Kids Code & Computer Science

This Electric Car Gobbles Carbon!

A team of students from Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands created a concept passenger Electric Vehicle (EV) that also captures and stores carbon from the air as you drive the car. As we know, EVs already pollute less than combustion engine cars because they use large batteries instead of gasoline for power.
https://www.tuecomotive.nl/our-family/Zem/

What Sounds Did Dinosaurs Make?

Cats meow, dogs bark, and dinosaurs roar, right? Maybe not, according to recent research. They made sounds, of course, but nothing like those terrifying outbursts in the Jurassic Park movies. Dinosaurs were varied, from tiny to bigger than whales, so the sounds they made must have varied. How they made sounds is also interesting. Some were based on spaces in their skulls, for example.
https://www.bbc.com/futurearticle/20221212-the-mysterioussong-of-the-dinosaurs

NASA Is Funding Ideas For a Titan Seaplane

Nasa is backing a project called TitanAir, a plane that could fly through the nitrogen and methane atmosphere of Titan, a moon of Saturn while landing and taking off from lakes on the moon. It is one of 14 projects the space agency is funding for use in missions throughout our solar system.
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2023/TitanAir/

Airplanes vs Paper Planes

Sciences tested how paper falls through the air, using sheets of paper or paper airplanes.
While real airplanes rely on the lift caused by air flowing across a wing, paper airplanes must be balanced to fly far. It’s why people fold the front of a paper airplane – to add a little weight to balance the weight equally front to back.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-fluid-mechanics/article/Centre-of-mas-location-flight-modes-stability-and-dynamic-modelling-of-gliders/D4983A693B836A364D19C95B4D5FFC3B

Decoding the Queen

Using computers, a team of cryptographers decoded 50 plus encoded letters sent by the deposed ruler, Mary Queen of Scots, in the 1500s. The letters, written during Mary’s English captivity, were found in the online archives at the National Library of France.
https://www.bbc.com/news/World-europe-64569883

PitchCom For Pitchers

It’s April, and here in the United States, that means the start of baseball season. New technology
introduced last year lets baseball catchers use an electronic device on their wrist to tell pitchers what to pitch. Before, pitchers and catchers communicated with hand signals. PitchCom prevents opposing teams from figuring out what their batters will face pitch by pitch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PitchCom