If you need examples of cool things engineers can do in college, consider this: mechanical engineering students from Ohio State University work together building alternative-fuel race cars as part of the Buckeye Bullet team.

Not cool enough? Well, the team just broke the electric car land speed world record with their most recent vehicle, the Buckeye Bullet 2.5.

Racing on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah last week, the Bullet 2.5 reached a peak speed of 320 miles per hour and logged a two-way average speed of 307.66 miles per hour.

The Ohio State team has been racing electric cars for more than a decade, but their latest design is the first to run purely on battery power.

Last year, their hydrogen-powered Buckeye Bullet 2, set a world record for fuel cell-propelled land vehicles by speeding at an average of 302.87 miles per hour.

Even though the body, chassis, and electric traction system of the Bullet 2.5 match that of its predecessor, it took the students 11 months to swap the Bullet 2’s fuel cell for the lithium-ion batteries that power the Bullet 2.5.

That world record still needs official certification, but it soared past the previous record for an electric vehicle by more than 60 miles per hour.

What’s even more phenomenal is that the Bullet 2.5 is simply a test vehicle for its successor, the Buckeye Bullet 3, which will build upon the team’s battery technology and is expected to once again shatter all previous records.

Watch the Buckeye Bullet 2 break the world record in 2009:

Image: Popular Science

Filed under: Electrical, Mechanical, Transportation, e-News | No Comments »

Tags: Cars, Energy, Green Technology, Mechanical, Transportation

Has life got you climbing up the walls? Well, soon you may be able to do it for real – and as well as a gecko.

Geckos are able to stick to walls thanks to a technique called dry adhesion.  Each toe of a gecko’s foot contains hundreds of flap-like ridges, and each ridge has millions of hairs (see the image below).

The tiny hairs are 10 times thinner than a human’s and each one divides into even smaller strands called spatulae.  These split ends interact with the molecules of the climbing surface using the van der Waals force, and stick to it when pulled in one direction. If pulled in a different direction, however, the adhesive comes right off.

Now, Stanford University mechanical engineers have created a robot that will replicate a gecko’s sticky foot in order to climb walls.

Previous robots have been able to scale rough vertical surfaces, such as brick or concrete, but Stickybot can grasp onto smooth surfaces such as glass and metal.

The Stickybot imitates a real gecko thanks to a rubber-like material that has tiny polymer hairs made from a micro-scale mold. The material is strong and reusable, and leaves behind no residue or damage.

Robots like Stickybot could be used to access dangerous or hard to reach places, such as collapsed buildings or supervillain hideouts.

A similar adhesive,  Z-Man, is also being developed for humans. Prepare to scale those walls!

Images:
BDML, Standford University
belgianchocolate/Flickr
Bjørn Christian Tørrissen/Wikipedia

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Tags: Biomimicry, Mechanical, Robotics

Mont Blanc from 10,500 ft.

In 1892, an immense amount of floodwater broke free from an Alpine glacier, engulfing a nearby village. Today, after the discovery of more water accumulated beneath the glacier, engineers in France are taking novel steps to prevent such a disaster from recurring.

The team of specialists plans to drill beneath the Tete Rousse glacier and extract about 65,000 cubic meters of water (that’s enough to fill about 26 Olympic-sized pools!). The glacier lies near a popular hiking path on Mont Blanc, and is also close to a town of about 3,000 people.

With the use of careful drilling techniques and large pumps, engineers hope to relieve some of the water pressure that has built up inside the glacier over the past 100 years.

Now, if we could only learn how to stop volcanoes and earthquakes…

[Chicago Tribune]

Image via *pascal*/Flickr

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Tags: Environmental, Ocean

Traditional fluorescence microscopes (the ones you might find at your local hospital or in a medical lab) typically cost up to $40,000 and can take up more space than several desktop computers. That’s a problem for doctors hoping to advance medical care in underdeveloped countries.

Cost and space were two issues that recent Rice University grad Andrew Miller sought to address when he invented a portable, battery-powered fluorescence microscope that costs only $240 to make. The novel device is encased in durable plastic that Miller molded with the help of a 3D printer. It’s lighted and powered by a small LED flashlight.

To test the efficacy of his invention, Miller used the microscope to analyze a set of samples from potential TB patients, and produced the same results as the lab’s standard florescence microscope 98.4% of the time.

Medical device consultants 3rd Stone Design have agreed to make 20 prototypes of the microscope for field testing.

In a recent press release, Rebecca Richards-Kortum, a Rice professor of bioengineering, championed the importance of Miller’s work:

“The World Health Organization estimates that 1.3 million people died from tuberculosis in 2008. Andy’s microscope, which is portable, durable and inexpensive, could be used to diagnose tuberculosis in community or rural health centers with limited infrastructure in the developing world, promoting early detection and successful treatment of the disease.”

Miller is now working at Thoratec in San Francisco, where he designs heart-assisting devices.

Another potentially lifesaving invention from Rice students

Images via Rice University

Filed under: Biomedical, e-News | 1 Comment »

Tags: Biomedical, Giving Back

Hot on the heels of the Jet Engine Schoolbus, it’s the next wacky DIY project: The Flamethrower Trombone! Johnathan Crawford (also known by his YouTube username “Pyro”), gives a brief rundown of how he made this fantastical instrument (but not why), followed of course by an explosive demonstration.

Don’t try this at home, kids.

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Tags: And Now, Music

Engineering students Victor Correa Schneider, Trevor Owen, Julia Tsai,
Dan Ferguson, and Benjamin Thompson of UC San Diego

Duuuude, how’s this for a Ph.D. project: Benjamin Thompson, a structural engineering student at UC San Diego, is on a quest to formulate the science of surfboards. He enlisted the help of four undergraduates in the mechanical engineering department to help him out, and together they hit the beach to find out more.

The research involves attaching sensors to the boards that will measure water velocity, as well as a microprocessor (the square instrument fixed on the board above) that saves the data and transmits it wirelessly to a laptop. Through this project, Thompson hopes to gain more knowledge of how water interacts with different surfboards and what degree of flexibility is most desirable in board materials.

Watch the students explain more about their experiment as they try to hang ten:

For more photos of this cool project, check out this blog. And if you’re lucky enough to attend UCSD, you can even take a class about the physics of surfing:

Image via UCSD

Filed under: Computer, Mechanical, Ocean, e-News | No Comments »

Tags: Computer, Mechanical, Ocean

You’ve no doubt heard of electric hybrid cars, but a human-powered hybrid? Not only is it real and most likely coveted by the Flintstone family, but you may be able to own one as soon as next year.

With four passengers cranking the handles, the HumanCar can run on kinetic energy alone, and with fewer participants it relies partially on electricity.

How much more fun (and social!) would highway driving be if everyone used a car like this? Can we get a Yabba-Dabba-Doo?!

Image via HumanCar

Filed under: Environmental, Transportation, e-News | 1 Comment »

Tags: Cars, Environmental, Transportation