Inventor Turns Truck Into Dot Matrix Printer

For most people, a dot matrix printer is an ancient technology from the last millennium that used tiny dots of ink to print letters and images on paper. But what if you could turn a truck into a dot matrix printer to print on a road? That would be neat! YouTuber and inventor “Ryder Calm Down” used his truck, a Raspberry Pi, and drops of water instead of messy ink. The result is amazingly good.

https://makezine.com/article/maker-news/turning-a-truck-into-a-giant-dot-matrix-printer/

Ambitious Floating City Designed to Adapt to Climate Crisis

Japan’s N-Ark organization is designing a city for 40,000 people that can adapt to the worst parts of climate change. Dogen City will integrate medical, food, and housing in one location. The project attempts to adapt to ocean environments for architecture, agriculture, and aquaculture.

https://www.n-ark.jp/en

https://mymodernmet.com/n-ark-dogen-city/

Leaping Squirrels!

Videos of squirrels leaping from branches across impossibly large gaps are being studied by the University of California, Berkeley, researchers to understand how to train robots to perform the same agile feats. Squirrels make leaping decisions in split seconds as they move through trees.

https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/08/05/leaping-squirrels-parkour-is-one-of-their-many-feats-of-agility/

Hydrogen Carcopter

The podracer from Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Menace has been created (for real) by a French startup, Maca Flight. It uses a hydrogen fuel cell instead of a battery and looks amazingly similar to the Star Wars podracers. It has three pairs of rotors and six motors, all of which use hydrogen to generate electricity. The racer is 23 feet long and has a top speed of 155 mph.

https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/this-hydrogen-powered-carcopter-is-a-real-life-star-wars-podracer

Solar Power From Space

JAXA, the Japanese space agency, has spent years trying to perfect the beaming of solar energy from space down to Earth. In 2015, its scientists beamed 1.8 kilowatts—enough to power an electric kettle—50 meters to a wireless receiver. In 2025, they plan to beam solar energy from small satellites to ground-based arrays hundreds of miles away.

https://www.engadget.com/japan-will-try-to-beam-solar-power-from-space-by-2025-214338244

https://www.umass.edu/news/article/new-green-technology-umass-amherst

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/adma.202300748

Robot Fish Helps Researchers Protect Ecosystem

Swiss researchers and mechanical engineers have created an autonomous fish robot named Belle that collects data about undersea organisms and their environment. The robot allows scientists to observe life underwater in a way that doesn’t scare fish or harm marine life the way boats, propellers, and submarines can.

https://www.reuters.com/video/watch/robotic-fish-collects-dna-samples-in-the-idOV335228062023RP1

https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/06/30/belle-the-inobtrusive-ai-robot-fish-is-helping-researchers-to-protect-our-marine-ecosytems