damage to coastal areas, producing waves that erode the shoreline and destroy facilities such as marinas. A newly-proposed “floating forest” could help, however, by blocking both the wind and the waves…… Continue reading Shorelines could be protected from wind and waves – by a floating forest
“These changes have impacts that are felt all over the world.” Continue reading The Oceans Are Getting Stormier
Throughout our day-to-day experiences, we come across or make use of many scientific principles which we might not be aware of, even if we immediately recognize them when they’re described. One such curiosity is that of caustics, which refers not only to corrosive substances, but can also refer to a behavior of light that can be observed when it passes through transparent objects. Holding up a glass to a light source will produce the effect, for example, and while this is certainly interesting, there are also ways of manipulating these patterns using lasers, which makes an aurora-like effect.
The first …read more
[Theo Jansen] has come up with an intriguing wind-powered strandbeest which races along the beach with surprising speed and grace. According to [Jansen], it “doesn’t have hinging joints like the classical strandbeests, so they don’t get sand in their joints and you don’t have to lubricate them.” It’s called UMINAMI, which appropriately means “ocean wave” in Japanese.
There are only videos of it in action to go on so far, but a lot can be gleaned from them. To make it easier to keep track of just a single leg, we’ve slowed things down and reddened one of them in …read more
Continue reading Theo Jansen Invents A Faster, Simpler, Wind-Powered Strandbeest
Meticulous. Thorough. Exacting. These are all words we’d use to describe this video by [BrendaEM] about her Homemade 3D Optical Interference Scanner which can be seen after the break. The scanner uses 3D-printed parts and repurposed materials you might find lying around in your spare parts bin. An old optical drive tray acts to move the laser-wielding sled while a stripped-out webcam is an optical sensor. Links to relevant files such as 3D models and Arduino sketches will be found in the video’s author section.
The principle of operation is demonstrated with a water analog in the video at 2:00 …read more
Continue reading Interference Scanner with Clear Instructions
Wave tanks are cool, but it’s likely you don’t have one sitting on your coffee table at home. They’re more likely something you’ve seen in a documentary about oil tankers or icebergs. That need no longer be the case – you can build yourself a wave generator at home!
This build comes to use from [TVMiller] who started by creating a small tank out of acrylic sheet. Servo-actuated paddles are then placed in the tank to generate the periodic motion in the water. Two servos are controlled by an Arduino, allowing a variety of simple and more complex waves to …read more
