vacuum

11.28.09

High-Tech Space Gloves Win NASA's Astronaut Glove Challenge

Two teams claimed $250,000 and $100,000 prizes for besting NASA's current top glove design

By Jeremy Hsu Posted 11.20.2009 at 11:59 am 2 Comments

Glove designers walked away with a total of $400,000 in prize money at NASA's second Astronaut Glove Challenge yesterday. The U.S. space agency awarded the money because the private glove designs beat the in-house version, and NASA may incorporate the designs into the Constellation spacesuit intended for next-gen astronauts returning to the moon.

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READ MORE ABOUT > astronauts, centennial challenges, gloves, lunar, moon, moonwalkers, nasa, space, spacesuits, vacuum

Inventor Scales Building Using Homemade Vacuum Gloves

By Jeremy Hsu Posted 07.27.2009 at 10:19 am 1 Comment

Nothing puts the DIY in climbing a building like a homemade pair of suction gloves. Inventor Jem Stansfield used his vacuum-powered device to clamber up the 120-foot aluminum wall of the White City building in London last week.

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READ MORE ABOUT > buildings, climbing, DIY, feats, gloves, stunts, suction, vacuum, Video

Chocolate-Chip Science

Two days' hydration makes a flawless cookie, but the Kitchen Alchemists don't need to wait that long

By Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot Posted 07.17.2008 at 4:07 pm 3 Comments

I think that everyone in New York City read last week's article by David Leite on the Quest for the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie. One of the main tricks from the article is to rest your dough for 36 hours before baking the cookies in order to improve the flavor. In my work as a chef I have often made cookie dough in advance and baked to order. I knew that refrigeration had beneficial effects although I had never tested the theory to the extent that David Leite did for the article.

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READ MORE ABOUT > Aki Kamozawa, cookies, cooking, H. Alexander Talbot, Kitchen Alchemy, vacuum

Roomba Rumble

By popsci Posted 03.09.2006 at 11:00 am 1 Comment

Courtesy Gina Trapani

The Roomba's new serial interface lets you use the little vacuum for any robotics task you like, controllable through preprogrammed instructions or over Bluetooth from a laptop. We wrote about some 'bots you could make with this in the January issue's How 2.0 section, but the obvious outcome was finally realized last night at ETech: Roomba cockfighting. More photos as well as videos (including some from the Roomba's point of view) here.

—Mike Haney

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READ MORE ABOUT > point of view, robotics, roomba, serial interface, vacuum