At the University of Louisville J. B. Speed School of Engineering
The lab has a new grant from the Kentucky Science and Engineering Foundation: “Combining Soft Materials with Mechanical Parts for Robotic and Human Health Applications.” We will install functional fibers in laser-cut and 3D printed parts using a modified sewing machine. Above: video of the current machine installing high strength Kevlar fiber in a plastic …
Continue reading “New grant: Combining Soft Materials with Mechanical Parts”
Whether it’s superstrings in physics or the first violin in a symphony orchestra, strings run the universe. Invisible strings control everything from creepy marionettes to the direction of the global economy. Without them, we would lack conduits for mechanical forces and fodder for cheesy metaphors. Strings. They form the fabric of human society and the …
April 25 was demo day in the ECE 412 (Embedded Systems) course I taught this semester, and we had the biggest batch ever. 17 teams presented projects ranging from musical instruments to games to wheeled robots. Clockwise from top left: Skittles sorter, guitar auto-strummer, disturbing metal creature probably found in the depths of LVL1, and …
Continue reading “This semester’s ECE 412 projects are on another level”
This semester we have four students working for independent study credit. There are two GE Edison students working on low-power Internet of Things applications: Juan Espinosa is using Estimote Bluetooth Low Energy beacons (a) to develop a location-based iOS app, with the goal of setting an alarm when an item (or person) wanders off. Laura …
Often in electronics you hear about parasitic capacitance, an unintended side effect. But the purple-and-gold circuit above is a deliberately parasitic circuit board that can tap into another circuit and extract power for itself. The most important thing is that the parasite not kill the host by shorting out its wires. The parasite board has a lot …
