As Promised - The Real Life Iron Man

I know, that picture that I posted from the last blog about the real life iron man seems like it might be a little bit of a stretch, but I've come back refreshed this week to tell you otherwise, because it's actually the real deal!


There she is...isn't she a beauty? Steve Jacobsen along with a team of engineers at Sarcos Robotics (Recently bought out by the major defense company, Raytheon) is the mastermind and creator behind this revoluationary project,. First introduced in mid-2008, the Iron Man suit has been a modern marvel that is still under advanced testing and improvement. The XOS is unarguable the most advanced exoskeleton ever created. Creating a human controlled 'robot' of this stature has been a dream of the military's for the past 40 years, and under the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), Jacobsen along with the rest of his team was granted millions of dollars to make this dream into reality.
A large portion of the inspiration for such a project comes directly from the creators of IronMan, directly out of the comic books. Jacobsen and his team often look to the old comics as inspiration for their madness, and comic fanatics and writers are all saying the same thing, "This is a real life Iron-Man."
XOS (Iron-Man Exoskeleton) is built around some of the most advanced technology of our time. However, the people behind the Darpa Operation had a wish list that was rather large. They wanted suits that would allow soldiers to run and hike for miles without ever experiencing fatigue, using weapons that would normally take more than one person to wield, and allow your average soldier to carry hundreds of pounds of wieght effortlessly for hours.
One of the biggest challenges with creating such as suit was the ability for the suit to respond to forces applied within it and read these forces thousands of times per second. Furthermore, finding microprocessors that had the ability to turn these forces into movement instantly. There could not be any lag in the system or else the operator of the suit would feel as though he/she were moving through water.

Check out how these things work:

"How to Lift 200 Pounds Like It Was 2: The XOS works similar to a human appendage. When we perform a bicep curl, the muscle fibers in our upper arm contract, pulling on tendons that lift our forearm. In the XOS, a sensor in the handle detects a force as the operator moves his arm. The sensor’s data goes to the computer, which calculates how to move the exoskeleton to minimize the strain on the user’s hand. These instructions go to a series of valves that control the flow of high-pressure hydraulic fluid to cylinder actuators in the joints. The fluid moves the cylinders, which move the cables attached to them, acting as tendons and pulling on the robotic limbs. The XOS has 30 actuators, each controlling a different joint." -Kevin Hand http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-04/building-real-iron-man?page=2

Alright, so this design won't exactly let you jump across the rooftops of a house or run at lightning speeds, but still, this design has shown some serious signs of improvement. This thing could actually work in the near future, as Darpa has agreed to grant Raytheon and Jacobsen another $10 million dollar grant over the next two years. What will we see next??

Cheers,

Pat

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-04/building-real-iron-man?page=3

It's all fun and games in the military these days: The Militarized Skateboard

Hey Friends,

I always thought that the Segway was somewhat of an odd and unconventional innovation. Who would ever want to ride around on a two-wheeled power vehicle, or maybe the better question is, who could ever afford something like that? According to sources, Segways can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $8,000. Personally, I think I'd just like to have a bike instead of something so expensive and, to be frank, somewhat weird. I have to admit, however, that after personally driving one around a friends house they are a lot of fun and really simple to use. You don't even need to have good balance to ride one of these things.

So I thought that the Segway seemed like a pretty ridiculous invention, but the military doesn't! They've invested in Segway on steroids. This "Segway" is a militarized skateboard that can travel up to 30 mph and travel up 40 degree slopes! The military claims that such a device is perfect for rescue/recovery and reconassaince missions. Check it out!

As you can see, this thing looks like a small tank. They call it the "DTV Shredder."This invention was created by Ben Gulak, a sophomore at MIT. The Shredder works on a 4-stroke Honda go-kart engine that packs a punch of about 15 horsepower. In total, the vehicle weighs about 85 pounds and has a turning radius of only 4 feet.

According to sournces, the DTV Shredder is able to tow a car with ease. Imagine what it could do in a rescue/recovery mission if it had to pick up a person?

It seems as though this "Segway Tank" is not completely ready for action however. People from some blogs seem to be bashing the design because they haven't seen credible test numbers. Bloggers also complain that all of the pictures of the Shredder in action are just photo-shopped pictures.

I have always found military advancements to be really interesting. Going back to my previous blog, a while ago I was looking through Popular Mechanics and read about an "IronMan-like" suite that allows soldiers to jump higher, run faster, and be much, much stronger.

More to come on this innovation next time!

Cheers,

Pat

Sources:

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/05/ap_roboticsuit_051508/

http://www.thedesignblog.org/entry/dtv-shredder-tracked-skateboard-runs-on-4-stroke-honda-go-kart-engine/

www.geeky-gadgets.com/dtv-shredder-is-a-segway-tank-12-09-2010/

You Know that Stuff in the Side of Your Fishtanks? Thats Fuel Now.

Hey Everyone,

So I came across an article today that I thought was pretty interesting. Being an Energy, Business and Finance Major, we are always looking at new forms of alternative energy sources and analyzing ways that we can optimize the output of the current reserves of non-renewable resources that we have.

Every since I was a little guy I would always read my father's Popular Mechanics magazines. He's an electrical engineer and a technology man, so he loves the kind of stuff they write about. Although I am away from home I still inherently stumble onto the Popular Mechanics website every now and then to check out some of the cool stuff that people are coming up with. This week, something that was particularly interesting to me is that companies are now making fuel out of algae!! Check this out:

Yep, that right there is a farm FILLED with plots of algae! Algae is becoming one of the leading components of the biofuels industry. Although algae as fuel is still a little too expensive these days as fuels (around $8 per gallon) according to the Department of Energy, algae is easy to grow and there's tons of it!

The top 5 companies that are practicing this type of energy production are:

Algenol Fuels:

• Algenol Fuels is committed to putting 850 million dollars into building a farm that will sell ethanol fuel for only three dollars!
• The company wants to harvest the algae directly from the source and they say that they can make 6000 gallons per acre per year. 
• They say they will be able to produce 1 billion gallons a year at a production cost of only $0.85!!!!

Solix Biofuels:

• They said that they could product 3000 gallons per acre
• This company uses photo-bioreactors as they grow micro-algae in temperature and light controlled containers
• They want to use acoustic focusing technology in which they will blast soundwaves to concentrate the algae into a dense mixture and then squeeze it to extract the fuel. 

Sapphire Energy:

• Has a 300 acre plant that focuses on 'green crude'

The other two companies are Solazyme and Seambiotic

One other company known as SunEco is using a similar process. They have a 1,200 acre field of algae. However, to further the chain, this company is taking advantage of the fact that the crude production process that algae goes through absorbs carbon dioxide from the air. The carbon rich algae produces LFS which is a livestock feed supplement. SunEco then takes this and sells it to cattle farmers.

Anyway, it's great that people are trying to find new ways to produce energy for our world. It seems that every day we are becoming more and more green, or, at least starting to keep the growth about equal to that of non-renewable energy consumption.

Its the products like these that change the world for the better.

Cheers,

Pat

Sources:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/biofuel/4333722

www.sunecoenergy.com.

The First Week of Class

Hey Everyone,

Wow, the first week of class has already lead me to wonder what I'm getting myself into with this class. I remember reading on the bottom of the syllabus that it said, "If you think life is fair, you should drop this class." Although I understand that life is not particularly fair, seeing that on a syllabus really catches you by surprise. I remember taking ENGR 310 as a delved into the Engineering Entrepreneurship Minor and although it was interesting and usually pretty engaging, this class really seems like it is going to be in an entirely different ballpark.

Regardless, I'm really excited because I think these are the types of classes that really force someone to better themselves mentally, think on their toes, and learn something important without ever touching a textbook, let alone an exam of any kind.

Who ever thought that in a 400 level class we would be spending our times stirring up farfetched recipes in our kitchens and sending our tastebuds into a world of confusion as we nibbled on things like peanut butter wings and cheeseburgers using doughnuts as the bun? The whole idea of it all really grosses me out, but after taking part in the pot luck dinner exercise I learned a lot more than I thought I ever would. I picked up completely unorthodox foods made by complete strangers and tried them. Some of these 'meals' I actually really enjoyed and others I completely regret putting to my nose let alone my palate. However, in the midst of the taste bud frenzy I learned every single person in the classrooms name and a little something about them. I learned that people are willing to try things they never thought they would. The whole class seemed like a small adventure.

As corny as it sounds, it seems like I am learning more about becoming an individual every day in this class. When we have lectures, we aren't forcing random information into our brains, instead, we're talking about groundbreaking inventions. We're discovering how to harness a market and take chances. We're learning how to make something out of nothing using a little ingenuity and a well-thought value proposition.

I spend a lot of my time thinking about how I want to start my own business or how I want to be my own boss. I spent the entire summer this summer learning about nascent entrepreneurs, intention to venture, characteristics of the entrepreneur and traits of a person that make them a good entrepreneur. I learned about the impacts that entrepreneurs have on society and how they can jumpstart an existing business. At the end of this summer I would have thought that I could tell you just about anything if it included the word 'entrepreneur'. Funny thing is, now that I'm in this class I feel like I have just hit the tip of the iceberg.

Cheers,

Pat