• Entertainment & Gaming

    A New Robotic Frontier: Air Hockey

    By Posted on 7.3.2008 1 Comments

    Stroll by a strip mall arcade or the local Dave & Buster's, look behind the noisy kids playing Dance Dance Revolution, and you'll likely spot an air hockey table. Like Pac-Man and the maddening claw game, air hockey remains unchanged and everlasting. Two facts seem to endear us to the floating puck: 1) everyone thinks they're good at the game but 2) nobody knows for sure. Nowhere in the sports landscape are so many goals scored upon oneself. A 6-0 victory in one game is reversed in the next battle, thanks entirely to Lady Luck. But when you compete against the Air Hockey Bot 1000 (AHB-1000), a career once dictated by fickle fortune can finally be tested against formulaic consistency.

    7.6.2008 at 06:47pm - Comment by universegirl

    Personally as a Robotic Engineer myself I would love to go up against this robot in a 3-puck rally. The processor used in this robot is brand new and still being tested, although there are many stronger processors. This robot is the first of many different kinds of robots that will take over some sports. Maybe a sophisticated ping-pong player, or tennis, or even bicycling! -Rach

  • Cars

    Why Can't Our Cars Get Better Mileage?

    By Posted on 7.3.2008 27 Comments

    In April, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation proposed new CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards that would increase the average efficiency of passenger cars and light trucks by 4.5 percent per year from 2011 to 2015. A lot of people wondered why the federal government wasn't aiming higher.

    7.6.2008 at 06:32pm - Comment by universegirl

    I wish that hydrogen was around the corner. With Honda and Chevy pulling out the Clarity and Equinox. Both being hydrogen powered. Unfortunately, they will not sell these vehicles to civilians. Only lease these cars out for 3 years to celebrities. With a scary but true future of them never reaching mainstream. As some may recall in 2000 the Electric Vehicle 1 (EV1) was taken off of the streets after the lease was up and crushed them all. Even though the majority of the leasers wanted to buy the cars and some even offered to pay double or even triple what the car was worth. Hydrogen cars cost $1,000,000 to manufacture (and thats just for ONE). These cars will not make it out of the plant, sad and harsh but true. IF hydrogen IS going to make an impact it will be at LEAST 30 YEARS FROM NOW! Our best hope is to convert the cars we have now into hybrids. There are many sites that offer DIY hybrid kits for $300 and allow your car to run off of water and gas, or biofuel, or even vegetable oil from the local fast food place. -Rach

  • Entertainment & Gaming

    The Breakdown: Can YOU Bend a Bullet?

    By Posted on 7.3.2008 31 Comments

    7.6.2008 at 06:20pm - Comment by universegirl

    Recently on the Discovery channel's show Mythbusters they busted a simular myth that you can stop or even alter a bullets path with magnets. They rigged a path of high powered magnets under the bullets path and than fired a bullet out of a 9mm pistol (Im not sure on the gun), point being the most that they altered the bullets path was 4 or 5 mm. Hardley enough to be considered a drastic change. So curving a bullet need it be with magnets or useing a calculated recoche it is nearly impossible to reproduce in the way the way that the movie does the bullet curve. Even if you do move the bullet enough to avoid someone it will be slim to no chance of putting the bullet back around on its initial course and still hit the target with the speed and rotation that the bullet is moving at. -Rach



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