Tag: Science

CD Sextant

CD Sextant

This is by far one one the more impressive DIY projects that I have seen of late. Normaly a sextant is an expencive and very precice instrument but with a CD case, some LEGO bricks and a few mirrors you can build one. I don’t think you wan’t to use it to sail around the world but you could ( by the way you had better be an ace at celestrial navigation before you start Mister!)
Anyway, the project is simple enough that you could build it in a weekend. It would be fun to take out on trips and ‘shoot the sun’ and try to figure out where you are on this big ‘ol sphere we call home.

[via hack a day]
CD sextant

The High Altitude Slug Project

The High Altitude Slug Project

No, this isn’t some banana slug snuff project, the slug this uses is the Linksys NSLU2 wireless USB storage device. After a little firmware hacking you can convert your ‘Slug’ into a web server, streaming MP3 server, or eve a VoIP PBX!
Not to be outdone by others, these guys are planning on sending theirs up in a tiny R/C airplane attached to a weather balloon. The plan is to release it at 100,000 feet and have it fly home. On it’s way down the craft will take photos and make temperature and barometric readings. All this will be run by the 266MHz XScale computer in the NSLU2. Pretty darn impressive for a simple wireless USB port!

The High Altitude Slug Project

Backscatter X-ray Scans

By using a flying beam of x-rays this company can quite literally see through walls! The technique is very much like how the picture on your TV is produced. A narrow beam of x-rays are projected to the target (like an electron gun in your TV) and the energy that is reflected back is recorded from exactly where the beam intersected the target (like how the phosphor glows in the picture tube when the electrons hit it). This builds up a picture of what is in side of the object being scanned. Items with low atomic numbers (such as explosives, drugs, cigarettes, and people) are shown in stark contrast to their surroundings.

AS&E Z Backscatter Scanning

Catom Teleportation

First off, what the heck is a ‘Catom’ you ask? Well, a catom is short for “claytronic atoms”. That would be atom sized robots that could assemble themselves into all sorts of handy devices with the aid of a computer. Think a bucket of smart micron sized LEGO bricks. You order up some way cool germ seeing micro glasses off the Internet and your computer commands your bucket of smart LEGOs to take the shape and functionality of it. Once finished you pull your micro glasses out of the bucket and start to freak out about how unclean your house is.
Right now researchers are trying to build centimeter sized robots that will do this so don’t look for your catom based replicator just yet, give them about 20 years for that.

Using ‘catoms’ for teleportation?

And Away They Go!

Oh cool! LiftPort Group Inc., of Bremerton, Wa. tested a robot that climbed 1,000 feet of ribbon suspended by a balloon. This is the fist step towards building an actual space elevator. A full sized elevator would reduce the cost of spaceflight to the point that a trip into orbit would cost as much as a regular international air flight.

Space elevator robot passes 1,000-foot mark – Space.com – MSNBC.com