ColorFabb announced lately it plans to beta test two new materials: BronzeFill and BambooFill which are scheduled to launch in the next months.
This article ColorFabb beta tests new PLA Bronze & BambooFill filament for 3D printers is first published at 3ders.org.
Geeky Gadgets posted pictures of this incredible model of the International Space Station made using 282,00 matches.
Pat Acton of Iowa has this month unveiled his 1/26 scale model of the International Space Station (ISS) which he has built using matchsticks, 282,000 of them to be precise.
Building the ISS took roughly 1950 hours to complete as well as 8 gallons or 30 litres of glue creating a finished model that measures 4.1 m x 2.8 m wide.
As well as building the awesome International Space Station, Acton has also built scale models of the Hogwarts Castle from the Harry Potter series of books, the Notre Dame Cathedral, the One World Trade Center and the city of Minas Tirith from the Lord of the Rings books. Gizmag explains that :
“Acton, who now sources his flameless matchsticks from the Ohio Blue Tip Company, learned that he could not only bend the sticks using needle nose pliers, but that it was possible to build sheets of the singular wooden pieces using a Plexiglas sheet and glue. Once the glue has dried, Acton peels the matchstick sheet from the Plexiglas and shapes it for larger surfaces or forms it into structural pieces.”
If you are in Iowa Acton’s ISS matchstick creation can be seen at the Matchstick Marvel Museum in Gladbrook, Iowa.
Doug Werner of MuchoMoto does it again with a kick ass doodle, this time with a good message… GO BUILD SOMETHING!
[ more motorcycle art ]
Orr’s Connecticut Radiation Dosage Calculator (Front) This Cold War calculator was designed by William Orr of the University of Connecticut in 1950-1. The calculator was commissioned by the Connecticut State Office of Civil Defence and made by Consolidated Nucleonic. They were sold to the public for $1
Orr’s Connecticut Radiation Dosage Calculator (Back)
US Army ABC-M1A1 (Front) A military version of Orr’s Radiation Dosage Calculator, the ABC-M1A1, was used by the US Army after modifying the instruction to suit military users. The calculator was used to determine radiation dosages after a nuclear explosion.
US Army ABC-M1A1 (Back)
Calculator, Nuclear Yield M4A1 (Front) This calculator is used to estimate the kiloton yield of a nuclear weapon based on measurements of the time in seconds from the flash to the bang, the observed width of the cloud, the distance to ground zero, the fireball illumination time, and the elevation angle.
Calculator, Nuclear Yield M4A1 (Back)
M2 Radiation Calculator (Front) Given the exposure rate (rads/hr) at a given time after a nuclear detonation the calculator can be used to predicts the exposure rate at any other time. It can also estimate the radiation exposure of personnel who are in the area at some time after the explosion.
M2 Radiation Calculator (Back)
![RAND Bombing Probability Computer (1). It allowed USAF planners to calculate the probability of hitting a target [or landing within a certain distance of a target] with one or more bombs.](http://i0.wp.com/www.retronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Cold-War-Calculators-9.jpg)
RAND Bombing Probability Computer (1). It allowed USAF planners to calculate the probability of hitting a target [or landing within a certain distance of a target] with one or more bombs.
RAND Bombing Probability Computer (2)
FDA Radiation Dosage Calculator (Front)
FDA Radiation Dosage Calculator (Back)
Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer (Front) The design was based on data from the 1962 edition of “The Effects of Nuclear Weapons”. The original edition was published in 1957 and based on data collected during the Nevada tests.
Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer (Back)
The RADIAC Calculator No. 2 (Front) The RADIAC Calculator No. 2 was produced by Blundell Rules Limited. The two inner disks are one sided. No distinction is made between land and sea bursts.
The RADIAC Calculator No. 2 (Back)
Cold War Chemical Warfare Calculator (Front) Computer from the Cold War period.
Cold War Chemical Warfare Calculator (Back)
Air-Burst Effects Computer No. 1 (Front) The Air-Burst Effects Computer focused solely on the effects of a nuclear explosion occurring above the ground (Air-Burst).
Air-Burst Effects Computer No. 1 (Back)
BRL Radiac Calculator No. 1 (Sea) The RADIAC Calculator No. 1 was produced by the UK company Blundell Rules Limited. The two smaller disks can be turned over after releasing the metal clip. One side is blue and shows the contamination results from a sea burst. The other side shows the contamination resulting from a land burst.
BRL Radiac Calculator No. 1 (Land)
BRL Radiac Calculator No. 1 (Back)
Nuc-Tractor Nuclear Yield Calculator.
“Prompted by his admiration of Queen Victoria and her well-known sea-sickness, Frederick Augustus Knapp designed a cylindrical boat supposed to conquer waves of any magnitude, leaving a calm ride. The prototype was built in 1897, 110 feet long, with a 22-foot diameter outer cylinder for rotation and a smaller stationary inner cylinder for passengers. Using 2 steam engines at the ends, the boat log-rolled across the water like a rolling pin, cutting through the waves with blades affixed to its exterior.
“The prototype never reached adequate speed and was hard to maneuver. In 1907, the hull broke loose from its moorings crashed into a boat, As payment for damages, the hull was sold for $300 but in the end never claimed. As the Toronto waterfront expanded over the years, the hull was dragged to the foot of Parliament St. and in 1927 the city buried the boat where it lay under new landfill.”
“An experimental auto giro, capable of being driven on highways as well as being flown in the air, was delivered to the Bureau of Air Commerce today at the Department Commerce today. The ship, piloted by veteran autogiro pilot James G. Ray, was driven down Pennsylvania Avenue after landing in a park near the United States Treasury.”
Some choice shots from the Wheels and Waves Southsiders MC tour, photographs by Hermann Köpf.
(From top to bottom, left to right) Lady rider Laura Antoine all bundled up for chilly weather on the Triton cafe racer. Cafe racer drive by and group riding shot. El Solitario's Impostor custom motorcycle out and about. And lastly, Dimitri Coste in his rad custom Ruby helmet, “Beware the Ninjas”.
Geek posted about this incredible new simulation that lets you view the Big Bang.
One of the nicest things about physics is that it has remained unchanging throughout all of time. Evolutionary biologists and astronomers alike have to spend their time painstakingly collecting data about the actual reality of the world, and to see into the past they have to find fossil evidence — whether the fossil is made of bone, or of light. However physicists have the luxury of being able to look into the past though the lens of mathematics. They can analyze the trends of today, then run those trends backward virtually as far as they like. Such simulations have helped predict everything from the distribution of stars to the likelihood of an earthquake.
Now that concept has been taken to its ultimate extreme with a simulation of the very beginnings of the universe. Such simulations have been made before, but they’ve focused either on the large scale with little detail, or on the small scale with plenty of shading. This one, called Illustris, uses a complex new program the international research team spent the past five years developing. It can not only track and render some 12 billion voxels, each with its own physical state, properties, and effects, but it can account for the formation and action of oddities like super-massive black holes.
The result is that Illustris can simulate and render something like an accurate history of the universe. It starts from about 500 million years after the Big Bang — before that, their backward extrapolations begin to lose legitimacy due to sheer proximity to the greatest singularity of all time (or perhaps before time, technically?) View a super-speed video of the simulation below.
This run of the simulation renders a box roughly 350 million light years to a side — big enough to say that we’re rendering out “the universe.” The 12-billion voxel resolution means they still can’t render the formation of individual stars, but it can look at the larger-scale changes in some detail. Huge masses of formless matter become smaller clumps, which begin to organize into super-clusters of small units that will soon become galaxies. It illustrates the sheer size of the universe, that this most detailed model has units the size of the Milky Way.
That might sound unimpressive, but it’s an enormous feat of computational effort. An average desktop PC would take a few thousand years to run a simulation of this complexity, modelling the gravitational impact of 12 billion objects, all in motion and affecting one another. The server farm they actually used had over 8,000 processors humming away steadily for several months.
Illustris takes things like matter, dark matter, and dark energy into account in its model. It is the first to successfully bridge this gap, and thus the first to be able to accurately run from starting conditions to the general universal layout we observe today. In the video below, you can watch the researchers switch between different rendering filters, showing how different constituents of our universe are disbursed. Dark matter and dark energy only interact with regular matter via gravity, so to ignore their impact (especially dark energy) is to have wildly incorrect predictions about the locations of super-clusters and super-voids of galaxies.
A robot developed by EPFL researchers is capable of reacting on the spot and grasping objects with complex shapes and trajectories in less than five hundredths of a second.
Core77 posted these incredible videos of airplane emergency inflatable slides deploying as well as a cool video showing how they are made.
While we hope to never have to see one of these in real life, we spotted this mesmerizing video of airplane emergency slides deploying over on DoobyBrain.
The question is, how the heck do they design and make these things? How is it possible that one little pressurized tank can blow the entire thing up in six seconds? What material are they using that it’s strong enough to withstand the process, not to mention the thereotical hundreds of people that might slide down the thing? We did a bit of hunting and found the video below, where you’ll see everything from a vacuum table fabric-flattening machine to a CNC cutter to a lot of handwork:
Mathew Beebe shares a super useful method of coloring filament with sharpie marker!
The ‘Ultimate Filament Colorer’ works by feeding 1.75mm filament directly through the ink cartridge of a Sharpie marker of anyone’s favorite color,” explained Mathew Beebe to 3DPrint.com in an interview. “The filament is completely coated by the ink inside the Sharpie ink cartridge. The ‘Ultimate Filament Colorer’ can be installed directly before the hot-end / extruder of a printer, which allows it to also function as a filament cleaner, since the ink cartridge of the Sharpie marker consists of a fiber/foam type material which catches dust particles quite nicely.
He mentions that 1 marker could last for about 1kg of filament!
Read more on:
http://3dprint.com/3340/ulimate-filament-colorer/
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!
Cosplayer Lara Lunardi has feelings about Nintendo and loves to cosplay as Samus Aran. She made the bright bodysuit from a two way stretch metallic spandex, and she made the costume even more awesome by building a Metroid to go with it. The artificial organism from the game of the same name is used as a bioweapon, but this prop is harmless. Lara started with a clear plastic ornament and cut it with a dremel tool. She took the following steps when the shell was complete:
After having the shell done, I started to mold the brain/intestines/whatever that red thing is out of Sculpey. I made 3 balls and pressed them on the surface. After having the 3 balls done, I stuck them together with even more sculpey! I put it in the oven for 15 minutes and it was done.
Read more at Lara’s website. Top photo by Cosplay Corral.
The team at Australian firm March Studio (previously) are currently finishing work on this amazing interior staircase for the Japanese-inspired Nishi building in Canberra, Australia. The building is billed as “Australia’s most radically sustainable mixed-use building and apartment complex,” and if this interior treatment is any indication, it seems they might have achieved that goal. The stairwell and ceiling is constructed from thousands of repurposed boards taken from old homes, a basketball court, as well as remnants from the construction site of the Nishi building itself. Although it looks somewhat chaotic, every single board and suspension rod was designed and placed before construction began. You can see much more at the Hotel Hotel Blog. (via Jeroen Apers, Hotel Hotel Blog)
Saving the Feynman van @ symmetry magazine.
A team of Richard Feynman’s friends and fans banded together to restore the Nobel laureate’s most famous vehicle.
A group of scientists have discovered a version of the gene KL, called KL-VS, that promotes longevity and boosts cognitive faculties. via The Economist:
PEOPLE are living longer, which is good. But old age often brings a decline in mental faculties and many researchers are looking for ways to slow or halt such decline. One group doing so is led by Dena Dubal of the University of California, San Francisco, and Lennart Mucke of the Gladstone Institutes, also in San Francisco. Dr Dubal and Dr Mucke have been studying the role in ageing of klotho, a protein encoded by a gene called KL. A particular version of this gene, KL-VS, promotes longevity. One way it does so is by reducing age-related heart disease. Dr Dubal and Dr Mucke wondered if it might have similar powers over age-related cognitive decline.
What they found was startling. KL-VS did not curb decline, but it did boost cognitive faculties regardless of a person’s age by the equivalent of about six IQ points. If this result, just published in Cell Reports, is confirmed, KL-VS will be the most important genetic agent of non-pathological variation in intelligence yet discovered.
Dr Dubal and Dr Mucke made their discovery when they looked at 220 volunteers aged 52 to 85, to study the effects of KL-VS on ageing. They assessed their volunteers’ faculties of memory, attention, visuo-spatial awareness and language. From these, they constructed a composite measure of cognition.
That measure suggested people with a VS version of the KL gene in their chromosomes had better cognition than those without one. When they analysed data collected by two other groups who work independently on KL-VS they discovered these researchers had found the same thing. That comparison brought the number of people examined to 718, a fifth of whom were possessors of KL-VS.
The six-point IQ gap is an extrapolation, since the cognitive tests did not measure general intelligence directly. But if it is correct, variation in the KL gene could account for as much as 3% of the variation of IQ in the general population (or, rather, in the population from which the researchers’ samples were drawn, namely white Americans). In comparison, the previous record-holders, HMGA2 and NPTN, each account for only half a percent of that variation.
This sort of result, it must be cautioned, has a tendency to come and go. The genome has so many genes in it that flukey correlations between one of them and some human trait are common. But there are two reasons to believe this is not a fluke. One is that these three independent studies have found it. The second is that Dr Dubal and Dr Mucke did not rest on their laurels, but did some experiments on mice to investigate KL-VS’s actions.
Wikipedia
Tokyobike
Humade
Kintsugi (or kintsukuroi) is a Japanese method for repairing broken ceramics with a special lacquer mixed with gold, silver, or platinum. The philosophy behind the technique is to recognize the history of the object and to visibly incorporate the repair into the new piece instead of disguising it. The process usually results in something more beautiful than the original.
The video above was filmed at Tokyobike in London which recently had a Kintsugi workshop. If you’d like to try the technique yourself, Humade offers gold and silver DIY kintsugi kits. See also: When Mending Becomes an Art. (via Kottke and The Kid Should See This)
Bibliothèque de Genève, Switzerland
Hot on the heels of a post earlier this week about centuries-old guide for mixing watercolors, I stumbled onto this 18th century instrument designed to measure the blueness of the sky called a Cyanometer. The simple device was invented in 1789 by Swiss physicist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure and German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt who used the circular array of 53 shaded sections in experiments above the skies over Geneva, Chamonix and Mont Blanc. The Cyanometer helped lead to a successful conclusion that the blueness of the sky is a measure of transparency caused by the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. You can learn more at the Royal Society of Chemistry. (via Free Parking)
