Digital claw machines let you grab virtual prizes with a few clicks, yet real garages still demand ladders, stretching, and sore backs every time something sits on a high shelf. Alex of Hobby Built decided to change that equation in his basement workshop. He designed and built a three-axis gantry robot that retrieves and returns any one of 24 heavy storage totes with nothing more than a tap on a screen.
Aaed Musa has spent years poring over his work on robot dogs, experimenting with one project after another. For his senior design project in mechanical engineering, he assembled a small team to build CARA 2.0, a machine that travels far more smoothly and reliably than anything he has previously created. The team set some rather tough goals: keep the entire cost around $1,000, keep the weight under twenty pounds, and ensure that every single component was engineered to withstand repeated use without breaking apart.
Sony engineers dropped jaws at a TV conference in Algeria in April 1981. They brought out a completely functional setup complete with a camera, monitor, and tape recorder capable of capturing images sharper and more detailed than anyone had ever seen outside of a laboratory. NHK, Japan’s main public broadcaster, had spent years working on a new standard called Hi-Vision, which effectively gave a lot more lines of resolution than ordinary TV ever could. As a result of their close collaboration, development work moved forward at full speed. Sony introduced a full line of commercial gear under the HDVS branding in April 1984, with the HDC-100 camera and HDV-1000 recorder at the center.
Armored vehicles now roll out with thick layers of explosive reactive armor that detonate on contact and blunt older anti-tank munitions. Saab created the HEAT 758 to cut straight through that problem. The round slides into the familiar 84-millimeter Carl-Gustaf recoilless rifle and carries two shaped charges arranged in sequence. The lead charge strikes first and clears a path by disrupting the reactive plates. Moments later the main charge jets forward and bores into the vehicle’s base armor.
AeroKoi set out to answer a simple question. Could a desktop 3D printer produce train whistles that captured the exact chords once carried across fields and towns by steam engines? After months of steady work the answer arrived loud and clear through shop air at 120 pounds per square inch.
Project Hail Mary introduced fans to an unforgettable alien named Rocky. Many who finished the book wanted more time with the character and his quirky way of speaking. One maker decided to satisfy that craving by constructing a physical robot that captures the essence of Rocky in every joint and word.
Brembo just launched the first fluid-free braking system to reach actual production cars. Called Sensify, the setup replaces every drop of hydraulic fluid and every traditional brake line with electric signals and motors at each wheel. Drivers still press a pedal, but the connection now runs through wires and software instead of pressurized liquid.
Back in 2015, Marcelo de Oliveira Souza was at his desk in Brazil, staring at a computer screen with some rather long numbers regarding near-Earth asteroids flashing by. He was making preliminary predictions of the courses these space objects would take, to help people determine whether they would pose a threat to our world. One in particular drew his attention, 2001 CA21, because the first calculations showed an orbit that virtually sliced straight through between Earth and Mars in a way nobody had picked up on before.
Cars race down a nearly vacant stretch of highway. Two drivers grasp their phones tightly as a FaceTime video call continues between them. The speedometer reads 70 mph, but there are no cell bars in sight, nor do any familiar Wi-Fi networks appear. HaLow technology within each vehicle communicates with a handful of little boxes mounted on the dashboards. These units form a private wireless web that connects the vehicles, with each box essentially chatting to the one next to it, effortlessly passing data so the link never fails.
Researchers have found a way to mix bacteria into plastic so the material works normally but then disappears entirely when triggered, nicknamed ‘living plastics’. Engineers from the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology started with polycaprolactone, a polymer already used in 3D printing and medical sutures. They added dormant spores from two specially modified strains of Bacillus subtilis, a common soil bacterium.