Claudia Mitchell lost her arm in a motorcycle accident and she is the first woman to replace the severed limb with a “bionic arm”. Mitchell can move the robotic arm simply by thinking about moving it. The device is designed by The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, which is part of a multi-lab effort, funded with nearly $50 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), to create more useful and natural artificial limbs for amputees. Via:
As part of the Autodesk University Augmented Reality main stage demo, CTO Jeff Kowalski plucks a motorcycle from his computer screen and holds it in his hand.
"The Motor Simulation improves safety for motorcycle riders. It’s cutting-edge technology and the experience of it’s management team has designed and build a fully-interactive, high-definition graphics simulator with a fully movable, reactive motion base that simulates riding a motorcycle in real-time, base upon the parameters of physics and not a gaming engine."
Alex Bell and Andres PachecoEver wanted to build your very own motorcycle?
Alex Bell and Andres Pacheco, senior engineering students from Swarthmore College had the opportunity to do just that, thanks to funding by the college’s engineering department. Spurred by their interest in alternative energies and vehicle efficiency, they have been working on building from scratch a “proof of concept hydrogen fuel cell motorcycle,” for two years now.
“The goal of our project is to design and build a functional hydrogen fuel cell motorcycle and compare the efficiency data against battery and ICE motorcycles,” said Bell and Pacheco, in an article in Fuel Cell Today.
They have posted a rough draft of their “Fuel Cell Vehicle Engineering Report” on their website with their specific design decisions, vehicle components, and fuel cell vehicle efficiency comparisons.
Bell and Pacheco estimate that the motorcycle has an average efficiency of 50%. After averaging in losses in propulsion, total vehicle efficiency is expected to be 46%."
This number, which the two hope to increase to about 60% after further modifications and repairs, is very impressive, especially since, as you may know, traditional ICE engines only manage about half that.
While you won’t see any of these bikes rolling around your town in the near future, these young engineers certainly appear to have a great future ahead of them, and hope to present their final paper (upon approval) at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Fuel Cell Science, Engineering, and Technology conference in June.
Hopefully, their research will contribute to greater awareness and progress in green engineering, and also inspire further interest in this area for budding mechanical engineers, and to show this new generation that engineering can be simultaneously immensely practical and “cool.”
Via: Craig Vetter
"In the 1960s, I raced my Bridgestone 90 on the streets of Champaign, Illinois. Things were different then. An open tuned pipe can be very loud so I (Craig Vetter) invented this early CAD (Cardboard aided design) muffler. Three cardboard boxes were inside. the exhaust blew into the inner which had a small hole to leak out of into the next box ans so on. Eack layer was plated with dozen egg crate dividers. The fimal cardboard chimney exhausted straight up.
It was very quiet and, no, it never caught on fire."
"This extraordinary bike-hack allows a takeaway driver to speed helter-skelter through the mean Japanese streets without spilling a drop of miso. The rather precarious looking appendage on the rear is a counter-weighted, hanging shelf onto which the bento boxes and bowls can be placed.
As the bike tips upon cornering, the platform stays level and keeps the food where it's supposed to be and not on the tarmac. Of course, if you drive like the typical pizza delivery boy you'll still end up with sloshing soup, but keep it steady and this swinging shelf should work fine. An elegant and simple hack."
"Motorcycle crime is on the increase, bikes and gear are vulnerable to theft or damage. Unlike a car many parts can be removed from a bike with simple tools. Bikers neet protective gear, but this gear is inconvenient to carry around once you reach your destination. Boots, helmets and leathers are expensive and need to be kept safe and dry. Bikers need somewhere to change on ariving at work, a railway or bus station or the cinema for example. Bikers need to know that when they return their possesions will be exactly as they left them.
Motosafe is a secure motorbike parking garage. A new approach to motorbike security - it prevents all types of motorbike theft by simply putting the machine beyond the reach of all types of thief, whether of the bike, parts or other gear. Designed for use in all public and private parking locations. Motosafe is built from 1.2mm thick steel and has a power operated six bolt electric door lock.
Motosafe can accomodate the largest of two wheel motorbikes and also has a shelf and coat hangers for storing helmets, leathers, boots and other gear. Powered by a 12 volt DC system, solar powered and with a backup battery in each unit. It is provided with internal lighting and a foot operated manual door release should the door accidentally close whilst the unit is occupied. There is a movement sensor to detect movement inside each unit after the door closes.
Motosafe can accept payment by coins, notes, smart cards and will accept payment by mobile phone when this technology becomes established. Motosafe is operated by a 4 digit PIN code chosen by each user and input via each machine's keypad. After each cycle of use and deletes each previous user's PIN code."
Via: daily wirelessA digital pony express is operating in Cambodia.
The system, developed by First Mile Solutions, uses a receiver box powered by the motorcycle’s battery. Five Motomen ride their routes five days a week, downloading and uploading e-mail. The driver need only roll slowly past the school to download all the village’s outgoing e-mail and deliver incoming e-mail. Using 5 Honda motorcycles equipped with FMS Mobile Access Points, it links to 15 solar-powered village schools, telemedicine clinics, and governor’s office in a remote province of Cambodia.
Newly collected information is stored for the day in a computer strapped to the back of the motorcycle. At dusk, the motorcycles converge on the provincial capital, Ban Lung, where a school is equipped with a satellite dish, allowing a bulk e-mail exchange with the outside world.
The Motoman program is sponsored by American Assistance for Cambodia and the Media Laboratory of MIT. The Media Lab gives technical advice to the Motoman program, which offers Third World schools a way to cut costs by sharing one dish and one uplink fee.
The entire network was implemented within one month by a team of three people at a cost of approximately $500 per village.
Users say the Motoman system is starting to change lives.
“It helps us with our diagnoses,” Chanmarith Ly, deputy director of the provincial hospital in Ban Lung, said of the telemedicine project that allows him to send photographs of patients, X-rays, ultrasound images and electrocardiograms to specialists in Boston at Partners Telemedicine, a program of the Partners HealthCare System.
Doctors from the staff of Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Medical School review the files and send diagnoses, all pro bono. The project was implemented for CambodiaSchools.com, which operates 225 rural schools throughout Cambodia with funding from private donors and the World Bank."
Via: Roy Bacon"Late in 1955, came the Omega engine, which was of a rotary form, ingenious and most unusual. It was difficult to see how it worked at all, but the design was intended to reduce the inertial loadings of the conventional layout.
The design was based on an annular cylinder, formed from two light-alloy castings bolted together. Within these was formed a toroidal chamber, which can be likened to an inner tube or an O-ring, being a ring with a round cross- section.
For the Omega, the working surface was hard chrome plated and within it were four double- ended pistons with rings at each end and a shape to match the toroid. Each opposing pair was joined by a cross-link, and each of these was bolted to one of two concentric shafts. These each had a short arm at the other end, with a connecting rod to join that to a 180-degree, two- throw crankshaft.
As this turned, the links caused the pistons to move some 30 degrees back and forth, so the space between the opposing crowns varied. If this was not enough, the entire cylinder also rotated at half crankshaft speed and was driven from this by helical gears. In its sides were cut inlet and exhaust ports, and the single sparking plug was screwed into the side. Lubrication was by petroil, with a separate system for the crankshaft, and cooling was by fins on the toroid and enclosure to guide the air.
The Omega was the final fling of a man whose ideas were always clever and innovative, but who sadly failed to understand the commercial needs of the business. His designs were novel, but invariably costly and seldom trouble-free, so his long involvement with the industry made news and kept everyone intrigued, rather than pro- ducing machines for riding. Without such men, the world would be the poorer."
"INDIANAPOLIS -- A new business near the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is hoping to lure in motorcycle enthusiasts in town for this weekend's MotoGP race with the promise of an automated bike wash like no other.
The creators, created Motowash and working with Indianapolis-based Harrell's Car Wash Systems, said the concept was a simple, yet challenging feat that took them two years and dozens of prototypes to perfect.
"How to hold it upright obviously was a challenge. That was what all of our guys spent the most time on, how to hold the bike upright, securely. Then we started working in to a clean bike," said company vice president Chad Tearman.
Instead of taking one or two hours to wash a motorcycle by hand, the state-of-the-art system can wash and dry a bike in just five minutes, Tearman said.
That's good news for Speedway Police officer Rod Ferguson, who said he likes having the convenience of an automated bike wash where he patrols.
"They have a system where both tires rotate. They can clean all of the spokes in the wheels, and in just minutes, instead of having to take a lot of time to go down through with a sponge than having and all that," he said.
Tearman and his team are awaiting a patent on the system. After that, they hope to take their idea nationwide."
Aug. 14, 2008 -- We may be driving on air in the next few years. That is, we may be driving vehicles powered by compressed air, instead of gasoline or diesel fuel.
Researchers Yu-Ta Shen and Yean-Ren Hwang of the National Central University in Taiwan have developed an air-powered motorcycle, which uses the energy in compressed air, rather than gas, to drive the motor.
"In Taiwan, air pollution is a very serious problem in the city," Hwang said. Twenty percent of all air pollution comes from motorcycles, he added, especially carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbons. These emissions are worse from motorcycles and scooters than cars.
Since the only thing coming out of the new motorcycle's tailpipe is air, large-scale adoption of the new technology could take a big bite out of air pollution in Taiwan, where motorcycles are the most popular form of transportation, or in other places where motorcycles represent a large proportion of traffic.
The motorcycle would still require energy to compress the air needed to power the engine. The amount of pollution associated with that energy will depend on what kind of a power plant provides electricity to the area in question.
The current prototype can hold a little more than two and a half gallons of compressed air, which would carry the bike and driver about three-quarters of a mile.
In the future, the tank size will be increased three to four times, and the maximum pressure the tank can hold will be increased so that the motorcycle could go almost 20 miles without a refill, Hwang said, "which would be adequate for usage in the city. We would need an air compressor to refuel, most likely at a fueling station."
They published their work in the journal Applied Energy.
Other air-powered vehicle experts are not convinced that a motorcycle is the best use of the technology.
"We don't think it's a viable product because you're talking about a very, very limited amount of compressed air you can put on a bike," said Shiva Vencat, Executive Vice President of MDI, Inc. in Newport, N.Y., and CEO of Zero Pollution Motors, who has licensed MDI's air vehicle technology.
"We have a vehicle that will address that market, but it's not a motorcycle," Vencat added. He can't release more information about that yet, but it will be a smaller vehicle that would fill a similar niche in countries like Taiwan where motorcycles are prevalent.
Zero Pollution Motors plans to bring a six-seater air-powered car to the U.S. market after competing in the Automotive X Prize race in September 2009. The X Prize offers $10 million prize to a marketable vehicle that exceeds a fuel economy of 100 miles per gallon.
The ZPM car runs on compressed air only when traveling under 35 miles per hour. At higher speeds, the car burns fuel to warm up the air, expanding it and allowing the vehicle to travel on less air per mile. Some of the expanded air also goes back to the air tank, recharging the compressed air supply.
This system can operate at more than 100 miles per gallon, Vencat said. With an eight- or 10-gallon fuel tank, the cars should have a range of 800-1,000 miles.
The motor can also be plugged in and operated as a compressor to refill the air tank.
Vencat expects that fueling stations will arise as the car gains popularity.
"The good thing is you could put a compressed air station on campuses, in malls," he said. "You don't have the security situation that you do with gasoline."
ZPM plans to start a plant to manufacture the cars by late 2010 or early 2011.
Via newscientist"Just imagine galloping through the town atop this ridable robot called R7. It was developed by Korean company Robo3, which makes several other robotic contraptions including a robot bar-tender and a dinosaur. The R7 will set you back a cool $5,250. But that seems very reasonable considering the respect you'll get while trotting down the road."External link Robo3
