Wing Span: The female-designed YCC from
Volvo gull wing doors, which allow for more entry space and needs a 2-ft
margin--less than a conventional door--on each side of the car.
Volvo had a hand recently in hushing a group of vocal Wellesley College women. A team of female engineers and designers from the Swedish car company were on campus as part of the tour of—Your Concept Car (YCC)—the female-designed concept vehicle making headlines recently. The Volvo team fielded questions from students concerned that some features—such as computerized assistance for parallel parking, a no-open hood, and a ponytail holder space in the driver's head rest—ultimately stereotype women as bad drivers, ignorant about car maintenance, and concerned more with their hair than with a car's driveability. Turns out there's logic behind it all. Computerized parallel parking assistance is a feature made for safety—Volvo's number one priority—and is showing up on other predominantly male-designed cars today as well. The no-open hood, which actually can be opened by a mechanic if necessary, is in response to the fact that drivers of new cars today, and conceptually in 10 years, don't need to look under the hood since most of the parts reliably run off electronics. Plus, the car battery is stored in the trunk and the windshield wiper fluid is accessed through capless tanks on the side of the car. And the headrest space for the ponytail holder? It's a safety feature. In a car accident, the first point of contact against the headrest for a man or woman with a ponytail is on the ponytail holder, which means too much energy concetrated on a small point. No doubt, that logic and attention to detail came as a disappointment to any students on the Wellesley campus who were eager for a women's lib argument.
"It's like the Macintosh of cars," says Lena Ekelund, deputy technical project manager of the YCC. "The less you have to tinker with, the more focused you'll be on driving." Check out other innovative features of the car at Volvo's concept lab website (http://rbi.ims.ca/3850-531).
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.
Healthcare might seem to be an unlikely target application for the Internet of Things technology, but recent developments show small ways that big-data is going to make an impact on patient care moving into the future.
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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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