It doesn't have a brain or a heart, and its walk is a little like the scarecrow's. But a little, headless, armless, trunkless, two-legged robot developed at Cornell University can walk, wobble, hobble, limp, stride, and stagger--even though it can't stand still without falling over. Made of plastic Tinkertoy parts and a few odds and ends, the robot remains stable while in motion, giving mechanical engineers new insights about how humans walk. Michael J. Coleman, a lecturer in mechanical engineering at Cornell, says the little worker, by using gravity on a gentle slope, "performs repeatable, chattering, human-like steps without falling over." Coleman stumbled on the walker's design while preparing for his doctoral defense. "It is one of the few devices of any kind that is dynamically stable near a statically unstable configuration and doesn't have fast spinning parts," says Andy Ruina, director of the Human Power, Biomechanics and Robotics Laboratory at Cornell, who assisted Coleman. The Tinkertoy device consists of two green rod legs bottomed with rounded yellow feet into a red crossbar hip, along with several orange washers and green hinges. To stabilize the toy, Ruina added low-lying red and yellow outriggers weighted with steel nuts off each foot to lower the centers of mass. He further fine-tuned the toy by rounding out the flat spots of the Tinkertoy wheels with flexible brass strips. Soon, the hand-sized gadget was tottering down a gentle slope, tilting from side to side, but steadily walking on and on and on. E-mail SSL4@cornell.edu or.
We looked at a number of sources to determine this year's greenest cars, from KBB to automotive trade magazines to environmental organizations. These 14 cars emerged as being great at either stretching fuel or reducing carbon footprint.
Researchers at MIT and Sandia National Labs have observed a reaction in lithium-air batteries that could help improve the design of these cells for electric vehicles and other applications.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 3
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A quick look into the merger of two powerhouse 3D printing OEMs and the new leader in rapid prototyping solutions, Stratasys. The industrial revolution is now led by 3D printing and engineers are given the opportunity to fully maximize their design capabilities, reduce their time-to-market and functionally test prototypes cheaper, faster and easier. Bruce Bradshaw, Director of Marketing in North America, will explore the large product offering and variety of materials that will help CAD designers articulate their product design with actual, physical prototypes. This broadcast will dive deep into technical information including application specific stories from real world customers and their experiences with 3D printing. 3D Printing is
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