If you are getting a bit tired of driving your car manually this hack might be for you. The guys from Waterloo Labs built this car that can be driven around using an iPhone. They are using a CompactRIO controller as the brains of the system which might be considered overkill and does come with a hefty price tag of almost two grand!

Thanks to Jody for sending this one in.

 ”We built our control systems using a few motors, potentiometers, a Compact RIO embedded controller, and LabVIEW. We then set up wi-fi communication so we can drive the car from an iPhone as well as from a modified Power Wheels truck.”

 Thanks to Dieter Sturm for sending in his latest jet powered creation. He is putting the final touches on this Tiny Jet Powered Monster Truck. They are looking for sponsors, so if you are looking to have your name on the side of something cool I suggest you give Dieter a call right away! For his next build I vote to see a Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 stuffed onto the back of a full sized truck.

To see this thing in action be sure to watch the video after the jump.

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The video above demonstrates what Vijay Kumar and his team are building. We have seen some toy quadcopters that have some impressive capabilities but I can’t wait till a tiny and smart quadcopter as agile as these are available. If you don’t have the time to watch the entire video make sure you see the flight demonstrations at 10:05.

Thanks for sending this in Matt.

 ”In his lab at Penn, Vijay Kumar and his team build flying quadrotors, small, agile robots that swarm, sense each other, and form ad hoc teams — for construction, surveying disasters and far more.”

Discovery Channel is probably my favorite TV channel, they have an abundance of shows that intrigue curious minds. It looks like there will be another great show to add to their line up. Top Engineer sounds like it will be a must see when it’s release. The  good news is that they are casting for it right now and Lisa from Pilgrim Studios though there would probably be some good candidates in our audience. If you would like to be on the show go here to read more details about it.

You can see the PDF Flyer for the casting here. 

“The Discovery Channel is looking for America’s most creative and daring techies, machinists, inventors and engineers to design, build, and BLAST their way to a Grand Prize on their new competition TV show TOP ENGINEER.

A handful of lucky men and women will be chosen to take on exciting challenges from various engineering fields at the state-of-the-art WET design facilities (www.wetdesign.com) in California.

No, you don’t need to have an engineering degree to compete on this show, but you MUST be able to design, build, test and integrate an idea into a final product that WORKS. These will be fast-paced, hands-on, VISCERAL challenges! If your experience is strictly behind the keyboard, then this show is NOT for you.

We are looking for visual effects experts, accomplished home shop machinists, contractors and engineers with backgrounds in electrical, civil, structural or mechanical engineering.

If you have an outgoing personality and are ready to get your hands dirty for the chance to win a GRAND PRIZE and the title of TOP ENGINEER, then we want to hear from you.”

If you have a project that needs a bit more than 3.3, 5 or 12 volts have a look at this Home Made 250 kV High Voltage DC Power Supply! Of course this isn’t your typical supply for the Arduino project sitting on the corner of your bench. One thing to note is that this supply can pack a deadly punch so be very careful if you intend to do some tinkering on your own.

“The Cockroft-Walton multiplier uses a cascaded series of diodes and capacitors to generate a high voltage DC potential from an AC input through a circuit topology that uses diodes to charge capacitors in parallel and discharge them in series.  The output polarity of the Cockroft-Walton multiplier depends on the way in which its diodes are oriented, so the output polarity (referenced to ground) of a high-voltage DC power supply is usually set during the design.”

Get ready for a Smell-o-Vision system called SMELLIT. A company in Paris, Olf Action will be taking a stab at this technology that seems to have been around the corner for ever. The styling of the device is great, it looks like you could fly it around the room when it isn’t being used to make your room smell like a bathroom. You can see a list of the possible smells below, some sound very interesting and other might not be as pleasant to smell.

Via: Technabob and Tech Digest

Laughingsquid member EDW Lynch reported the new design concept of Air-Free Tire by Bridgestone. This Air-Free Tire is basically an airless tire design concept that relies on thermoplastic resin spokes to give the tire its shape and flexibility. This newly designed tire is 100% recyclable.

Currently the holders of lightweight carts and personal mobility devices can be benefited with this new launch and very soon this design concept will brought up for the larger vehicle holders too. More at Laughingsquid.

For advanced features of this new concept, watch the video below: