Anyone who’s seen James Cameron’s Aliens cannot forget the images of 1.) Ripley in a cargo-loader exoskeleton, and 2.) Vasquez prowling the corridors with that body-mounted machine gun on the swing arm. That was back in 1986; now it’s 2013, and not only have these designs actually come to pass, but they’ve been combined. As we previously reported , Lockheed Martin licensed a company called Ekso Bionics’ technology to develop the HULC , or Human Universal Load Carrier. It’s got the power-assist legs and the body-supported gun mount: While Ekso Bionics is targeting the consumer market, enabling paraplegics to walk again, Lockheed has initially gone military. However, they’re reportedly creating a version of the HULC called the Mantis, for industrial applications. As Bloomberg News reports , The machines may follow a classic arc from Pentagon research project to fixture on an assembly line, similar to the development of lasers, said Paul Saffo, managing director of foresight at investment advisory firm Discern in San Francisco. “The medical devices get the most attention, the military funds it and the first mass application is industrial,” Saffo said in a telephone interview. [Mantis is aimed at] any industry in which workers must hold heavy equipment that can cause fatigue and back injuries…. Mantis has a mechanical extension for a wearer’s arm and absorbs the strain from hefting a grinder or sander, [Lockheed business development manager Keith] Maxwell said. Tests found productivity gains of more than 30 percent, he said, and wearers showed their Macarena footwork to demonstrate the suits’ flexibility. “It turns workers away from being a weightlifter and into a craftsman,” Maxwell said. I’m all for Construction Worker Exoskeletons—as long as the power tools are not integrated, but remain separate objects that you pick up. Because once they start replacing the user’s hands with built-in angle grinders and magazine-fed nail guns, we’re going to have a problem. Last year, I watched a construction worker fight a cabdriver in front of my building; the hack didn’t stand a chance. The last thing I want to see is an angry frame carpenter tramping off the jobsite in one of these things, ready to settle someone’s hash with his Forstner-bit fingers and chopsaw hands. (more…)
Tag: design-religion
Holy Cow: Christian von Koenigsegg Invents “Free Valve” Engine That Requires No Camshaft
Why won’t the internal combustion engine die? To oversimplify the issue, it’s partly because of its incumbency and partly because it’s very good at what it does. Environmentalists hate it because it’s dirty, and while some engineers pursue alternate energy forms, there are still plenty of smart people tweaking the internal combustion engine to make it less dirty, more efficient, and more powerful. One person in the latter category is Christian von Koenigsegg , the rather brilliant inventor behind the Swedish supercar skunkworks that bears his name. Anyone with a basic understanding of how engines work is bound to be impressed by von Koenigsegg’s latest breakthrough: He’s developed an engine with no cams. With a conventional engine, the valves are driven by cams that are necessarily egg-shaped, with each cam driving its attendant valve stem into its deepest extension at the pointiest part of the egg as the cam rotates on the camshaft. Simple physics dictate this be a gradual process; because of the egg shape the valve gradually opens, maxes out, and gradually closes. If a cam was shaped like an off-center square, for instance, the valve stem would break on the corners. With von Koenigsegg’s radical “Free Valve” engine design, the valves operate independently and electronically to depress/open, while a mechanical spring returns them to the closed position. This means the valves quickly slam open, allowing fuel to flood the combustion chamber, then quickly slam shut. Ditto for the exhaust valves. So fuel is not gradually seeping in and exhaust is not gradually seeping out—it’s going BAM in, BAM out. The benefits? The engine is much smaller, of course, requiring no camshaft or timing belt. On top of that they’re projecting 30% less fuel consumption, 30% more torque, 30% more horsepower, and a staggering 50% less emissions. In the video below, von Koenigsegg walks you through it: (more…)
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Holy Cow: Christian von Koenigsegg Invents “Free Valve” Engine That Requires No Camshaft
The U.S. Mint’s Production Materials Problem: Nickels Cost 11 Cents to Make. Here’s Our Design Solution
It makes such little cents You probably know that the U.S. penny used to be made out of copper, which was once inexpensive. As the cost of copper began to rise, it would have cost more per penny than the penny’s own value, so the U.S. Mint switched over to a zinc alloy. But the price of zinc has been steadily rising since 2005. Which is why U.S. currency is in the absurd situation it is now: A one-cent piece costs about 2.4 cents to make. A penny is 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper, and that zinc ain’t cheap. The nickel’s got it even worse. This five-cent coin costs 11.2 cents to manufacture. That’s because 75% of it is zinc and 25% is, well, nickel, another expensive metal. Which means that a nickel costs more to produce than every U.S. bill from a one-dollar bill (5.2 cents) all the way up to a C-note (7.7 cents). The money math starts to make a little more sense when we get to the smaller dime (92% copper, 8% nickel), which rings in at a production cost of 5.7 cents. The quarter, which has the same ingredients as the dime, is only a slighly better bargain at 11.1 cents. Clearly the U.S. Mint needs to start researching cheaper alloys or phasing out the penny and the nickel. It’s true that the math is a little more complicated than it would be for pure product manufacturing; for example, while you’d quickly go broke selling a product for $100 that cost $240 to make, currency is a little trickier. The government has an obligation to produce and circulate currency because it enables commerce, so it’s okay if they lose a little in manufacturing costs, as its citizens will theoretically make it back up by creating wealth. But if we don’t do that fuzzy math and look at it in terms of straight production, in 2012 alone the U.S. government lost $58 million dollars just by making pennies. (more…)
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The U.S. Mint’s Production Materials Problem: Nickels Cost 11 Cents to Make. Here’s Our Design Solution
Lamborghini Succeeds in Creating World’s Most-Difficult-to-Wax Car
They said it couldn’t be done, but Lamborghini has pulled a design coup and successfully created the world’s most-difficult-to-wax car. A cleverly arranged array of fins, vents, humps, angles, and even dangerously sharp edges have been designed to stymie even the most dedicated lackey, who simply will not be able to apply Meguiar’s and wipe it back off in a reasonable amount of time. Mr. Miyagi’s car, this isn’t. That isn’t the only benefit conferred by the contorted shape: Should a cinderblock fall onto the car from above and damage the sheet metal, onlookers will likely not be able to tell where the damage occurred, saving the driver money on bodywork. Early chatter indicated these drawings were fake, but Jalopnik’s now fairly certain that the Lamborghini Veneno will debut at this week’s Geneva Motor Show. Priced at a reasonable $4.6 million, the Veneno should prove irresistible to young families who need to get around town in a safe, roomy way. And the exterior styling belies a sensible 6.5-liter V12 powerplant, whose 750 horsepower and 220 m.p.h. top speed should be more than enough to get you over to the inlaws in a comfortable manner. The Veneno will reportedly not come with a glovebox, but instead, a handbasket. Then you can take that handbasket, place the car inside of it, and you can bring it straight with you to Hell. (more…)
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Lamborghini Succeeds in Creating World’s Most-Difficult-to-Wax Car
Manufacturing Techniques: Honda Figures Out How to Bond Steel with Aluminum
Materials movement sucks, and it’s our job as designers, engineers or craftspersons to learn tricks to deal with it. You’ll put a slight arc in a plastic surface that’s supposed to be flat, so that after it comes out of the mold and cools the surface doesn’t get all wavy; a furniture builder in Arizona shipping a hardwood table to the Gulf states will use joinery that compensates for the humidity and attendant wood expansion; and similar allowances have to be made when joining steel and aluminum, as they expand at different rates when the temperature changes. On this latter front, Honda’s engineers have made a breakthrough that those who work with fabrics may find interesting: They’ve discovered that by creating a “3D Lock Seam”—essentially a flat-felled seam for you sewists—and using a special adhesive in place of the spot-welding they’d use with steel-on-steel, they can bond steel with aluminum in a way that negates the whole thermal deformation thing. Practically speaking, what this new process enables them to do is create door panels that are steel on the inside and aluminum on the outside. This cuts the weight of the door panels by some 17%, which ought to reduce fuel consumption. (Honda also mentions that “In addition, weight reduction at the outer side of the vehicle body enables [us] to concentrate the point of gravity toward the center of the vehicle, contributing to improved stability in vehicle maneuvering,” but that sounds like spin to us.) Unsurprisingly they’re mum on how they’ve pulled this off or what exactly the adhesive is, but they do mention that “these technologies do not require a dedicated process; as a result, existing production lines can accommodate these new technologies.” The language is kind of vague but it sounds like they’re saying they don’t require massive re-tooling, which is a manufacturing coup. Honda’s U.S. plants are the first to get this manufacturing upgrade, and we’ll be seeing the new doors as soon as next month, on the U.S.-built Acura RLX. (more…)
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Manufacturing Techniques: Honda Figures Out How to Bond Steel with Aluminum
The PhoneJoy Play: A Gaming-Geek Device Makes a Larger Comment About the Shortcomings of Touchscreen Interface Design
Whether or not you’re interested in videogames, this device is kind of fascinating from an industrial design/interface design point of view. The PhoneJoy Play is essentially a portable input device with a slick mechanical design: The two holdable halves can spread sideways, connected by a telescoping mechanism. Your smartphone or mini-tablet can then be “docked” in the middle, and the variety of buttons and motion pads interact with your device wirelessly. (more…)
GrinOn Industries’ System for Providing Immediate Beer– By Filling Through the Bottom of the Cup
Many of us enjoy a beer after work (and some of you, during), but for the most part we’re not in a rush; we understand the tap dispenses beer at a set pace, and I almost like the anticipation that comes with watching the glass slowly fill with amber up to the top. In a sports stadium, however, you want beer NOW. You sneak away from your seat because they called a time-out and you think you can make it back before they take the ball out; otherwise you wait in an interminable line during halftime, wondering if the Miami fan behind you will ever shut his mouth, or if he’ll require your assistance. To beer people faster, an Indiana-based company called GrinOn Industries has invented the Bottoms Up Beer Draft Dispensing System . As the name suggests, the system’s innovation is to inject beer into a cup through the botttom , which greatly speeds the filling time—they’re claiming it’s nine times faster than a tap, and that one person can fill 44 pint cups in one minute—while leaving a decent head on the brew. Observe: (more…)
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GrinOn Industries’ System for Providing Immediate Beer– By Filling Through the Bottom of the Cup
Flotspotting: Bike Bad-assery, Part 3: Saline Airstream
It’s been a minute since we saw the last badass compressed air-powered motorcycle , so seeing as digital designer / 3D modeler Pierrick Huart finally got around to uploading the Saline Airstream to his Coroflot portfolio this past September, it’s worth revisiting even a year and a half after its debut. Back in March 2011, Technologic Vehicles reported that Huart was a member of one of seven teams of students from the International School of Design (ISD) in Valciennes, France, who submitted projects to a speedy brief from “Les Triplettes de Bonneville.” (As such, we’d be remiss not to credit fellow team members Vincent Montreuil, Julien Clément, Thomas Duhamel and Benedict Ponton.) Described as “crazy French DIYers,” the triplets selected the Saline Airstream design, when features an Alu-Magnesium chassis by Daniel Heurton and weighs in at only 102kg (224 lbs). Meanwhile, Wes Siler of Hell for Leather explains the technology behind the engine far better than I could ever hope to: Pneumatic engines using compressed air as their power source aren’t new. If you’ve used an impact wrench or other pneumatic workshop tool, then you’ve used a compressed air engine. The technology enjoys particular interest in France, where Victor Tatin conceived an airplane powered by it all the way back in 1879. That’s where Les Triplettes des Bonneville, the team that will run the Airstream and the makers of its engine come from. The company making the engine is MDI, which is pushing the technology in low-speed, urban vehicles. Like electricity, compressed air is zero emissions (well, technically it’s emitting air…), but unlike electricity, fill ups don’t take hours. You can fill a compressed air tank from a compressor or storage unit in the same time it takes to fill up with gasoline. The downside is that power output and therefore performance are so far somewhat limited, something Les Triplettes are trying to address. The function of a pneumatic piston engine of the kind employed here is incredibly simple. Air is stored in the Airstream’s three tanks at 3,626psi and fed into the engine at 363psi, where it expands, pushing the piston down. That pistons’s return path exhausts the air through a valve, just like in your gasoline-powered motorcycle. (more…)
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Flotspotting: Bike Bad-assery, Part 3: Saline Airstream
U.S. Soldiers’ Combat Invention Inspired by “Predator” Movie
Medium and heavy machine guns are “crew-served” weapons, requiring two and even three soldiers working together to operate it at maximum efficiency. While it’s one guy pulling the trigger, the other two carry and feed the bulky ammunition belts into the weapon. Having to rapidly re-position the weapon therefore brings challenges. According to an article in Soldiers magazine , after a 2.5-hour firefight in Afghanistan, an American infantry combat team started discussing “how three-man teams manning crew-served weapons struggled to stay together over difficult terrain in fluid battles.” It goes without saying that a machine gunner separated from his ammo is not good. It would be better if the gunner were self-contained, but that gun’s not gonna feed itself. Or could it? As a joke, one of the soldiers brought up Jesse Ventura’s character in Predator , who runs around with a minigun fed by a box on his back. A simple one-person solution, as envisioned by some Hollywood propmaster. What Ventura’s character had was one long, continuous belt feeding uninterruptedly from the pack into his gun. But without that arrangement, the best a lone machine gunner could manage would be to carry individual 50-round belts to load himself—and stopping to reload every 50 rounds. That leads to lulls in fire, and the more times you reload, the more you increase the chances of the gun jamming. This is a design flaw with potentially life-or-death consequences. And so, following the “Predator” discussion, Staff Sergeant Vincent Winkowski thought about it and figured a back-mounted ammo rig might actually be doable. So Winkowski grabbed an old ALICE (all-purpose lightweight individual carrying equipment) frame, welded two ammunition cans together—one atop the other after cutting the bottom out of the top can—and strapped the fused cans to the frame. To that he added a MOLLE (modular, lightweight load-carrying equipment) pouch to carry other equipment. “We wondered why there wasn’t some type of [system] that fed our machine guns [like the] mini-gun as portrayed in the movie,” Winkowski said. “So, I decided to try it using the feed chute assembly off of [a vehicle-mounted weapons system]. We glued a piece of wood from an ammo crate inside the ammo cans to create the decreased space necessary so the rounds would not fall in on each other. “My Mark 48 gunners, Spc. Derick Morgan and Spc. Aaron McNew, who also had input to the design and evaluation, took it to the range and tested it, and even with its initial shortcomings, it was much better than the current TTP (tactics, techniques and procedures) we employed. On Feb. 26, 2011, our prototype ‘Ironman’ pack even saw its first combat use by Spc. McNew when our squad was ambushed by up to 50 fighters in a river valley, and it worked great!” “I’m not impressed!” (more…)
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U.S. Soldiers’ Combat Invention Inspired by “Predator” Movie