At first glance this flying craft looks like a simple ducted fan with a weird skirt under it. Fancy hovercraft? Kind of. In reality the skirt has no air flowing through it only over it. Something called the ‘Coanda effect‘(wiki) causes the air to ‘stick’ to the outside of the craft and in effect creates an inside out hovercraft. The high efficiency electric motor in the top housing forces air to flow over the outside of the main body to create lift. The torque of the motor and the spin created by the prop wash are countered by the fins that ring the mid section and the direction is controlled by the four lower flaps. The platform is quite stable and looks to be a very good platform for just about any UAV application.
Month: March 2007
R/C Helecopter With Rockets!
One of the captions on the page says it all:
Unmanned Attack Helicopter, Ver. 2, 2004
Gas Powered Radio Control Helicopter modified to carry and remotely fire model rockets
Oh yeah… This would liven up the company picnic don’t you think? I wonder how he managed to ignite the rocket without throwing the chopper into a nasty spin? Any one else have something like this? BB gun mounted on a glider maybe?
The artist also has some very impressive sculptures listed in his online portfolio. I like the ‘Bronze Skull’ ones myself.
[via jaf project]
The Sculpture of Christopher Conte
Bronze Skull prototype
Telling Time For Humans
Nice but sold out. Crap.
Designed by postmodern architect Frank Gehry and developed by Fossil this Gehry Writes Time Digital watch has an innovative time read out display in Frank Gehry’s own script. If the time is 11:30, the display reads in script, "half past 11" and if the time is 12:54, it reads as "6 til 1". The display also automatically switches back and forth showing a negative screen during daylight hours and a positive screen at nighttime. Also contains a calendar function.
Japanese Deep Fat Fryer Dwelling Goldfish
This is an excellent exploit of basic physics.
Because oil floats on water, despite the massive heat (163 degrees Celsius) the goldfish simply stay away from the surface and all is well. They eat the crumbs of croquettes and other fried foods that fall to the bottom, and can live in there for 5-10 years as they happily clean away, ignorant to the fact that certain death awaits any potential escapees.
[via boingboing kottke]
Deep-fry diving for goldfish in Japan
Apple TV – An Honest Review
I think I might have done the impossible, I found a review of the new Apple TV that was not written by a drooling Apple fanboy. Nice review, gives an honest opinion of the video quality of what was playing on the demo model. He does put forth an interesting idea on how one could go about turning the Apple TV into an automated bit torrent downloading monster capable of transcoding Xvid video to H264. Ooo.. I wants one…
DIY Your Own Pinhole Blender
This is a great tutorial on how you can build your own multi shutter pinhole camera using old film canisters and a metal can. Very inventive I must say. The images taken with this sort of camera blends together different scenes in a very organic (see examples) way that many people can only achieve these days using a graphics program like Photoshop. Does anyone still remember the bad old days when trial and error was the only way to do such photographic manipulation?
Bricolage: weblog errante… Arquivo: Março de 2007
If you want to buy one, check out the ‘original’ pinhole blender at pinholeblender.com