Let us Segue the Conversation to the Segway

It has been far too many moons since this nerd has properly updated "My Cognitive Surplus" and so I am now spending a few minutes writing up an idea I've had for awhile relating to additional uses for Segway scooters.

Garbage Pick-Up:  Taking the trash out is such a hassle, why should I have to remember when to take out the trash?  (Yes I know this is more a solving of first world problems)
The body of the segway scooter serves as a fantastic platform for a semi-autonomous delivery platform, by replacing the standing area of the scooter with container storage and a sensing node, the scooter should be able to transport roughly 100 lbs of materials from point A to point B with little oversight.  Instead of physically lugging your garbage-can to the street corner the night before/the morning of garbage pick up, your smart garbage-can could wander its way to a central pick up storage location.  The advantage of this approach is one of fuel use, whenever a vehicle has to stop and start it wastes a tremendous amount of energy, larger garbage trucks have a lot of mass that needs to be accelerated the less frequently they have to stop the less energy the need to operate.  The smaller smart garbage-cans waste less energy per stop and have the advantage of being fully electric, meaning they can use a home's energy supply, the central storage location could even use a solar canopy to charge the smart cans.

Developments of the future could design homes and businesses with a standardized garbage pick up modules, allowing said locations to share a minimal number of smart carriers.

Another use of this technology would be home delivery assistance, as the smart carrier technology became more accepted businesses could start to utilize the standard container dimensions, instead of Amazon using drone air-craft for deliveries, they could use the smart-segways.  There would certainly be trade-offs with respect to getting from point A to point B, you would be limited to two dimensions of motion.  The benefit of using a ground based semi-autonomous transport system come from safety and mass of cargo, a drone would need to be limited to a relatively small amount of mass, but a ground carrier would be able to carry far more mass for a given amount of energy.  If firms are willing to deliver at night, swarms of these small delivery systems could offset a large volume urban deliveries.

Capturing Martian Dust Storms for ... uuhhh Science Stuff

Imagine going on vacation and having to bring every single item with you, food, clothing, electricity.... (you get the point), now imagine going on a trip where you need to bring the very air you breathe with you, oh and it costs at minimum $10,000/kilogram to get that material there.  This is the challenge that faces the world's space agencies when they consider humans exploring Mars.  The most popular solution for reducing the weight of what needs to be shipped is to try manufacturing supplies from resources found on the alien world, this process is referred to as In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU).  The why of ISRU is pretty understandable, make what you need from what you find around you and make your mission more affordable, the how is a little more difficult to determine, researchers and mission planners must consider a range of potential challenges when providing recommendations for research efforts.  Currently NASA is researching the potential of collecting Mars' thin atmosphere and converting the carbon-dioxide and extracting breathable oxygen.  This approach requires filtering out atmospheric dust particulates, primarily to avoid jamming the atmospheric collector, instead of focusing on extracting gaseous materials, this author wonders how viable it would be to simple collect the dust and soil that are whipped around Mars as a result of the planet's high speed winds.  (As I am unfamiliar with the actual energy demands of extracting the useful elements of Martian dust I am going off of a mechanics question, it could be very likely that the dust question was discounted as a result of the net energy demands of resource extraction vs the energy cost of material capture)
The rational behind designing an extraction system that utilizes air born dust as opposed to more active extraction systems, i.e. digging robots, is to minimize the number of moving parts and as a result the potential points of system failure.  A properly designed dust scoop could stand stationary for years or decades slowly accumulating dust and soil picked up by Martian dust storms.  The overall design of the dust collector array would need to meet a range of system requirements, including, but not limited to, surviving dust storms where wind speeds could reach 100 kph or more (the highest wind speeds recorded on Mars were measured by the Viking Landers at 100 kph, but there is no guarantee that they have seen the highest wind speeds Mars can produce), the body of the collection system must be able to withstand the weathering forces of Mars' extremely abrasive dust, and most critically the dust collector must be able to extract as much Martian dust and soil for every dollar it would cost to send as a more active excavating robot.  Estimating the design requirement of the first constraint is relatively easy, the remaining two, a bit harder, but let's try.
To estimate the median force that the wind would apply on the collector, which for initial calculations we are going to treat the collector as simple wall, namely because that limits the variables and we're only going for the same scale of force, read we are only worried if we are within a factor of 10 of the actual value.  
The Equation Used is the Drag EquationV is the velocity of the wind, here calculated for the known worst case scenario, 100 kph or 27.7777 m/s

ρ is the density of Martian atmosphere 0.02 kg/m^3

A is the area of the collector system.

CD is the coefficient for Drag, which we are assuming is 100%, remember we are looking at the worst case scenario.

When we remove the units we see everything balances out, which is always nice to see.

Holy crap, I have spent a few too many hours on this, I will follow up tomorrow with more, but time to get back to job hunting.

Edit I want to add some links at the bottom that will get added into the rest of this document later.

http://reseauconceptuel.umontreal.ca/rid=1225319082132_1402805076_76755/In%20Situ%20Resource%20Utilization.cmap probably a contender for one of the worst flow charts in history, but it does talk about dust extraction vs air extraction

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110016184.pdf  a higher level document on dust extraction utilizing electrical fields

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar_resources/documents/ISRUFinalReportRev15_19_05%20_2_.pdf over view on ISRUs

http://www.spaceclimate.net/ISRU.Chapter.vers7.pdf another ISRU overview

http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/327/1/012048/pdf/1742-6596_327_1_012048.pdf filtering out dust from atmospheric extraction systems

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20120001775.pdf powerpoint in PDF format that talks about atmospheric extraction  

Williamsburg's Latest Tablet

After months of unfounded rumors, scraped from locavore cheese tastings, sampled from triple fusion food trucks, and a journey through several underground clubs I have finally had my first opportunity to look at the "TMNT" Industries' ("Totally Mainstream New Technologies" Industries (yes the quotation marks must be included in the name)) latest tablet.  To say this piece of hardware is an inspiration for going in a bold new direction for personal computing and self exploration is a harsh understatement, the simple square design and reclaimed wood panel backing surround a machine that will allow both artists and makers to unleash their creative power.  First impressions are difficult to fully describe, "TMNT" Industries lead designer Dona T. Lo is a true perfectionist in  her craft, while she allowed me to interact with some truly inspired early drafts of the Aliquid no photographs could be taken and only the idealized render of the system would be shared with your blogger.  She feels that consumer experience will sell the final product at launch, come February 30th.

What I can say is that this device takes tablet technology in directions only alluded to in competing products.  For me the most distinguishing feature was the three camera array on the tablet.  The most humdrum being for selfies and facetime chats with friends the front facing camera serves as a 1080p webcam that is also capable of taking 10 megapixel stills.  On the back of the tablet's aesthetic is a contrast of reclaimed barn wood (at least in the prototype I held, designer Lenard O'Devince tells me that customers will eventually be able to bring almost any material in for re-purposing) and a removable black square about 2.5 inches across with a silver ring encompassing a small glass window.  For many photographers this will be the Aliquid's "killer app", this removable segment allows for a range of sensors and lenses to be added to the Tablet, using minimal tools.  The default design will come with 2/3" CCD sensor capable of sensitivities more than ISO 6400 (issues with sourcing from manufacturers is making exact details hard to finalize) and a fast acting shutter on par with the majority of DSLR cameras.  Customers will receive a free Holga lens system and a coupon that will allow them to order a lens mount for most lens supplier as the adapters become available.  Above the major sensor lies a smaller camera system, that includes a sensor similar to the front facing camera, but with more advanced audio recording and a brighter flash.  While many photographers are likely to attach their own flash assemblies as they create them, "TMNT" has also included a larger flash to the left of the cameras as a back up option.

For makers, tinkerers, hackers, and anyone else not included in this list who likes to mess with electronics "TMNT" Industries has a new technology sure to blow your mind, inductiblu.  Inductiblu is an open standard based around the existing bluetooth standard intendend to allow users to add functionality to their Aliquid tablet wherever they need it.  Embedded along the bezel of the Aliquid's body there are dozens of micro-wireless power transfer systems, capable of supplying over 5 miliwatts of power per centimeter.  These power systems could provide the energy for communicating with small data relays, sensors, if inventors want to make an attachment they can do it.  Electrical engineer Chuck Michelangelo noted that he has made several magnetically mounted cartridge readers for various classic systems including the NES and Sega Genesis.
Every detail blew me away, unfortunately my editor is making me cut this post short to get it out on time, so I will finish up with a few final details.
The Aliquid will launch with an optional attachment for playing vinyl records, it will use the system's single USB port for power.
The back paneling is removable and the interior is designed to allow for additional components and modifications to be added, as well as the option to add thicker backings to accommodate larger components
Screen Size 10 inches
Aspect Ratio 1:1
Screen Resolution 2200x2200 pixels
Cameras 3
Battery 8,000 mAh
Processor:  Quad Core from a to be announced supplier
Memory:  4 GB RAM 16,32,64,128, 256 GB SSD as well as microSD expandable for all models
Dimensions: 220mm wide 220 mm in height and 9 mm in thickness

Obviously this is a piece of fiction, hopefully you enjoyed reading this post, if you have any thoughts or comments or want more details please say something.  Thanks for your time and happy April Fools.

XKCD did a much better job committing to the crazy tablet premise 

Can Stereo Lithography Printing Work in a MicroGravity Environment

With MadeinSpace investigating the potential of manufacturing in space a question for power nerds arises, is it possible to use stereo lithography style 3-D printers to create useful tools and objects for space bound explorers?  Theoretically the answer would be yes it is possible to develop stereo-lithography printers that work in space.  This yes comes with a number of caveats, starting with the challenges of working with fluids in a micro-gravity environment, without the aid of gravity, liquids tend to bunch up and create floating globs that can cause chaos on space craft.  (see vacuum toilets).  Ensuring that liquids stay in place can be done one of three ways*, store it in a container, use the force of air to position the fluid, or finally using centripetal force to "push" the liquid to the outside of a rotating body.  Using air to control the position of the photo reactive resin would most likely lead to a range of headaches that would make developing such a technology extremely prohibitive.  The remaining two options are two manufacture the entire object in a sealed container, similar to more traditional approaches in stereo lithography manufacture, but that doesn't involve any "fun" math, so I'm going to ignore this option, initially and go for the math approach, spinning a 3-D printer around a center point to simulate the effect of gravity.

In the image above we see a cut away that helps to highlight a concern of trying to create the effect of gravitational pull using centripetal acceleration (read spinning things around a center point).  The liquid reservoir will not simply lie flat within in its container while it is being spun out, similar to the water in a bucket curving if you spin it around, the concave shape of the liquid must be controlled, if it is too extreme the printer won't behave correctly.  Calculating the shape of the liquid in the container is relatively simple, as energy is conserved the photo reactive resin will take the path of least resistance, ie. the shape of the water will roughly follow the curvature of the path of the spinning object, you can see this effect in the image above.  An engineer properly designing this printing system is limited by two things, the maximum allowable difference in the depth of the photo-curable resin and the maximum allowable radius of rotation that can occur within the volume of a space craft, for example the ISS.

The proposed Centrifuge Accommodations Module, canceled after the 2003 Columbia disaster, was intended to have a 2.5 meter diameter centrifuge to allow for experiments on organisms and materials under various intensities of simulated gravity, while this diameter might not occupy the entire volume of the module, it provides a reasonable outer bound for diameter of the centrifuged printer system.

Calculating the height difference of the photo curable resin from the diameter of rotation is now a matter of trigonometry.

The image to the right is a zoomed in perspective of the totally not to scale reference image from above.
Here we are defining R as being 1.25 meters,
X is going to be defined off of the FormLabs Form1 printer for two reasons, 1) I know the number off hand it makes my life a bit easier 2) I want to suck up to a perspective employer.  X is defined as half the value of the width of the resin reservoir, or 0.0625m
(the Form1 is 12.5 cm accross)
With these two variables we have 2 sides of a right triangle making the last variable pretty easy to calculate the change in height.
which can be
rewritten as,


Plugging in the numbers we can now calculate the difference in height of the fluid from the center to the outside.  Where we find the liquid would be 1.56 mm deeper at the edge of rotation, and as it is almost as easy to calculate a large range of cases as it is just this particular case, the below graph shows the variation in fluid height as a result of the radius of rotation.

 It is reasonable to assume that if the printer is allowed to rotate at a radius of at least 0.7 meters, where the height difference between the fluid is less than 3mm that the printer would be capable of operating in a micro-gravity setting.

Alternatively engineers could build a system that closely resembles more traditional Stero Lithogrpahy rapid prototyping where the top of the printer is covered in a material transparent to UV light.

The purple represents the UV transparent cover, the blue is the working fluid.  As the container is fully enclosed the liquid cannot go anywhere during printing seeing as it already fills the volume of its container. The challenge for this design is the removal of the relatively large volume of leftover photo-curable resin at the end of the process.


While this was a fun thought experiment there are some legitimate concerns of using stereo lithography in a micro-gravity environment.
Do the benefits of this type of printer outweigh the complexity and cost requirements.  How would cosmic rays and solar particles effect the quality of the photo-curable resin while it is in storage, considering the intense energies of these particles it is worth determining how much of the resin would become non-viable during storage over time.




inks

http://www.cns.gatech.edu/~predrag/courses/PHYS-4421-10/Lautrup/shapes.pdf  page 59 (or 2 via scrolling) provides the useful math

open source physics textbook http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/PHYS101_OpenStaxCollege_College-Physics.pdf


another reference http://cnx.org/content/m42084/latest/?collection=col11406/latest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucket_argument

Deeper Video Game Radio

While playing through the campaign of the videogame, Saints Row IV I was impressed by the music selection found on the various radio stations accessible from vehicles in the game.  The songs that were chosen by the developers are quite enjoyable and diverse, unfortunately the game is limited to a single albums worth of music per station.  One way for gaming company's to increase the available music to the game, without increasing their licensing costs, would be to integrate real world and internet radio stations into the game environment, so long as the game is connected to the internet.  For games that are attempting to have quite thematic stations, the game would integrate with digital music services like Pandora and Spotify to create radio stations that are based on the games offline playlist.  Alternatively during the install process of the game could ask users where they are in the world and would attempt to access any radio broadcasts that are shared online, and provide the option of integrating said media into the game in real time.  A third option, find or create an open radio station software package that allows for gamers to share their music selection from anywhere in the world, by making the standard open, any game could share its music experience, for larger games, ex. EVE online, various factions could produce music and media that could more readily integrate with the game directly, minimizing the potential for programs causing each other to crash.

Make Spy Movies Less Nerve Wracking

Contrary to the title of this post I think suspenseful spy movies are amazing and more should be made, this post is inspired by movies where the main character is caught with an electronic bug on their person as a result of the radio emissions produced by the system.
Traditional bugs are designed to transmit audio information, either continuously or only when sufficient sound is made for the system to determine that there is something worth sending.  As technology gets more sophisticated newer solutions should be considered.  What this article suggests is a system designed to transmit digital data as opposed to analog audio signals.  Using electronics optimized in converting speech to text the "wire" would create a continuous audio recording as well as a text based transcript of the conversation had between the informant and the suspect.  When the informant determines that they are about to be scanned they can use a predetermined phrase to cease all transmissions, later if the informant feels they need to communicate with their support crew they could use a different phrase to activate a text message asking for assistance.  Other code words could allow for the transmission of intermittent data bursts including transcripts of what has just been said.  Ideally the system would emphasize software flexibility to promote a robust platform that could be improved as the user base developed new capabilities. The critical challenge of this system is to make it small enough that it would not readily be detected by pat down and other standard forms of search.  This means that  the computer, power supply, microphone, and transmitters would need to be extremely small.  (I won't make any estimations as to how small that would need to be)

Seeing the Seas

Paddleboarding is a fun way to explore the shores of your favorite vacation spot or your home waters, unfortunately traditional stand up paddleboards block their riders ability to see underneath.  A smarter paddleboard design would integrate a viewing window into as much of the body of the board as possible as well as integrated illumination systems designed to allow for night time viewing.  The render below (to be added later) shows a conceptual design that is intended to ensure that the viewing segments minimize the possibility of scratches and scrapes that might interfere with the viewing experience.

It turns out that while writing this article I found a few existing proposals/patents for a paddleboard intended to have a transparent viewing bottom, but as far as my research has gone there is no consumer product currently available.

Links

Illuminated Paddleboard

http://www.floridasportsman.com/2013/12/19/night-ops-recon-underwater-lighting/

Patent for a Paddleboard with a viewing windo

http://www.google.com/patents/US4925417

Kickboard(s) with a viewing system
http://www.gizmag.com/snorkelboard-snorkeling-flutter-board/30885/
http://www.gizmag.com/zayak-sea-sled-underwater/29740/

Short one, more of a question on Lithography style 3-D printing

Would it be possible to make a photo-curable resin, that would behave differently depending on what frequency of light it was exposed to during the curing process?  Even more ideally could you tune more than just the color, maybe even the mechanical/chemical properties.

Stereo Lythography onto Existing Items

So I finally remembered an old idea and I'm kind of excited so I'm going to go reasonably technical.

  Current 3-D printers are designed to start from nothing and by extruding material, sintering metal, curing a photo reactive resin with light, etc....  On their own these various technologies for rapid prototyping can create a range of wonderful items, a big trade off for these existing rapid prototyping technologies is how long it takes to make an item and the cost of the materials used.*  Make Magazine recently posted about a software package that reworks item designs so that the majority of the item can be made from, relatively, cheap lego bricks, with only the most complex components actually made out of printed parts.  This is a fantastic step in decreasing the prototyping time of an item, but I feel more sophisticated and flexible solutions can be developed.

Imagine you are a tourist destination store or amusement park, your profits greatly benefit from being able to provide unique items for people to commemorate their visit.  While a standard 3-D printer would be excellent at providing the unique aspect, the necessary turn around time could drastically reduce sales, especially if the customization is rather minimal.  You need a 3-D printer that is smart enough to add material to an existing item, you also would need it to be easily handled so that any of your employees would be able to fabricate the memento without supervision.  What I would like to suggest is a printer that integrates the requisite technologies to do just that.

Figure 1
Step 1:The base item being inserted
 into the printer to be scanned

This proposed 3-D printer would need a 3-D scanner capable of accurately mapping and positioning whatever item was placed inside the printer, it would also need a grip system capable of holding whatever items were placed inside the printer and keep the object stationary enough that the object would not move during the print process.  Of the existing 3-D printing technologies I believe that stereo-lithography is most likely to be able to integrate this concept in the near term**.  Once an item is secured inside this new lithographic printer it would be scanned and mapped by the inbuilt 3-D scanner, this scanning would ensure that the computer has a very clear idea of where it would need to add material.  As each layer of material was cured the object that was being added to would be lowered further into the bath of resin, layer by thin layer the starting object would be transformed.  A formless basic action figure becomes a custom hero, showing all of the traits chosen by a family to commemorate their visit to Action Universe.

Figure 2:
Step 2-10,000: Layers of resin are cured onto the
selected item

I believe that an extrusion style 3-D printer could integrate this approach, but the system would require far more mechanical precision than a stereo lithographic printer.  For technologies like laser sintering I am more dubious that you could directly print onto an existing item and have it make sense, in theory a manufacturer could first print on a small containment wall, then deposit a layer of the material that they actually want to add, fuse the target material, add another layer to the containment wall, and repeat the process, but it feels like it would be less likely to actually save time in manufacturing.

Originally I had planned on using this post to improve my chances for applying to work at FormLabs, they have a 3-D printing system that uses stereo lithography, but I realized in writing this article that the approach I am suggesting for adding printed material to an existing object, would be more difficult to impliment considering the FormLabs printer uses a shallow resin reservoir design, Figures 4 and 5 show scenarios where it wouldn't be feasible to print directly onto an object using Form Labs style of printer and where it would be, respectively  In Figure 4, someone wants to print onto an existing object, but the desired start point for the print cannot be covered by the photo curable resin, consequently they will not be able to print directly onto the item.

Figure 4

Figure 5

In Figure 5 the user has selected an object with a flat surface that can lie flush with the resin reservoir, this would allow for printing onto the existing item.

In the majority of cases where users are simply trying to create something akin to a hood-ornament the could use 3-D scanners to create a mount that would then allow for the addition of other printed objects.  This concept makes the most sense for fully covering an existing item, like a Lego model.


*a kilogram of plastic for an extruding printer= $35/kg
Photo-curable resin = $150/L
Sintered Metal=$8/cm^3 (I couldn't find the price of pure feed stock, so I am providing the price per printed cubic cm (hey better than nothing))

**I haven't had a chance to work with stereo-lithography and so I am  making some light assumptions on the flexibility of the technology, if it turns out I am wrong please let me know.
*** the idea of priting custom toys for amusement park guests is not my own, I recall reading about it in both the book Makers, by Corey Doctorow and this article on Disney Parks unique princess toys.

Fixing Traffic Circles

According to traffic safety records replacing traditional intersections with a traffic circles will have a measurable reduction in property damage and accidents, what these statistics ignore is how frustrating it is to help people navigate a traffic circle.  In the personal experience of the author, knowing which road to exit onto at your first encounter of a neighborhood's traffic circle, effectively describing where to go may cause confusion.  For this article we will look into two potential standardized ways for labeling traffic circles to aid in communication.  The first version of this concept takes inspiration for the how runways are designated, every 10 degree point along the circle of the roundabout has a new value of 1/10th the angle, for example if one of the turn offs from the round-about exits in an easterly direction, it will be 90 degrees off of the true north orientation and be labeled exit 9.  For an exit that turns off towards the southwest, you would technically have the angle be 215 degrees, but for ease of communication it is preferable to use whole numbers, it would be up to the discretion of the city planner whether the number is rounded either down to become exit 21, or rounded up to 22 as shown in the example image below.

Runway Style Labeling of Roundabout Exits

Alternatively the traffic circle could be labeled more simply where each exit is named alphabetically, with A being designated as the first exit clockwise from geographic north.  The advantage of this labeling approach over the runway style labeling is that drivers are more immediately warned that their chosen exit is coming up.  Drivers getting off at exit C know that at exit B they need to make sure they are getting in position to turn off.  The challenge that might face this approach would stem for the need to relabel exits if a new exit is added to the roundabout, but from a practicality standpoint this is a relatively negligible concern.  

Example of the Alphabetic Labeling Approach

Both of these concepts are simply the author's suggestion for how we might improve roundabouts to aid in communications.  Suggestions for improving these concepts or alternative approaches are always welcome.