engineering
Random Stuff
Why The SF Bridge Broke
8:23AM Brian Lam | San Francisco’s Bay Bridge is still closed after a quick repair job fell apart. Terrifying, since my hometown is known for, you know, earthquakes, and this bridge is just falling apart even without them. Here’s a pretty good visual/text explanation of what is happening. [sci-experiments via TokyoMango]
Vehicles
Nissan’s Next Electric Car Will Sound Like Bladerunner
3:20AM Danny Allen | Electric cars might be beautifully quiet, but they lack the aural balls of a V8 and pose a safety risk to pedestrians. That’s why next year’s Nissan Leaf will have a whirring sound reminiscent of a Bladerunner Police spinner. More »
Vehicles
Crazy Teenager Takes Off In Homemade Pedal-Powered Aircraft
2:40AM Danny Allen | Everyone wishes they could fly, but this 19-year-old spent three years building his dream from balsa wood, rip-resistant foil and plastic wrap. And amazingly, the 26-metre wing-span has already hopped a distance of about 10 metres. More »
Vehicles
What You Get After 20 Years Of Working On A Travel Trailer
1:40AM Sean Fallon | Dennis Schaller was a rocket engine mechanic in the Air Force and an electrical engineer on the Apollo missions. So, it’s not surprising that he ended up with this thing after 20 years of working on a travel trailer. More »
Science
World’s Biggest Water Pump Under Construction In New Orleans
8:20AM John Herrman | The Army Corps of Engineers has broken ground on a serious construction project: a 570,000-litre-per-second, $US500 million pumping station charged with keeping the city of New Orleans a little, uh, dryer than it has been in the last few years. More »
Design
What Is This?
7:00PM Danny Allen | Looks like some sort of Cyberdyne Systems human feeder used by Skynet. More »
Games
Human Space Invaders Game Turns Your Body Into a Wiimote
12:00PM Wilson Rothman | For a class project, computer-engineering college kids built a system that tracks body movements using a camera and a coloured vest, mapping them to a Space Invaders-type game that requires you to jump to shoot. More »
Gadgets
How Vaccuum Tubes Are Made and Used, Explained in 1942
5:40AM John Mahoney | Just imagine, if everything that used transistors today was actually powered by beautiful vacuum tubes of old. Control yourselves, steampunkers, this 1942 RCA doc “Electrons on Parade” may blow your vintage thought fuses. More »
Random Stuff
