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Category: Science & hacking

AI is coming to design and engineering
February 28, 2017
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| 3D printing, Design, Engineering, New, Science & hacking

There is one thing in life that you can count on: AI is going to be bigger and happen sooner than almost any of us expect. Autonomous cars are perhaps the most visible implementations of AI, but it’s creeping in everywhere.  From personal assistants (Sirri, Cortana, Alexa etc), to administration jobs (IBM’s Watson), and now – design and engineering.  Have a look at this article about a team who have applied machine learning to automotive design: http://www.drive.com.au/motor-news/how-artificial-intelligence-could-design-your-next-car-20170228-gumxy6.html From the…

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Sports locker lock fix up
October 9, 2016
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| New, Science & hacking

I am lucky enough to have a locker at the Men’s Shed that I am a member of.  However, the lockers there are all old and second hand and all missing their keys.  So they aren’t really safe to store valuables in.  I wanted a key for my locker, so I thought I would get one cut. Initially I just took this photo of the front of the lock to locksmiths and asked them to cut a key….

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Science experiment: biphasic sleep
August 26, 2016
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| Science & hacking

Intro: This comes very much in the category of something to “do” rather than make.  But it may well help with the “making” in due course. If you haven’t read my posts about biphasic sleep, you can see them here and here.  In short, biphasic sleep means sleeping in two blocks, with a period of low activity wakefulness in between.  It is suggested by researcher Jessa Gamble that this is the sleep pattern that humans evolved with and that our brains and bodies…

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The Midnight Clock – 1
August 24, 2016
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| Design, Science & hacking

I love sleep. I really love a good long sleep and waking feeling well rested. It’s not the easiest thing to do though these days. Our lives are so busy, there are so many demands and temptations to stay up late and get up early. As the Bon Jovi song goes: “Until I’m six feet under / Baby I don’t need a bed / Gonna live while I’m alive / I’ll sleep when I’m dead…” I love staying up…

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Fuel level sender unit examination
August 13, 2016
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| Electronics, Science & hacking

The fuel light on my motorcycle (a Triumph Dayton 955i) came on recently and steadfastly refused to go off, even with a full tank of fuel. My mechanic swapped it out for a new unit and gave me the old one to play with.  I have often wondered exactly how a fuel sender unit works, so I took it apart and investigated.

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Science experiment: aluminium foil heat conduction test
August 3, 2016
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| Science & hacking
Aluminium foil

Intro: One of the projects I am planning (the design and construction of a heat recovery and ventilation system) requires a membrane that efficiently transfers heat from one body of air to another. I am planning to use regular household aluminium foil for this. It has a lot of things in its favour including Note: I have recently decided that the heat recovery unit will probably use copper foil instead since copper has roughly double the conductivity of aluminium…

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