The Perfect Machine by Lance Letscher



Cubes and collage are the name of the game, or rather, the Perfect Machine, as far as Lance Letscher is concerned. Themes of technology, locomotion and the creative impulse fuel the latest collages and sculptures by this artist who combines record covers, pages from books and other paper cast-offs into colourful pieces of art. Guns, walking feet and a festive looking cycle are among the collaged items that take their place among Letscher's recent work.

Artist: Lance Letscher
+ dbermangallery.com

From M.Claiborne

Bowery FMX Bike by Giant

Via @uncrate, cross between a traditional track racer and a BMX bike, the Giant Bowery FMX Bike is a mix of the old and the new. "It features a lightweight ALUXX aluminum frame, a BMX custom 'no rail' saddle, a CroMo 3-piece tubular crankset, alloy high-rise handlebars, and the ability to go fixie or freewheel."

From M.Claiborne

3-D Printing Whole Buildings in Stone...in Space: This Printer Rocks

In Pisa, Italy, mad genius Enrico Dini is building sandcastles on the moon. His giant 3-D printer is the first of its kind with the potential to print whole buildings, and it makes them out of solid rock, cutting down a thousand-year-long process into a few minutes. It uses sand, but someday it'll use moon dust.

The machine, called D-Shape, sprays a thin layer of sand with a magnesium-based glue from hundreds of nozzles--its resolution is about 25 dpi, not bad for printing on this scale. The glue binds the sand into solid rock, which builds up, layer after layer, into a sculpture, or a piece of furniture or, someday, into a cathedral. "What I really want to do is to use the machine to complete the Sagrada Familia," Dini says. Okay, it seems a little crazy, but not much.

Dini claims the d-shape process is four times faster than conventional building, costs a third to a half as much as using Portland cement, creates little waste and is better for the environment. But its chief selling point may simply be that it makes creating Gaudiesque, curvy structures simple.

It's not enough for D-Shape to be the missing link between the tiny 3-D printers of today, which never really caught on beyond gimmicky jewelry and model-making, and bigger printers capable of making full-size structures. No, Dini wants the moon. As part of the European Space Agency's Aurora program, he's talking with La Scuola Normale Superiore, Alta Space, and Norman Foster to modify D-Shape to build with moon dust. Voila: instant moonbase.

By Ian Kempton

Shape-shifting polymer pulls off amazing memory tricks

CALL it the yoga polymer: Nafion, a material used in some fuel cells, has an unrivalled memory for contortions.

Tao Xie at General Motors in Warren, Michigan, has twisted and stretched a Nafion strip into three distinct shapes, and found that it will revert to each shape at the appropriate temperature.

Nafion becomes softer as it is heated. At 140 °C Xie stretched it into a particular shape, which was locked in the polymer's "memory" as it cooled to 107 °C and stiffened. Stretching and cooling it twice more allowed two other shapes to be memorised, so that when heated to the appropriate temperature the Nafion formed the corresponding shape (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature08863).

Previously the best shape-memory polymers were able to remember only two shapes.

By Ian Kempton

The Cloud (By Emily Guthrie)

Funky Chair

Another wacky clear chair. Ron Arad calls it the "Well transparent Chair." It's well strange and probably well expensive too. Made from bent plastic sheets; the sitting surface gives a bit so it's probably not as uncomfortable as it looks.

-Rob Todd

Flying Car...again.

The Transition®

Every pilot faces uncertain weather, rising costs, and ground transportation hassles on each end of the flight. The Transition® combines the unique convenience of being able to fold its wings with the ability to drive on any surface road in a modern personal airplane platform. Stowing the wings for road use and deploying them for flight at the airport is activated from inside the cockpit. This unique functionality addresses head-on the issues faced by today’s Private and Sport Pilots.

Terrafugia’s award-winning MIT-trained engineers have been advancing the state-of-the-art in personal aircraft since 2006. Now you can streamline your flying experience with the revolutionary integration of personal land and air travel made possible by the Transition® Roadable Aircraft.

Performance
Cruise: 100 kts (115 mph)
Rotate: 70 kts (80 mph)
Stall: 45 kts (51 mph)
Range: 400nm (460 mi)
Takeoff over 50' obstacle: 1700' Fuel burn: 5 gph
Fuel tank: 20 gallons
Useful Load: 430 lbs
On road: 30 mpg, highway speeds
Light Sport Aircraft (LSA)
Convenience
Front wheel drive on the ground
Automotive-style entry and exit
Two place, side by side
Automated electromechanical folding wing
No trailer or hangar needed
Cargo area holds skis, fishing poles or golf clubs

Safety
Drive in case of inclement weather
Proven 100 hp Rotax 912S engine
Full vehicle parachute available
Modern glass avionics
Automotive crash safety features

Dimensions
Folded:
6’ 9” tall
80” wide
18’ 9” long
Airplane:
6’ 3” tall
19’ 2” long
Wingspan:
27’ 6” Cockpit:
51” at the shoulder
Training
Become a Sport Pilot in as little as 20 hours of flight time in a Transition®-specific course. For existing pilots, get comfortable quickly with the familiarization training included with every Transition® delivery.

Order Today
Place your fully refundable $10,000 airframe reservation deposit here. Anticipated purchase price: $194,000.

Still not quite what I was hoping for, but pretty cool! Austin

Revealed: The £1m bullet-proof SUV (but that's cheap compared to the vodka that comes with it) By: Emily Guthrie

Revealed: The £1m bullet-proof SUV (but that's cheap compared to the vodka that comes with it)

This is the world's most expensive SUV - but with three bottles of the world's most expensive vodka included in the price tag, it actually appears to be a bargain.
The £1million Dartz Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition has gold-plated windows, pure tungsten exhausts, and the speed gauges are encrusted in diamonds.
The seats are not for the squeamish. They are made of one of the softest materials around - leather from a whale's penis.
And, just to send the bling factor right through the roof, this SUV also comes complete with an exterior bulletproof Kevlar coating.
But that's nothing compared to the vodka that comes with it.

The car company has thrown three bottles of Russo-Baltique, the vodka brand it created this year to mark its100th anniversary, Motor Authority reported.
Last year, a bottle retailed for £790,000. It is not a meant to be drunk, the company's website explains - instead it should be displayed as art.
That's because the bling of the bottle frankly puts the SUV to shame.
According to the Dartz company's website, the flask, a replica of the radiator guard used for the Russo-Baltique cars, is made from gold coins minted between 1908 and 1912. This is around the time the company manufactured its first car.
The flask cap is made from white and yellow gold and contains a diamond-encrusted replica of the Russian Imperial Eagle.
And finally, the bottle itself is made of bulletproof glass 30cm thick - just in case.
The car - and vodka - were produced especially for the mega-exclusive Top Marques luxury motor show in Monaco next year.
The car is made by the company that produced armoured vehicles for Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Tsar Nicolas.
The seats are indeed of 'real whale penis leather,' says a spokesperson for Dartz Kombat.
'It is inspired by the original playboy Aristotle Onassis' yacht Christina O, which had bar stool seats made from sperm whale foreskin.
'Some people have called us crazy because of this, but we think we must make a luxury car till the end.'
Weighing four tons and powered by a V8 engine capable of 450 horse power, the Pombron's maker also claim the car is 'rocket grenade proof'.

In the past our customers have included Lenin and his revolutionary partner Trotsky,' explains the Dartz spokesperson.
'In fact we are launching a version of this new model in 2012, just for Latin America.
'This will commemorate the fact that Trotsky was killed in Mexico with an ice pick in 1940.
'As such, the Latin version will come with a gold ice axe to mark this fact.'
Keeping the exact details of the car secret, the Pombron's makers say the SUV will be unveiled to Prince Albert of Monaco at the Top Marques opening in April of next year.

Flexible OLED

ModisTech to commercialize cheap, flexible OLED lighting this year
By Donald Melanson posted Feb 20th 2010 at 6:51AM

It's far from the only one working on flexible OLED lighting, but it looks like ModisTech could be among the first to actually bring something to market, as its now announced that it will begin commercialization of its 150 x 150mm flexible OLED panels this year (seemingly ahead of its original 2011 schedule). Those will apparently be used for various indirect lighting applications including desk lamps and car lighting, and promise to provide a more natural light than LEDs while maintaining some of the same power savings. Still no word on any actual products using the OLED panels, unfortunately, but they will supposedly be inexpensive for companies to adopt (and very cheap to manufacture).

Austin Haidinyak
02.20.10

Flat pack Bicycle

This flat-pack bike and scooter by Designer Nicolas Belly, won second prize in the L’Argus Design Competition, which had the theme of "Less is More: Traveling in the Era of Simplicity."

posted by RobTodd

Nanofiber lighting

Nanofiber lighting promises to be better, safer than incandescent or CFL bulbs
By Donald Melanson posted Feb 12th 2010 at 1:35PM

Well, it looks like you can add another contender to the great light bulb debate -- a group of researchers from RTI International now says that nanofiber lighter is is more efficient than incandescent light bulbs, and safer than compact fluorescents. The secret to that, it seems, is a combination of nanofiber-based reflectors and photoluminescent nanofibers (or PLN), which together are able to form a lighting device that pumps out more than 55 lumens of light output per electrical watt consumed. That's five times more efficient than a regular incandescent light bulb, and since there's no mercury, the researchers say it's far safer than CFL bulbs. What's more, it's also apparently able to produce more natural light than CFLs, although there's noticeably no mention of potential pricing -- they do say that the first products using nanofiber lighting could be available in three to five years, though. Video after the break.

Austin Haidinyak 02.12.10

Colorado State University Grad Student Honored for Inovation

FORT COLLINS - A spherical robot that climbs stairs has won a Colorado State University mechanical engineering graduate student recognition as one of the "10 Most Brilliant Innovators of 2009" by Popular Mechanics magazine.

Greg Schroll also received the publication’s Next Generation Breakthrough Award for his machine that could one day explore extraterrestrial landscapes.

Schroll used whatever he found sitting around to construct his prototype. The top globe to a gumball machine makes up the robot’s polycarbonate outer shell while the red rubber tracking that helps the robot glide came from a rubber playground ball. Inside, remote-control car and helicopter parts comprise the distinctive machine.

The robot’s exclusive ability to easily navigate inclines and roam rough terrain is possible because of a set of gyroscopes that store momentum within the sphere. The prototype demonstrates the concept that accumulating momentum and releasing it on command can propel an object, even up a set of steep stairs.

The robot is enclosed within a rugged and resilient uniform shell leaving no obvious points of weakness. Its spherical shape prevents it from ever being turned upside down which would allow potential drivers to maneuver the robot in a variety of environments without becoming incapacitated. The robot also has the ability to be sealed for amphibious work.

Eric Layton / 4 Dec 2009

3D @ Home

The 3D home theater is catching up to the multiplex. Shutter glasses such as the Nvidia 3D Vision Kit ($200) work by blacking out one eye at a time, 60 times per second—so fast you don’t notice it. An infrared emitter syncs these flashes with a quickly switching screen, allowing each eye to effectively see a different image. The 3D effect comes from showing the same scene to each eye from a different perspective. Lots of current games can be played in 3D, and software from companies like DDD can convert any off-the-shelf DVD into 3D live, as it plays. Just make sure you have a 3D- compatible display.

Eric Layton
4 Dec 2009

How would nature solve building challenges?

Click the link
This whole website is amazing. Instead of extracting just one article of info to post, here is the whole thing.

posted by Helen