yyzmcleod - Slashdot User

Submission + - Canada's AeroVelo breaks human-powered land speed record (design-engineering.com)

Submitted by yyzmcleod on Friday September 18, 2015 @03:48PM

yyzmcleod writes: First, they designed and flew the world’s first human-powered ornithopter called the Snowbird in 2010. Then, in 2013, they surmounted the seemingly impossible challenge of winning the Sikorsky Prize with the Atlas human-powered helicopter.

And now, as of yesterday, AeroVelo, the Ontario-based team of engineers and University of Toronto students, have helped their captain, Dr. Todd Reichert, become the fastest human-powered man alive. At the World Human Powered Speed Challenge (WHPSC), held annually along a five-mile stretch of highway in Battle Mountain, Nevada, the team’s Eta recumbent speed bike hit 85.71mph (137.93km/h) Thursday morning, besting the previous world record of 83.13 mph.

Submission + - NASA's JPL develops multi-metal 3D printing process (design-engineering.com)

Submitted by yyzmcleod on Thursday July 31, 2014 @10:50AM

yyzmcleod writes: The technology to 3D print a single part from multiple materials has been around for years, but only for polymer-based additive manufacturing processes. For metals, jobs are typically confined to a single powdered base metal or alloy per object. However, researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory say they have developed a 3D printing technique that allows for print jobs to transition from one metal to another in a single object.

Submission + - Festo to fly BionicOpter at Hannover (canadianmanufacturing.com)

Submitted by

yyzmcleod

on Thursday March 28, 2013 @03:42PM

yyzmcleod writes: "Building on the work of last year’s bionic creation, the Smart Bird, Festo announced that it will literally launch its latest creation, the BionicOpter, at Hannover Messe in April. With a wingspan of 63 cm and weighing in at 175 grams, the robotic dragonfly mimics all forms of flight as its natural counterpart, including hover, glide and manoeuvring in all directions. This is made possible, the company says, by the BionicOpter’s ability to move each of its four wings independently, as well as control their amplitude, frequency and angle of attack. Including its actuated head and body, the robot exhibits 13 degrees of freedom, which allows it to rapidly accelerate, decelerate, turn and fly backwards."

Submission + - Researchers create life-sized 3D hologram for videoconferencing (canadianmanufacturing.com)

Submitted by

yyzmcleod

on Friday May 04, 2012 @12:42PM

yyzmcleod writes: "A research team at Queen’s University has created a human-scale 3D hologram pod that allows people in different locations to videoconference as if they are standing in front of each other.

Called TeleHuman, the technology is the creation of professor Roel Vertegaal, director of the Human Media Lab, and his graduate team at the Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

Similar to the Star Trek holodeck, participants can walk around the 3D hologram of the remote person they’re talking to and view them from all sides. More importantly, the system captures 3D visual cues that 2D video miss, such as head orientation, gaze and overall body posture."

Submission + - Size Matters-Engineering the 30-Meter Telescope (canadianmanufacturing.com)

Submitted by

yyzmcleod

on Tuesday May 12, 2009 @02:14PM

yyzmcleod writes: "When completed in 2018, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will be the world's largest and most powerful, with a resolving power 100 times that of Hubble. As TMT's preliminary design review nears, the following story details how its enclosure, segmented mirror and adaptive optics will work to let astronomers peer back to the beginning of the Cosmos."

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