Tag: Science

Blind Reading with Ray Kurzweil

THE KURZWEIL-NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND READERI received an email about this a few days ago:

Combining a state-of-the-art digital camera with a powerful personal data assistant, the "camera that talks" puts the best available character recognition software together with text-to-speech conversion technology–all in a single, handheld device. The Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader has the ability to dramatically enhance the lives of millions of people who have difficulty seeing or reading print by providing access like never before. Users need only hold the Reader over print-a restaurant menu, an airline ticket, a business card, a school assignment, an office memo-and in seconds they hear the contents of the printed document played back in clear synthetic speech.

Now this is what I call a life changing device. The price is a little up there ($3,600 US) but the doors it could open for a blind person are endless. If your ever in want of a place to donate your extra money to, there are few places that are better than National Federation of the Blind. Buy one of these and donate it to a local charity and you will be sure to change the lives of many people.

THE KURZWEIL-NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND READER

Making Put-Put Boats

Put-Put boats

 

I saw this today on Flickr.

The put put boat is a steam powered boat. In this use, they are hand made from either baking pan aluminum or flashing. The boiler is made by cutting and flattening a soda can, folding it, then epoxying in two straws.

I remember building these when I was a little kid. It’s a great way to learn a bit about steam power. And what floats and what won’t. 🙂

 

fussing with stuff: 032 – Hand Cut Put Put Boat

Alpha Radiation Visualizer

Alpha detector

Have a webcam and a smoke detector? If you do you can make a clever alpha particle visualizer. An alpha particle is an ionizing form of radiation that is made up of two protons and two neutrons. It’s powerful but doesn’t penetrate very far, paper or your skin is enough to stop them. Inside smoke detectors is a tiny chunk of americium that produces alpha particles when it decays. If you place some of this near the CCD of a web cam you can see flashes of white light as the particle strikes the capacitors and over charges them. Over time this could destroy the device, as radiation can do to space craft or robots that work near harsh radioactive sources, but in this case it makes for a good practical visualization of radiation. This would make for a fine science fair project.

[via hack-a-day] 

Alpha Radiation Visualizer – Overview

STS-121 Crew To Fly July 1

 

NASA Space Flight - STS-121 

Amid heated discussions about the safety of the foam insulation on the main fuel tank, the orbital vehicle Discovery will take to the sky on July 1.

The STS-121 mission will visit the International Space Station and continue evaluating new shuttle safety improvements. At least two spacewalks are planned during the 12-day mission, which also includes repair work to the station.

[via SPACE.com]

NASA Space Flight – STS-121