Blog Archive (February 2008)
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26th February 2008 - Smart Rubber
Interesting article from New Scientist on 'smart' rubber to put in the 'Smart and Modern Materials' part of your curriculum. And a nice video of the material in action:As with so many 'smart' materials, I struggle to see what is actually 'smart' about this - but there is no doubt that it is an interesting new material.
Addendum 26th February 2008: This Scientific American article adds a little information; I particularly like the reference to 'self-healing rubber duckies'. Good to see modern technology has real social utility...
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26th February 2008 - Wireless power?
Another of Technology Review's 10 emerging technologies for 2008 is wireless power. There's a clear explanation here of how one approach to this might work; interesting but rather worrying, when we should be concerned about sustainability, and therefore efficiency, that the researchers predict no better than 70% efficiency.
The researchers built two resonant copper coils and hung them from the ceiling, about two meters apart. When they plugged one coil into the wall, alternating current flowed through it, creating a magnetic field. The second coil, tuned to the same frequency and hooked to a light bulb, resonated with the magnetic field, generating an electric current that lit up the bulb--even with a thin wall between the coils.
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26th February 2008 - Plants that twitter
From the Make blog: Botanicalls is a system that alows your plants to give you a call when they need watering. (Plants can also receive calls - but that's another story...). Now they've brought the system to web 2.0 with Botanicalls Twitter - allowing your plant to Twitter its needs to you. It's a bit techie for schools - but an interesting glimpse into what lies ahead with the internet of things [this links to a Bruce Sterling podcast] and a possibly useful bit of context if you happen to have your year 8 pupils designing a moisture sensor...
Botanicalls Twitter answers the question: What's up with your plant? It offers a connection to your leafy pal via online Twitter status updates that reach you anywhere in the world. When your plant needs water, it will post to let you know, and send its thanks when you show it love.Quite what you do when your plant twitters to say it's expiring but you are out of town, is not clear.
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25th February 2008 - New materials; light, strong and stretchy
Another Technology Reiew article bring news of a composite of aluminium oxide and the biocompatible polymer chitosan that is extraordinarily light and strong as well as being stretchy.
A film of the composite is already as strong as aluminum foil, but if stretched, it can expand by up to 25 percent of its size; aluminum foil would break at 2 percent. An added advantage of the hybrid material is that it's light, says Harvard materials scientist Andre Studart, who was involved in the work. The material is half to a quarter as heavy as steel of the same strength, Studart says, and it would make a good substitute for fiberglass, which is commonly used in car parts. Because the material's strength comes from the platelets diffused through it, Studart says, "it will be strong in two directions and not only in one direction, as in the case of fiber-reinforced material."
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25th February 2008 - Social graphs
Only loosely relate to my usual interests; though I'm increasingly of the view that 'STEM' isn't wide enough; if we want pupils engaging with modern technology then we need to include computer science (and I don't mean ICT, or not as currently constituted...).
However I thought these graphs of various social networks are both interesting and rather lovely. The one shown is of the blogosphere:
The core of the blogosphere, made up of several thousand popular blogs that are heavily connected to one another, divides into two regions when seen up close. The region on the left, at the center of which are two areas showing a lot of pink, contains political blogs; the region on the right, divided from the first by the triangular indentation at the bottom, contains blogs focused on gadgets and technology.
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24th February 2008 - Neuro-headset update
Following my post on Emotiv's neuro-headset on 22nd February, The Guardian has this article on a wider range of devices that use 'brainwaves' to control games and other things on a computer.
There just has to be interesting applications for this in D&T; control of devices, security systems...??[ top ]
24th February 2008 - Free Yenka content
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24th February 2008 - Ninety Light
Thanks to the Dezeen blog for the alert to this rather cool and highly sustainable new lamp from Norwegian lighting company Luxo. The company says:
Ninety is the world's most energy efficient, ergonomic task light. Using only 6W of LEDs, Ninety offers a bright, warm light with superb colour rendering. It is dimmable and designed to last for 25 year in a regular office environment. You will never have to change a lamp again.So; you can have elegant, ergonomically delightful products that, if not quite sustainable (that depends rather on where the power comes from), could help reduce your footprint on the Earth. There's a nice challenge for pupils embarking on lighting projects...
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24th February 2008 - Techshop - a model for schools?
Here's an interesting concept that is slowly spreading across the Sates: A TechShop is:
...a fully-equipped open-access workshop and creative environment that lets you drop in any time and work on your own projects at your own pace. It is like a health club with tools and equipment instead of exercise equipment... Anyone can come in and build and make all kinds of things themselves using the TechShop tools, machines and equipment, and draw on the TechShop instructors and experts to help them with their projects. TechShop is designed for everyone, regardless of their skill level. TechShop is perfect for inventors, "makers", hackers, tinkerers, artists, roboteers, families, entrepreneurs, youth groups, FIRST robotic teams, arts and crafts enthusiasts, and anyone else who wants to be able to make things that they dream up but don't have the tools, space or skills.The concept seem similar to a Fab Lab, only run on a commercial, membership basis. As I've suggested in the past in relation to Fab Labs, the TechShop idea seems to me one that a school could adopt as a way of making its D&T facilities available to its local community. Could be an idea of particular interest to Technology and Engineering colleges?
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24th February 2008 - A physical representation of RFID
If I understand this correctly, the Touch project (thanks again the Make blog) from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design is using the unique data from an RFID device to determine the unique form of the object that contains the device. It uses the RFID data, along with user configurable parameters to determine the design of a 3D object that can then be 3D printed.
Each object in the project has a visual appearance and shape that is generated uniquely for each user. This reflects the unique identity contained in the RFID chip. They're designed to be artifacts for schoolkids (K-12) that slowly gather informational histories as the kids interact with each other and grow. It's part of a larger project about turning a school and its artifacts into its own yearbook while also encouraging the development of criticality through annotation.Certainly a novel approach to 3D design, and it has the possibility to create interesting new ways of thinking about the implications of RFID.
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