Get ready for your daily dose of destruction. The guys from the Hydraulic Press Channel loves crushing stuff so much that they traveled to Lillbacka Powerco in Finland to crush stuff with a powerful 360° Finn-Power hydraulic crimping machine. And we get to watch.
This machine is truly impressive as it effortlessly crushes objects like a hockey puck, a roll of paper, and a pool ball. The pool ball is kind of amazing to watch as it shatters.
The roll of paper of course does not explode, but is instead compacted into a cool looking paper gear shape. The hockey puck does not explode either, but just kind of gets mangled. Fun stuff. I can’t wait to see what else they destroyed during their visit.
[via Laughing Squid]
Have you ever ridden a skateboard made from toilet paper? It’s the sh*t! Lauri and Anni Vuohensilta, the fine folks behind the Hydraulic Press Channel have published a video on one of their other YouTube channels showing their hydraulic press smashing rolls of toilet paper into a hard, long board. That is then transformed into a semi-usable skateboard.
It really works too, Lauri takes it for a ride, showing off how sturdy it is. He almost falls off of it though, giving a whole new meaning to the word “wipeout. It takes a lot more work than you might think to create the skate deck, and the video is long, but fascinating.
Usually these guys destroy stuff with a hydraulic press, so it’s nice to see them create something for once. Everyone at the Charmin factory take note.
[via SlashGear]
One of the dream – or nightmare – scenarios involving robots are ones that would automatically replicate or create other bots. One of the biggest hurdles for such a system is putting a robots’ parts together. But researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) figured out a way to create fully functioning robot bodies or parts with no assembly required.
Instead of making robots with separate moving parts that need to be put together, the researchers focused on making hydraulic robots. To do this, they had to come up with a way of printing both solid and liquid materials in one go. They went with an inkjet 3D printer, which allowed them to use up to eight different materials at the same time. They also had to figure out the proper orientations and print resolutions to make sure that the liquid materials won’t interfere with the solid parts while they’re being printed. The result is a highly customizable system of printing robots – such as the one in the image above – that need only a motor and a power supply to function. The method also allows for printing parts such as a soft gripper or a gear pump encased in a housing.
We already know that it’s possible to integrate electronic parts within a 3D printed object. Imagine if we can figure out how to print batteries or some form of power supply along with the robot’s body. That’s some weird science right there.
You can get all sorts of cruel alarm clocks to help you wake up. But programmer Jamie Dixon had a better idea – if you want a sure fire way to get out of your bed, then remove the option of staying in bed entirely. To help his son wake up, Jamie added a remote controlled screw drive to the kid’s bed. Now they can make it tilt the mattress gently until the little sleepyhead slithers off of it.
Jamie’s mod is based on a used hospital bed that he found on Craigslist. The bed had a hydraulic actuator that tilted its mattress vertically or back down at the push of a switch. Jamie and his kids made a new switch for the actuator and connected a servo to it. They then attached the servo and a router to a Netduino. Jamie wrote instructions for the Netduino to receive commands over the local network and control the servo, and finally attached the assembly to his son’s bed. Instead of making the screw drive tilt his the mattress straight up, Jamie opted for a safer approach and had it slowly tilt to one side.
Check out the Microsoft MVP Award Blog or Jamie’s personal blog to find out how you can emulate his mod. If you’re going to do this to your bed, I suggest you add a tub of water where you’ll land. Otherwise you’ll only continue to sleep on the floor.
[via Channel 9]
How’d you like it if you could fold up your entire house and store it in a shipping container? Well, that’s basically what artist/architect Adam Kalkin recently did with the creation of his Push Button House. It’s like a Transformer, but in shipping container form.
The 8-foot-wide, 20-foot-long house has 5 rooms inside of it, and starts out looking like an ordinary shipping container. But with the push of a button, the house comes to life, with a complete kitchen, dining room, bedroom, living room and library hiding inside.
A series of complicated hydraulics and carefully placed objects ensure the house and its contents fold up perfectly into itself.
The interior is all done up in a shiny white lacquer finish for show, but I suppose it could be built out with any design. This is actually the second Push Button House designed by Kalkin, and is much more complex and advanced than the original.
The home was recently shown in an exhibition for Italian coffee company illy caffè. Here’s a video from SPACEStv showing off the build process and engineering behind the Push Button House. If you just want to jump to the transforming house part, skip to about 10:40 in the video. (Note that there is some NSFW language in the video clip.)
Gotta love the part at the end where Kalkin admits he doesn’t even know what a Transformer is, despite the fact that he just built one.
Sure, the concept is pretty impractical and anything that’s not glued or bolted down would immediately fall all over the place when its folded up, but it’s still an impressive design.
How’d you like it if you could fold up your entire house and store it in a shipping container? Well, that’s basically what artist/architect Adam Kalkin recently did with the creation of his Push Button House. It’s like a Transformer, but in shipping container form.
The 8-foot-wide, 20-foot-long house has 5 rooms inside of it, and starts out looking like an ordinary shipping container. But with the push of a button, the house comes to life, with a complete kitchen, dining room, bedroom, living room and library hiding inside.
A series of complicated hydraulics and carefully placed objects ensure the house and its contents fold up perfectly into itself.
The interior is all done up in a shiny white lacquer finish for show, but I suppose it could be built out with any design. This is actually the second Push Button House designed by Kalkin, and is much more complex and advanced than the original.
The home was recently shown in an exhibition for Italian coffee company illy caffè. Here’s a video from SPACEStv showing off the build process and engineering behind the Push Button House. If you just want to jump to the transforming house part, skip to about 10:40 in the video. (Note that there is some NSFW language in the video clip.)
Gotta love the part at the end where Kalkin admits he doesn’t even know what a Transformer is, despite the fact that he just built one.
Sure, the concept is pretty impractical and anything that’s not glued or bolted down would immediately fall all over the place when its folded up, but it’s still an impressive design.
If you need a new piece of steampunk weaponry, check this out. It’s an awesome streampunk Nerf crossbow made by Gabe Genway. The next time you organize a victorian big game hunt take note. If you make one half as good as Gabe, you will be the steampunk king.
Sadly, it has already been bought from Gabe’s Etsy store, but he has some other fine assorted steampunk pistols and grenades for gentlemen to lob at each other. Just like on this crossbow, the details are really nice on all of his pieces.
I know one thing for sure, if he ever offers up another crossbow like this one, it will be gone very quickly.
[via IHeartChaos via Obvious Winner]
I’ve seen plenty of LEGO cars and trucks over the years. I always appreciate attention to detail when it comes to building a vehicle out of LEGO blocks. A guy named Alex Jones (aka OrionPax) has created an awesome LEGO low rider that looks like it’s straight out of a Cheech and Chong movie. The car is called “The Hob” and has tons of features that you can’t see in the photograph.
The car has fully functional (simulated) hydraulics, working lights, RC hardware, chrome, and has an integrated MP3 player with a speaker. That means you can play Low Rider by War as you cruise The Hob around your living room on three wheels.
You have to check out the video of The Hob to see what it can do for yourself. I wonder how the builder designed the motion system to make the car move around. It appears to be constructed completely out of LEGO down to the frame rails.
Check out more images of The Hob over on OrionPax’s website.
[via Brothers-Brick]
Around these parts, we're generally suckers for all things related to racing simulators. As such, we're excited to learn that Fanatec has unveiled its next generation of the Clubsport pedals that we reviewed over a year ago. Dubbed as the Clubsport pedals V2, the company refers to the peripheral as an "evolutionary" update to original, offering a trio of improvements. The clutch has been retooled to have a "regressive feel" that's said to be similar to a real automobile, while the brake is now of the hydraulic variety, featuring user replaceable synthetic oil -- naturally, it still has an adjustable spring and load cell pressure sensor for the utmost customizability. The final touch is merely some visual spice in the way of black anodization. Notably, there won't be any tuning kit available initially, and V1 owners might be disappointed to know that the company has opted not to offer an upgrade kit, citing costs and potentially complicated installation. Fanatec is aiming to have the Clubsport pedals V2 out by June, bundled alongside its Clubsport wheel, with pricing set at $250 for the US (€250 in the UK). Pre-orders won't begin until May, so in the meantime, shift over to the source link below and the video past the break for all the details.
Fanatec's Clubsport pedals V2 bring improved brake and clutch feel to the virtual speedway (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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