Mechanical

If you're a fan of 1980s music, then there's a very good chance that you'll already be familiar with the electronic beats provided by what's widely regarded as the drum machine that started it all, Roland's TR-808. It set the mood for Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing, fired shots at David Byrne in the concert movie Stop Making Sense and was the inspiration for the naming of the band 808 State. In his own homage to the iconic device, electronic music tinkerer Moritz Simon Geist has mechanically reproduced 11 of its key sounds using real instruments played by robots within the supersized, wall-filling frame of the stunning MR-808.  Read More

Fans of traditional flipbooks now have the opportunity to indulge their passion for miniature motion pictures with a new device being developed in Los Angeles, in the U.S. FlipBooKit, currently on the top fund raisers on KickStarter’s art projects, is a contemporary version of XIX century devices designed to create the illusion of movement. It is the brainchild of multi-media talent team Mark Rosen and Wendy Marvel.  Read More

Logitech's G-series keyboards have a new member of the family. The brand new G710+ is a mechanical keyboard, which tend to be preferred by hardcore gamers. Mechanical keyboards also offer quieter keys, and this G710+ is no exception.  Read More

Like Honda’s Stride Walking Assist and the ReWalk, the Kickstart from Cadence Biomedical is designed to help improve the gait of people who have difficulty walking and help them regain their mobility and independence. But unlike its robotic cousins that are powered by weighty rechargeable batteries, the Kickstart is able to ditch the batteries altogether because it has no motors to power. Instead, it is purely mechanical and provides assistance by storing and releasing kinetic energy generated by a person when walking.  Read More

A Japanese paper-modelling enthusiast has constructed a bipedal “robot” dubbed the “Paper Robot III” (or PR-III). Judging from the intricate nature of the design which is visible in the photos, the PR-III appears to be a labor of love, and has been painstakingly constructed almost entirely from paper, with the addition of a few wooden shafts serving to increase overall and drive the “engine” – a series of paper cogs and elastic bands which are wound up to set the PR-III walking.  Read More

A hobby is what you do with the rest of your time. It tends to feed a deep-seated need of which you may not even be aware - to be your best self. Some people golf, some swim, some quilt, some travel, some climb mountains ... there's no end to the list. Then there's Szymon Klimek, who makes some of the most incredible miniature electromechanical sculptures imaginable.  Read More

Satellites and other spacecraft, like most machines, have parts that move against one another. Unlike most machines, however, they operate in extremely cold conditions, their power source is often very limited, and lubricating or repairing them are not exactly easy tasks. It is for these reasons that researchers at Spain’s Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) are coordinating the three-year MAGDRIVE project – an international effort to create a mechanical transmission with no touching parts, that doesn’t need any lubrication.  Read More

There are businesses that let you glaze your own pottery, cook your own steak or pick your own strawberries, but when it comes to the hands-on experience, a new offer from General Motors has them all beat. If you order a 2011 Corvette Z06 or ZR1, you have the option of traveling to GM's Performance Build Center in Wixom, Michigan, and hand-assembling your car’s LS7 or LS9 engine. It’s called the Corvette Engine Build Experience, and is believed to be the first program of its kind (if any readers would like to dispute that claim, please do so). If you don’t like the idea of providing GM with your mechanical expertise for no cost, don’t worry - you’ll have to pay an extra $US5,800 for the privilege.  Read More

Anyone who subscribes to the view that good things come in small packages would no doubt be impressed by the winners of this year’s design contest held at Sandia Labs for novel and educational microelectromechanical systems (MEMs). The big, or should I say exceedingly small, winners were the world’s smallest chessboard, which is about the diameter of four human hairs, and a pea-sized microbarbershop that is intended to service a single hair.  Read More