As frustrating as having an atmosphere can be for physicists, it’s just as bad for astronomers, who have to deal with clouds, atmospheric absorption of certain wavelengths, and other irritations. One of the less obvious effects is the distortion caused by air at different temperatures turbulently mixing. To correct for this, some larger observatories use […]
Linear actuators are a great help when you’re moving something along a single axis, but with so many options, how do you decide? [Jeremy Fielding] walks us through some of the high level tradeoffs of using one type of actuator over another. There are three main types of linear actuator available to the maker: hydraulic, […]
We’ve seen plenty of motor projects, but [Jeremy]’s DIY Tubular Linear Motor is a really neat variety of stepper motor in a format we certainly don’t see every day. It started as a design experiment in making a DIY reduced noise, gearless actuator and you can see the result here. Here’s how it works: the […]
What is a sensory weaver? [Curiosiate] tells us: “A device which takes sensory data feeds in and converts it in various ways on the body as information streams as though a native sensory input.” As an example, they’ve built one. This one, called “MK2 Lockpick” is a wrist-mounted array of linear actuators, with a lengthy […]
In the past few years, the price-per-watt for solar panels has dropped dramatically. This has led to a number of downstream effects beyond simple cost savings. For example, many commercial solar farms have found that it’s now cheaper to install a larger number of panels in fixed positions, rather than accepting the extra cost, maintenance, […]
Sometimes one just needs an extra hand or six around the workbench. Since you’re a hacker that should take the form of a tiny robot swarm that can physically display your sensor data, protect you against a dangerously hot caffeine fix and clean up once you’re done. [Ryo Suzuki] and [Clement Zheng] from the University […]
If you like solving puzzles out in the real world, you’ve probably been to an escape room before, or are at least familiar with its concept of getting (voluntarily) locked inside a place and searching for clues that will eventually lead to a key or door lock combination that gets you out again. And while […]