Empower With MathPower
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
Rubic Cube Solved In 5.3 Seconds
A robotic machine, controlled by an Android smartphone, claims it can solve a Rubik's cube faster than any human. Check out the video above for a proof of concept. It's pretty amazing to see.
More on how the contraption works from a post on YouTube:
The app uses the phone's camera to capture images of each face of the Rubik's Cube which it processes to determine the scrambled colours. The solution is found using an advanced two-phase algorithm, originally developed for Speedcuber, enhanced to be multi-threaded to make effective use of the smartphone's dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 1.2GHz processor. The software finds an efficient solution to the puzzle which is optimised specifically for the capabilities of the four-grip mechanism. The app communicates via Bluetooth with software running on the ARM microprocessors in the LEGO NXT Intelligent Bricks which controls the motors driving the robot. During the physical solve, the app uses OpenGL ES on the phone's ARM Mali-400 MP GPU to display a graphical version of the cube being solved in real time.
For comparison, here's a video of a super-fast human, who solves the puzzle in 5.66 seconds, compared to the "Cubestormer II's" 5.35 seconds:
Monday, November 14, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Electric Vehicles
Electric Vehicles
The EV Project is the largest deployment of electric vehicles and charge infrastructure in history.
In 2009, the Department of Energy granted over $99 million dollars to Ecotality to embark on the EV Project. Sullivan Solar Power's Electric Vehicle Team is working with Ecotality and Chevy through SPX to deploy electric vehicle charging stations at homes, business and municipalities in San Diego, Los Angeles and Orange County.In June 2010, the Project was granted an additional $15 million by the U.S. Department of Energy. With partner contributions, the total value of the Project is over $200 million.
Sullivan Solar Power's Electric Vehicle Team will deploy chargers across Southern California. Chevrolet and Nissan North America are partners in The EV Project. Both Chevrolet Volt and Nissan LEAF drivers who qualify to participate in The EV Project will receive a residential charger at no cost. In addition, most, if not all of the installation cost, will be paid for by The EV Project.The EV Project will collect and analyze data to characterize vehicle use in diverse topographic and climatic conditions, evaluate the effectiveness of charge infrastructure, and conduct trials of various revenue systems for commercial and public charge infrastructures. The ultimate goal of The EV Project is to take the lessons learned from the deployment of these first 8,300 EVs, and the charging infrastructure supporting them, to enable the streamlined deployment of the next 5,000,000 EVs.
In 2010, charging infrastructure will be deployed in the following major population areas: Phoenix (AZ), Tucson (AZ), San Diego (CA), San Francisco (CA), Los Angeles (CA), Portland (OR), Eugene (OR), Salem (OR), Corvallis (OR), Seattle (WA), Nashville (TN), Knoxville (TN), Memphis (TN) and Chattanooga (TN), Washington D.C., Dallas (TX), Fort Worth (TX), and Houston (TX).The EV Project will qualify 8,300 LEAF and Volt customers for participation based upon home electrical power capabilities. Because a significant amount of vehicle charging will take place at EV driver residences, a portion of The EV Project funding supports home charging units, or more correctly called “Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment” (EVSE).
Participants will receive the home EVSE and up to a $1200 credit toward the installation in exchange for allowing the collection of vehicle and charge information at home and publicly available EVSE. This information will include data from both the vehicle and the EVSE, such as energy used and time and duration of charger use. No personal information will be shared or included in the data to be analyzed.
Charging your Electric Vehicle with Sullivan Solar Power
Powering your plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) provides substantial savings over purchasing gas. Consumer incentives are also making the purchase of an electric vehicle and home fast-charging station more affordable and attractive.
Filling up a PEV only costs a few cents per mile, versus an average of 20 cents per mile for gasoline per gallon. If the average American drives less than 40 miles a day, it will cost about $2 - $2.50 a day for electricity (depending on the vehicle).
You can go even cheaper with solar electricity, and know that you are fueling your vehicle with clean energy, as opposed to switching one fossil fuel for another (gasoline for coal powered electricity.
Fueling Your Vehicle - Gas Vs. Utility Electricity Vs. Solar Electricity
Gas Powered Avg. Miles Per Day: 40 Cost per Day: $8.00 Cost per Month: $243.20 Cost per Year: $2,918.40 Avg. Cost per Mile: $0.20 | Utility Electricity Powered Avg. Miles Per Day: 40 Cost per Day: $2.51 Cost per Month: $76.30 Cost per Year: $915.60 Avg. Cost per Mile: $0.06 | Solar Electricity Powered Avg. Miles Per Day: 40 Cost per Day: $1.48 Cost per Month: $44.99 Cost per Year: $539.90 Avg. Cost per Mile: $0.04 |
*Figures are based on an assumption of $4 per gallon gasoline and $0.20 per kWh average electricity rate
The average commuter will be saving about $2,000 per year in fuel costs by switching to a electric powered vehicle.
If you charge your electric vehicle with solar power, you save an additional 40% off the average utility electricity rate. It costs about $0.20 per mile to fuel the typical gas-powered vehicle ($4 per gallon), while it only costs $0.06 per mile to fuel the typical electric vehicle ($1.20 per gallon).
This is why thousands of homeowners with electric vehicles have installed solar energy systems to charge their vehicles, and often times the rest of their home as well.
Go Solar!
Solar Power is Proven Reliable Technology
Solar power is the energy generated by solar panels when sunlight shines upon a solar cell. Solar panels generate DC power that then is converted to AC power by an inverter. The output of the inverter, in turn, feeds the building it is connected to. Depending on site specifics and the amount of solar panels installed, a solar power system can generate up to 100% of a structure's energy needs. As a result, it is possible for the owner of a property to effectively eliminate his energy bill and in doing so help the environment by reducing power plant emissions. In one minute enough energy falls from the sky to power the world for an entire year. It is time to harness this energy
Solar Photovoltaic Technology is not new. Silicon based solar modules were originally made commercially viable in the United States by Bell Laboratories in the 50’s. Solar power systems were originally used by small remote electric loads where it was not practical to bring in utility lines. Solar panels were also used to fuel space exploration as the United States entered the space race. It is interesting to note that the original silicon based solar modules had conversion efficiencies of 6%. Today silicon based solar panels have efficiencies as high as 22%. So in approximately 60 years efficiencies have increased by an average rate of approximately 2.6% per decade. Silicon solar modules have a theoretical maximum efficiency of 25 to 30%. Some of the modules installed in the 60’s and 70’s are still in operation today.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Carbon Nanotubes Again!
Strengthening Airplanes with Carbon Nanotubes
Adding nanotubes to aerospace materials could also protect against lightning strikes.
Carbon nanotubes, atom-thick sheets of carbon, are among the strongest known materials. They already add their strength and toughness to several products on the market, including many bicycle frames. It's not surprising, then, that carbon nanotubes can also improve the properties of advanced aerospace materials.
Airplane skins are composed of composite materials made up of layers of carbon fibers held together by polymer glue. They can fail when the glue cracks and the fibers come apart, and reinforcing them is tricky. Using pins and stitching might seem like a good idea, but this can pierce and weaken the carbon layers. Researchers led by Brian Wardle, an assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, have now strengthened these advanced aerospace materials with what they call "nanostitching." Rows of carbon nanotubes perpendicular to the carbon microfibers fill the spaces between them, reinforcing the fiber layers without piercing them.
According to theoretical work to be published by the MIT group in the Journal of Composite Materials, these materials are not only 10 times stronger than those that don't contain nanotubes, but they are also more than one million times more electrically conductive, which suggests that they might protect aircraft from lightning strikes.
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The Magic Touch!
Touchy feely: Stretchable materials can be made sensitive to touch using TDR when wires are arranged in particular patterns.
Raphael Wimmer, Patrick Baudisch
Raphael Wimmer, Patrick Baudisch
COMPUTING
A Versatile Touch Sensor
A new system adapted from a technology used for underwater cables could lead to touch sensors in clothes and coffee tables.
We live in an increasingly touchy-feely tech world, with various ways for smart phones and tablet computers to sense our finger taps and gestures. Now a new type of touch technology, developed by researchers at the University of Munich and the Hasso Plattner Institute, could lead to touch sensitivity being added to everyday items such as clothing, headphone wires, coffee tables, and even pieces of paper.
The new touch technology relies on something called time domain reflectometry, or TDR, which has been used for decades to find damage in underwater cables. TDR is simple in theory: send a short electrical pulse down a cable and wait until a reflection of the pulse comes back. Based on the known speed of the pulse and the time it takes to come back, software can determine the position of the problem—damage in the line or some sort of change in electrical conductance.
Patrick Baudisch, professor of computer science at the Hasso Plattner Institute, says engineers noticed in the 1960s that the technology could be used to indicate a touch of a wire. Recently, the ability to sense the short time delay over very short distances has gotten more accurate, which made it possible to use TDR for interactive applications.
The TDR implementation is straightforward, according to Raphael Wimmer, a student at the University of Munich who developed the new approach with Baudisch. For one demonstration, he taped two parallel strips of copper to a piece of paper. Metal clips connect the copper strips to a pulse generator and detector. Pico-second-long electrical pulses are sent out, and if there's any change in capacitance between the two strips of copper—produced by a finger close to or touching the wires, for instance—part of the pulse is reflected back.
An oscilloscope shows the changing waveform produced by the reflected pulse, and software on a connected computer analyzes the waveform to determine the position of the touch. The current setup is a bit clunky, Wimmer admits, but he says it should be feasible to shrink the pulse generation, detection, and position calculation onto a chip.
To make a surface touch-sensitive requires only two wires (or metal traces of conductive ink), which can be configured in various patterns to get the necessary coverage. In contrast, a capacitive touch screen like the one in the iPhone uses a matrix of wires coming out of two sides of the screen. "You have to route them to a controller in special ways, and that's quite complicated," says Wimmer. TDR avoids the engineering challenges of a traditional capacitive touch surface, he says.
"Wimmer's application of TDR to touch is very clever," says Jeff Han, founder and CEO of Perceptive Pixel, a company that is developing large multi-touch displays. He suspects that it could provide new ways of detecting user input like touch sensing along an unmodified headphone cable, something that would be difficult to do with traditional sensors.
Over the next couple of months, Wimmer says, the researchers will be testing ways to shrink the TDR system design into a chip. He says he's also exploring the possibility of using light pulses in fiber optics as well as electrical pulses in cables because light would be immune to the electrical interference common in capacitive touch systems.
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