IowaState
Latest
ICYMI: Pegleg cat, X-ray laser sight and recharging tabletop
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-260428{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-260428, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-260428{width:570px;display:block;}try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-260428").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: A cat born without part of its hindlegs got an upgrade with 3D-printed prosthetics implanted in its bones. A camera that basically gives X-ray vision has been invented, peering around corners with lasers, then recreating images of objects that are out-of-view. And design students in Copenhagen dreamt up a charging pad for phones that is powered by the heat given off by a cup of coffee.
Iowa State robot available for ribbon cuttings, birthday parties, uprisings
Robots can travel in time, ride (stationary) motorcycles, and teach your children to disrespect you -- but rarely do they have any sense of ceremony. That's not the case with Iowa State University's still-nameless creation, who recently served as MC to open the school's new Electrical and Computer Engineering building. Said robot is comprised of two Barrett Whole Arm Manipulators stuck on either side of a torso, with a dual-Quickcam-equipped head that can be made to emote thanks to some simple eyebrows and lips. When not cutting ceremonial ribbons he can be found in the lab, twisting and dropping objects to learn about them, as shown in the video after the break. Next step: twisting and dropping lab technicians.[Via Plastic Pals]
Researchers create solar tie that charges, carries cellphone
There's certainly no shortage of folks working to incorporate solar cells into clothing and accessories, but a team of researchers from Iowa State University now look to have devised a way to make the wearable technology slightly more discreet, with them using digital textile printing to print fabric that matches the pattern of the solar cells. The solar cells themselves are then attached using a "liquid stitch" method, although that apparently presented its own set of problems, as the application of the cells made it difficult to tie a knot. As the researchers helpfully point out in thier paper, however, a clip-on tie would solve that problem. Combine that with the special pouch for carrying your cellphone, and you've got a combo that can't be beat.[Via textually.org]
Iowa State's C6 VR room upgrading to 100 million pixels
Iowa State University has just announced a $4 million overhaul of its so-called "C6" virtual reality room that will enable a total of 100,000,000 pixels to be displayed on all six 10-foot by 10-foot surfaces in the room, and supposedly make it the most realistic environment of its kind in the world. In use since June of 2000, C6 has served a role in projects for fields as diverse as urban planning, cell biology, and mechanical engineering, and is currently being funded by military grant money to develop a VR room which would enable a single operator to remotely view and control a squadron of unmanned planes. To give the refurbished room an impressive sixteen times the resolution of its current iteration, researchers at the school's Virtual Reality Applications Center are hooking 24 Sony digital projectors up to an HP server stuffed with 96 graphics processors, as well as adding eight channel surround sound and motion tracking software. Iowa State students looking to break into the room at night for some absolutely sick FPS action can do so this fall.[Via ZDNet]
