Mechanical engineering

Latest news on mechanical engineering

Large bdrm in 3BR/2BA house--big wooded yard--quiet neighborhood (menlo park) $750

Hi, We are looking for a considerate, responsible person to share a 3BR/2BA Menlo Park home in a quiet, family neighborhood (Flood Triangle). THE ROOM: There will be one bedroom available starting January 12, for $750/mo. It is large (about 11 x 17) with two good size windows. There is a full, standard-size closet. Current furnishings include a single bed, a desk, a dresser, and a bookcase. The two rented rooms in the house share a full bath off the hallway just outside their doors. The landlord would like someone planning to stay long term with an initial lease of a year, but he has some flexibility on this. THE ROOMMATES: You'll be sharing the house mostly with one other person, a male post-grad student in psychology at ITP. He describes himself as respectful, laid back, and open-minded. He has a passion for consciousness research, pen and paper gaming, drawing, metal work/sculpting, and electrical and mechanical engineering. He enjoys socializing with house mates, however also likes his privacy and therefore respects that in others. All around, an easy-going guy with a variety of interests. He moved into the house on Sept. 1. The landlord keeps the third bedroom for his own use and has his own bathroom. He usually comes for a night or two on weekends, once or twice a month. He is a "boomer" technical professional working at UC Santa Cruz. The landlord is easy to get along with and a master of the grill (especially salmon!), and enjoys sharing dinner or Sunday-morning coffee and a chat with the tenants. But he is seldom at the house because he works and usually stays in Santa Cruz. So, effectively, only two people share the house most of the time. Traditionally, the house has been occupied by older (late 20s-40s) graduate and post-doctoral students or other academic types (especially international students) who like a reasonably quiet home and working environment. We'd like to keep that tradition going. Sorry, no smokers, heavy drinkers, or pets. THE HOUSE AND NEIGHBORHOOD: The home is a 50's style stucco one story on a large lot; there's a somewhat wild back yard with a huge oak tree. The house has hardwood floors, tile baths and kitchen, a fireplace, a laundry, as well as most usual kitchen and entertainment amenities. The kitchen is "dated"--no dishwasher/disposal, a funky 1960s electric stove--but it has been quite adequate for some creative cooking. The house is furnished and the garage is already stuffed, so expect no extra storage area available. The common areas of the house are professionally cleaned on alternate Fridays (no extra cost). Since the landlord is usually not in residence, he appreciates our help with minor house responsibilities like watering the lawn, raking, sweeping, taking the trash and recycling to the curb, etc. Please understand this is a house rental, not an apartment; there is no "on-site" manager. Off street parking is limited; the Menlo Park police enforce a prohibition of overnight off-street parking except for short-term guests by permit. There is an offstreet parking place in front of the house, but if both renters have cars, they must be willing to coordinate overnight parking, one car in front of the other. So, while not essential, it would be easier if the new renter did not have a car parked at the house. Many previous tenants have been bike commuters only. The neighborhood is friendly and convenient. It is about a 20 minute bike ride to Stanford (3 - 4 miles depending where you are going on campus), or less than 10 minutes ride to Caltrain. Grocery stores, cafes and both the Menlo Park and Palo Alto downtown areas are within easy biking distance as well. If you are driving, you can easily access 101 at either Willow Rd. or Marsh Rd. exits; either is about 1 mile from the house. UTILITIES: In addition to the rent, you are responsible for a share of the utilities (gas, electric, wireless DSL Internet including basic local phone) based on occupancy. As the landlord is not in most of the time, the renters each pay 40% of these charges. If there is only one renter, the renter will pay 65% of the utility charge. (But this has never happened.) Of course, if you place toll calls on the existing landline phone, you will pay for your own itemized charges. The landlord will pay all of the water, sewer, and regular trash collection cost. In past years the per/room gas and electric charge has ranged from about $40 in a warm month to $70 in an unusually cold month. But climbing energy prices are taking the winter costs significantly higher. Of course it depends on your usage habits. The security deposit is equal to the monthly rental, but it is NOT your last months rent. Please read this listing carefully, then contact us at the Craig's list email link above to follow up. Important: please write a bit about yourself, and your housing needs. We'd like to have local references if possible (newly arrived international students excepted). The room is currently occupied, so showing will usually require some advance coordination. If you are an international student and unable to visit the room in advance, we can look for some more pictures.

RoboClam anchor based on sea creature

Inspired by the way razor clams dig into the seafloor sediment, MIT researchers have built a robotic anchor for autonomous water vehicles. About the size of a cigarette lighter, the prototype RoboClam imitates the way the real clam's "foot" works its way into the sand. Learn more at the MIT site and don't miss the video of a real razor clam in action. From MIT News: "Our original goal was to develop a lightweight anchor that you could set then easily unset, something that's not possible with conventional devices," said Anette "Peko" Hosoi, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering whose collaborators on the work are Amos Winter, a graduate student in her lab, and engineers at Bluefin Robotics Corp. Such devices could be useful, for example, as tethers for small robotic submarines that are routinely repositioned to monitor variables such as currents and temperature. Further, a device that can burrow into the seabed and be directed to a specific location could also be useful as a detonator for buried underwater mines. RoboClam...

apt 3 blocks from UCB, BIG, nice, and CHEAP (berkeley) $600

ok so here's the deal. i live in the greatest apartment complex i've ever seen in berkeley. it's big and it's cheap (berkeley standards). i have a roommate who has the room and i have the living room and because it's so big it works pretty well. but...she's going abroad to italy next semester. so i need a new roommate. the thing is, i think it'd be easier to have an international student come in because the room is already furnished with my roommate's stuff, and it'd be way easier to just have someone come in who needs a bed and all that stuff. about me...i'm a fourth year mechanical engineering major who will graduate in may. i play music, and i gig around berkeley pretty often. i've included pictures of the place...so let me know what you think! email me with any questions. the room is $600 plus internet and utilities (about 40$/month for the winter months).

Nanobama!

Scientist John Hart created a remix of Shepard Fairey's Obama poster from 150 million carbon nanotubes, each of which measured tens of thousands of times smaller than a human hair. That sure is a lot of tiny Obamas. Snip: Even then, the finished product is only half a millimetre in diameter and almost indistinguishable from any other garden variety micro dot - unless you happen to be looking at it through a microscope. The magnification reveals tiny, three dimensional "carvings" of the now ubiquitous polarised image of the president-elect originally created by street artist and graphic designer Shepard Fairey. The "Nanobamas" were created by a team of researchers led by Hart, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. Obama under the microscope, and here is Hart's site at the University of Michigan Mechanosynthesis Group (Thanks, @mpesce)...

Eco-Friendly AirPods Get Airport Test

A former aeronautics and Formula 1 engineer with the seemingly crazy idea of building cars that run on compressed air has convinced a European airline to use his "AirPods" to ferry passengers around airports in France and Amsterdam. Guy Nègre has been tinkering with compressed air vehicles for about 20 years, but he and his company, Motor Development International, have done little more than build some prototypes that have garnered interest from the likes of India's giant automaker Tata Motors and an American startup called Zero Emissions Motors. With Air France/KLM officials announcing they will give the vehicles a six-month test in the rough-and-tumble environment of two busy airports, Nègre may finally prove his vehicles are more than hot air. The airline says AirPods will carry passengers between departure gates at Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris and Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. The AirPods slated for airport duty will be the first operational version of MDI?s Air Car concept, which is vying for the Progressive Automotive X-Prize. The AirPod carries four people in a vehicle that is about 6 feet long and weighs roughly 450 pounds. Its single-piston engine is driven by compressed air. The tank holds 175 liters of compressed air, according to Zero Pollution Motors, and can be filled to 350 bar (5,076 psi!) in as little as 90 seconds. That's enough to give the AirPod a range of about 135 miles and a top speed of 43 mph. MDI won't be building Air Cars. Rather, it's counting on licensing agreements with Tata and Zero Emissions Motors to bring the world Air Cars by 2010 or 2011. If the idea of a zero-emissions car that runs on air sounds too good to be true, we share your skepticism. Besides the continuing production delays, a promised top speed of 90 MPH and range of 848 miles for the AirFlow model seem ? to put it mildly ? over promise. Tata isn't convinced the technology is quite ready for prime time, and Andrew Frank, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California at Davis, told The New York Times, ?It's a losing game because the efficiency is just not there.?  Everything about the Air Car seems to suggest an ?It?s a Small World?-sort of innocence. MDI's industrial model for ?micro production? imagines incredibly green cars being produced all over the world at fractions of typical costs. But none of the technology has ever been proven, which is why the tests of the AirPod at Schiphol and de Gaulle airports are so important. Yet even the limited scope of the AirPod?s test run at two airports seems to speak to a major lag in a technology that may fill little more than a tiny niche. A car that runs on air is a cool idea in theory. But as the battle to replace gas heats up, it looks the AirCar could be little more than vaporware. Photo courtesy MDI