university of maryland
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Gamera II hits new high with unofficial human-powered helicopter altitude record (video)
The University of Maryland team responsible for the Gamera II human-powered helicopter NAA flight time record may be on its way to bagging another one -- this time for altitude. With new freshman pilot Henry Enerson spinning the cranks, the gigantic four-rotor design ascended to eight feet, an unexpectedly lofty level, according to the team. The well-controlled 25 second flight was far less than the record 49.9 seconds Gamera achieved earlier, but the new altitude bodes well for its upcoming Sikorsky Prize attempt. That $250,000 award, unclaimed since 1980, requires a 10-foot altitude to be maintained for one minute, and now looks to be distinctly in the UMD group's sights. Check the video after the break, and marvel at the ungainly quadrocopter's latest aerial exploit.
NAA verifies new US record for human-powered helicopter flight (video)
A team at the University of Maryland has been taking human powered flight to new heights. Or, rather, lengths, by setting a new US record for flight duration of 49.9 seconds with its Gamera II rotorcraft. The benchmark event actually took place in June, but only received the all important plaudits from the National Aeronautic Association on August 9. Gamera II builds on its predecessor (unsurprisingly, Gamera I) by featuring improved transmission, rotor design and a redesigned cockpit. Not content with smashing the previous craft's record of 11.4 seconds, the team plans to fly a further refined version of the copter with longer blades and other fine tuning later this month. The 49.9 second flight has also been submitted to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale for World, rather than American-record verification. The guys at Maryland might want to keep an eye over their shoulders though, as it looks like someone else already has their eyes on that prize. Video evidence after the break.
Scientists use bilayer graphene to develop extra-sensitive photodetector
By now it goes without saying that graphene is something of a darling in the research community, with scientists using the material to develop transistors, batteries and circuits, among other devices. In 2011, MIT researchers discovered graphene's effectiveness as a photodetector, and a team at the University of Maryland has taken that line of thought a few steps further. By using bilayer graphene (two atoms thick instead of one atom thick), the scientists developed a temperature-sensitive device more than 1,000 times faster than existing technologies. Not to mention, it's capable of recognizing a very broad range of light energies, which means it could be useful in everything from biochemical weapons detection to airport body scanners. Still, the UMD researchers have their work cut out for them: the graphene photodetector has a high electrical resistance, and it will require tweaks to absorb enough light to be useful. Still, this is graphene we're talking about -- and we don't expect its popularity to wane any time soon.
Headphone-wearing pedestrian injuries triple as audiophiles stop noticing onrushing trains
The number of pedestrians injured or killed while wearing headphones has tripled in the last six years: 16 oblivious PMP users were offed in 2004, the number rising to 47 for last year. The research, carried out by Dr Richard Lichenstein at the University of Maryland found that headphone wearers became "inattentionally blind" to dangers such as passing cars and on-rushing trains. That's not us being flip either: 55 percent of the incidents involved locomotives. The majority of victims were male (68 percent) and under the age of 30 (67 percent): which puts your average Engadget reader in the center of the danger zone -- take it from us guys: sometimes it's better to press pause, "Baby, baby" will still be there when you've crossed the railway.
Tiny 'jumping robots' have more in common with firecrackers than Johnny 5
Perhaps calling an immobile plastic bug with explosives strapped to its underside a "jumping robot" is a bit of a stretch, but who are we to argue with the Army Research Laboratory and the University of Maryland. The two groups have collaborated to create a pair of "robots" that measure just a few millimeters in size but can jump several centimeters in the air. One uses a spring like mechanism (which an operator must press down with a pair of tweezers) to propel it, while the other uses a small rocket, which can be triggered either by current applied over wires or a phototransistor (for untethered flight). It all makes for a pretty neat video, which you can find after the break - even if your sister's Furby was more robot than these tiny things.
IBM's Jeopardy-winning supercomputer headed to hospitals. Dr. Watson, we presume?
We always knew that Watson's powers extended well beyond the realm of TV trivia, and now IBM has provided a little more insight into how its supercomputer could help doctors treat and diagnose their patients. Over the past few months, researchers have been stockpiling Watson's database with information from journals and encyclopedias, in an attempt to beef up the device's medical acumen. The idea is to eventually sync this database with a hospital's electronic health records, allowing doctors to remotely consult Watson via cloud computing and speech-recognition technology. The system still has its kinks to work out, but during a recent demonstration for the AP, IBM's brainchild accurately diagnosed a fictional patient with Lyme disease using only a list of symptoms. It may be another two years, however, before we see Watson in a white coat, as IBM has yet to set a price for its digitized doc. But if it's as sharp in the lab as it was on TV, we may end up remembering Watson for a lot more than pwning Ken Jennings. Head past the break for a video from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, which, along with Columbia University, has been directly involved in IBM's program.
World's smallest battery uses a single nanowire, plant-eating virus could improve Li-ion cells tenfold
When it comes to building better batteries, building electrodes with greater surface area is key, and scientists are looking to exotic methods to attract the tiny particles they need. We've already seen graphene and carbon nanotubes soak up those electrons, but the University of Maryland has another idea -- they're using the Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) to generate usable patterns of nanorods on the surface of existing metal electrodes. By simply modifying the germ and letting it do its thing, then coating the surface with a conductive film, they're generating ten times the energy capacity of a standard lithium-ion battery while simultaneously rendering the nasty vegetarian bug inert. Meanwhile, the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT) at Sandia Labs was more curious how these tiny charges actually work without confusing the forest for the trees, so to speak, so a team of scientists set about constructing the world's smallest battery. Using a single tin dioxide nanowire as anode, a chunk of lithium cobalt dioxide as cathode, and piping some liquid electrolyte in between, they took a microscopic video of the charging process. See it in all its grey, goopy glory right after the break.
Two universities adopt Wii Fit to monitor football concussions
As it turns out, there are quite a few uses for a $100 off-the-shelf computerized scale, above and beyond getting fit -- Nintendo's Wii Balance Board is now providing a mechanism by which college football teams at Ohio State University and the University of Maryland can cheaply determine whether players are suffering from concussions. Taking the place of force plate machines that can cost tens of thousands of dollars, the white plastic boards measure students' balance (using yoga poses) and coordination (in Table Tilt) before a game, to provide a frame of reference against which trainers can measure whether athletes are fit to keep playing. Though some scholars found Wii Fit didn't stack up favorably against the expensive force plates, the universities trialing the system called it "pretty decent," so the question is whether Nintendo's peripheral offers a reasonable enough benchmark for the price. We suppose the American Heart Association liked it well enough.
EATR's engine officially complete, and this robot's one step closer to reality
If you're anything like us, you've probably been keeping pretty close tabs on EATR, the biomass-to-power robot that's been making people nervous for some time now. Well, EATR's engine -- which is being built by Cyclone Power Technologies -- is complete, and the drone is now one giant leap closer to living in actual reality with us. The completed steam engine, called WHE, is a six-cylinder external heat engine which can generate up to 18 horsepower of mechanical power. As previously clarified by EATR's makers (a project that's getting help from the University of Maryland and DARPA), the robot will not feed on things like animals... or humans. No, this is no zombified drone -- EATR will harvest only plant matter for energy -- which, if you ask us, makes the whole thing much more mundane. Regardless, we'll be keeping our eyes on this project as it moves forward. The full press release is after the break.
NC State gurus develop new material to boost data storage, conserve energy
We've all assumed that anything's possible when dabbling in the elusive realm of spintronics, and it seems as if a team at NC State University is out to prove just that. While using their newfound free time on Saturdays (you know, given that the football team has quit mid-season), Dr. Jagdish Narayan and company have utilized the process of selective doping in order to construct a new type of metallic ceramic that could be used to create a "fingernail-size computer chip to store the equivalent of 20 high-definition DVDs or 250 million pages of text." The material could also be used (in theory, anyway) to create a new generation of ceramic engines that could withstand twice the heat of normal engines and hit MPG ratings of 80. Granted, this all sounds like wishful thinking at the moment, but we wouldn't put it past the whiz kids in Raleigh to bring this stuff to market. Too bad the athletic director doesn't posses the same type of initiative. [Thanks, Joel]
US physicists build teensy 2D cloaking device
Drop what you're doing, friend. Cloaking devices are real now, meaning all we need are force fields and some spandex jumpsuits and we'll be bonafide dwellers of the future. The good news comes to us from physicists at the University of Maryland, lead by Igor Smolyaninov, who successfully cloaked a 10 micron gold ring by bending two dimensions of visible light. This follows up successful research last year that had worked out an invisibility cloak in the electromagnetic spectrum, but is still a far cry from a true 3D cloaking device, since such an object would have to bend light waves both magnetically and electronically simultaneously -- this 2D model is just pushing around "surface plasmons" created out of the light waves. While the tech probably won't make the jump to 3D cloaking, it might be used in computer chips or as a replacement for fiber optics some time down the road, which we suppose is alright.
