In 2008 I needed a costume fast. I had a party to go to in a few days and I was at a loss as to what I should make. I was half way through moving and money and time were both in short supply. I built this passable version of the Arc Reactor from the film ‘Iron Man’ in about three hours. As I wasn’t going to take it out from under the shirt it didn’t need to be near film accurate, just look the part. Ah, the magic of Hollywood…. I got dozens of great complements about it from the various parties I went to…”
Continue reading “Tony Stark / Arc Reactor Iron Man Costume of 2008”
Category: Cool
Ice Rockets Away!
Very nice, I like the part about the propellant being frozen while it’s being loaded into the motor.
Researchers are developing a new type of rocket propellant made of a frozen mixture of water and “nanoscale aluminum” powder that is more environmentally friendly than conventional propellants and could be manufactured on the moon, Mars and other water-bearing bodies.
New aluminum-water rocket propellant promising for future space missions.
Steel ‘Velcro’
Need to keep something heavy stuck to a wall? Fire proof Velcro sneakers for Iron Man? Maybe you just want a better way to hang your solid rocket boosters off your space ship. Super industrial strength steel hook and loop to the rescue!
Hook and loop fasteners have become commonplace features of both industry and households. However, they have one snag: they are too weak for many applications. Hook and loop fasteners made of spring steel have now been developed at the Institute of Metal Forming and Casting of the Technische Universitaet Muenchen. These fasteners are resistant to chemicals and can withstand a tensile load of up to 35 tonnes per square meter at temperatures as high as 800°C.
It’s called “Metaklett” if you want to try and find some.
Air Powered Microprocessor
I seriously doubt that you will be playing Super Mario Brothers on this any time soon but it would be fantastic for a self operating chemical analysis machine.
Each pneumatic valve is operated by changing the air pressure in a small chamber below the air channel, separated from the circuit by a flexible impermeable membrane. When the lower chamber is filled with air the membrane pushes upwards and closes the valve, preventing the binary signal flowing across one of the processor’s junctions.
Sucking out the air from the chamber reopens the valve by forcing the membrane downwards, letting the signal move across the junction.The two researchers used the valve-controlled channels to produce a variety of logic gates, flip-flops and shift registers, which they linked together to create a working 8-bit microprocessor. That means that the longest discrete pieces of data it can handle are eight binary digits long, like the processors used in 1980s consoles such as the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Hackable ‘Soft Camera’ for Computational Photography
An open-source digital camera platform… Wow… The video for this project makes mention of on the fly dynamic range adjustments and infinite focus via micro lens arrays. Amazing stuff, I can hardly wait for something like this to make it to the general public.
Anyone will be able to create new features for the camera by writing aps that control all the camera’s functions — focus, exposure, shutter speed, flash, etc. Cameras could be taught new tricks with downloadable apps, analogous to iPhone apps.
[A tip of the CyberHelm to Special Agent Greg for this one]
Stanford open-source camera could revolutionize photography.
Airborne Laser Zaps Ground Target
Cool… No shark jokes please.
According to Boeing, the C-130 fired its 12,000lb high-power chemical laser through the beam control system while flying over White Sands Missile Range, N.M. The beam control system acquired the ground target and guided the laser beam to the target.
[via NetworkWorld]
Zapping things from the sky: Airborne Boeing laser blasts ground target.