Posted on November 2nd, 2009 by axb
Designer Wieke Somers has won the top prize at the Dutch Design Awards 2009 for her whimsical merry-go-round coat rack. In addition to being a gorgeous piece of art, this clever installation functions as a personal storage area where visitors can leave belongings in lockers as well as hang their coats. [Core77]
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Filed under: e-News, Mechanical | Comments Off on Introducing the Merry-Go-Round Coat Rack
Tags: Art
Posted on October 29th, 2009 by axb
If you plan on visiting the University of Rochester tomorrow, be sure to watch out for flying pumpkins:
“Local students will test their engineering prowess by slinging pumpkins with catapults and trebuchets of their own design on the day before Halloween in what has come to be one of the campus’s most entertaining and anticipated rituals.
Update 11/02/2009: It seems some engineers got a little overzealous with their pumpkin tossing this past weekend: a cannon built by students for a contest at California State University in Fullerton accidentally launched a pumpkin over 120 yards, directly into the Titan Stadium scoreboard. The impact apparently left a small hole, but luckily the scoreboard still functions and “nobody seemed to be in a huge panic.” [UPI]
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Filed under: e-News, Mechanical | 1 Comment »
Tags: Competitions for Students, Mechanical
Posted on October 7th, 2009 by axb
Anna Kornfeld Simpson, a high school senior from California, won top prizes at the California State Science Fair with her chemical-detecting LEGO robot. It took her over two years of research to develop the complex circuitry required to make the robot work. You can read her story on the National Science Foundation website.
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Filed under: Computer, e-News, Electrical, Mechanical | Comments Off on Student Makes Prizewinning Robot from Legos
Tags: Competitions for Students, Computer, Electrical, Mechanical, Robotics
Posted on October 6th, 2009 by axb
“The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds.”
– Theo Jansen
Photo by Loek van der Kils, http://www.Loekvanderklis.com
Next time you go to the beach, look out for Strandbeesten – enormous free-roaming mechanical “beasts” – engineered by Dutch painter and sculptor Theo Jansen. Jansen studied physics at the University of Delft, Holland before he decided to become an artist, and his scientific background is evident in much of his work. The Strandbeest project originated from a computer program he wrote over 18 years ago where multi-legged animals raced each other in a survival-of-the-fittest competition. So how exactly do his whimsical creatures work?
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Filed under: e-News, Mechanical | 10 Comments »
Tags: Art, Mechanical
Posted on October 6th, 2009 by axb
MIT undergrad Charles Guan has converted an old shopping cart into a speedy go-kart, which he dubs the LOLriokart (a combination of internet slang and the popular video game Mario Kart). Check out Popular Science for a run-down of how he made it. [PopSci]
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Filed under: e-News, Mechanical, Transportation | Comments Off on Speed to Class on the LOLriokart
Tags: Cars, Mechanical, Transportation
