2. “Who ever imagined that the weird
impossible things that we thought of
as kids would come true?”
-Ameer
3. A ROBOT… A TRASH CAN.
When you toss trash at it, a sensor detects the position of the trash, and
sends the information to a PC. The PC calculates where the trash
will fall, and communicates it to the can via wireless connection.”
“The trash can has to move autonomously. To achieve that, I created a
special mechanism, with a single axis for both the wheel rotation and
the change in angle. So even if the wheels rotate, the position of the
can itself doesn’t change. That mechanism, the circuitry, and the
motor controller all fit within the diameter of the can. If the center of
gravity is high, the can will fall over, so I made the can low, narrow,
and compact, to keep the center of gravity as low as possible.”
4. CORTEX CAST
Those who at least once had a broken limb know how wearing a cast can
be unpleasant. Not only are they bulky, they’re also uncomfortable.
The graduate of Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, has
worn a plaster cast several months and it was extremely uncomfortable
for him. He decided to do something about it.
It is GEN 3-D PRINTED and is used to help heal broken bones.
5. THREE DIMENSIONAL PRINTING PEN
Inventors Max Bogue and Peter Dilworth have invented a unique pen
that draws in the air. A colorful spool of plastic thread is fed into
the pen.
The thread is then extruded as heated plastic that cools and solidifies
instantly as it exits the tip.
This allows solid 3D structures to be drawn on any surface or from
any surface into the air.
The pen, called a 3Doodler, weights approximately 7 ounces (198 g)
and is 7 inches (17.7 cm) long. It requires no technical knowledge
or software and plugs into an electrical outlet.
6. THE FASTER YOU MOVE, THE HEAVIER YOU GET
If you run really fast, you gain weight. Not permanently, or it would make
a mockery of diet and exercise plans, but momentarily, and only a tiny
amount.
Light speed is the speed limit of the universe. So if something is travelling
close to the speed of light, and you give it a push, it can’t go very much
faster. But you’ve given it extra energy, and that energy has to go
somewhere.
Where it goes is mass. According to relativity, mass and energy are
equivlant. So the more energy you put in, the greater the mass
becomes. This is negligible at human speeds – Usain Bolt is not
noticeably heavier when running than when still – but once you reach
an appreciable fraction of the speed of light, your mass starts to
increase rapidly.
7. HUMANITY IN A SUGAR CUBE
Remember when you learned all about the basic structure of the atom
– protons, neutrons, electrons? You might recall there was a lot of
empty space, and you’d be right. Most of atoms is just empty space,
so much so that if you gathered the entire human race together and
removed the empty space of all the atoms that make them up you
would be left with something no larger than a sugar cube.
Incidentally a Sugar Cube Weighs Five Billion Tons
Why? Because all that empty space doesn’t have any mass, so the
sugar cube of humanity would be extremely dense. It’s the same
principle behind why 1kg of bricks and 1kg of feathers weighs the
same, but a box of bricks is denser and has more mass than an
equally-sized box of feathers.
