Solar Steam Turbine with Parabolic Solar Dish Collector

Solar Steam Turbine Producing Steam from Sunlight using a Parabolic Solar Dish Collector. LINK: Youtube

Air-powered Star Trek style door

"QUOTE" This is a video showing the automatic sliding door I built in my house. It is powered by air, it is fully enclosed in the wall, and it has the appearance of a standard interior door. LINK: Youtube

Gas Turbine-Powered Model Train is Powerful Enough to Haul around Its Builder

This 1:8.4 scale model train is powered by a gas turbine engine. It travels down five inch gauge tracks quite quickly, as you can see by watching the video in the links. The train was built by Hidepon Works and displayed at Make Fair 2010 in Tokyo.


Link and Video, Via: OhGizmo! | Official Website (Google Translate) | Photo: Gizmag | Via: Neatorama

Solar Pendulum

Mat Mets of Make: Online says:

On my recent post about building an electromagnetically assisted pendulum, commenter Accomplished chimed in to share their excellent solar pendulum build. Accomplished used the BEAM Magbot Pendulum circuit from the book Junkbots, Bugbots, and Bots on Wheels.
I like the sound it makes as it's starting up.

Solar pendulum build. LINK, Via: Youtube

High Wire Acts: A new way to maintain power lines

You need insulated gonads of steel to get into a harness and let a helicopter fly you into a high voltage cable to service them. That's precisely what the technicians from Air2 do for utilities companies nationwide. [Air2 Via: Flightglobal], Via: Gizmodo

Steam-Powered Airplane

(YouTube Link)

The Tesla Air 2000 was a biplane built in 1933 by William Besler and Nathan C. Price. It was powered by a steam boiler that was so quiet that spectators on the ground could hear the pilot calling to them. From the video notes:

The advantages of the “Besler System” that were claimed at the time included the elimination of audible noise and destructive vibration; greater efficiency at low engine speeds and also at high altitudes where lower air temperatures assisted condensation; reduced likelihood of engine failure; reduced maintenance costs; reduced fuel costs, since fuel oil was used in place of petrol; reduced fire hazard since the fuel was less volatile and operating temperatures were lower; and a lack of need for radio shielding.

For capacities in excess of 1000 horse power a turbine captures the energy released by the expansion of steam more efficiently than a piston. Thus, the steam reciprocating engine turned out to be unsuitable for scaling up to the needs of large aircraft

Via: Make, Via: Neatorama

Automatic Crossbow

A fellow who calls himself “The Duckman” built an electrically-powered automatic crossbow. His objective was to have a usable crossbow now that arthritis prevents him from cocking each arrow, as he would on a conventional bow. The Duckman built the weapon with a magazine of 15 arrows and the battery allows him to fire 100 before replacement. I don’t see his trigger finger move while he’s firing, so it appears to be fully auto, rather than semi. More pictures and specifications at the link.

Link, Via: Gizmodo, Via: Neatorama, Via: Youtube

Early power-assisted bicycles

Japanese bicycle maker Shukuno Rintendo produced a special series of power assisted bicycles in the late '90s. One had a small turbine which produced 4.4 horsepower of thrust, another could generate enough thrust for a whole 50 meters!
Link, Via: WebDigger

Stealthy anti-whaling powerboat

That is not Batman's boat but rather Earthrace, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's ultraslick bio-diesel-powered anti-whaling speedboat. It's 80-feet long and very stealthy. Next month, it will head out to the seas around Japan to, er, protest the country's whaling industry. Life magazine has photos of Earthrace currently docked in Auckland, New Zealand. (Click image to see full photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images.) "Superbad Anti-Whaling Stealth Boat". LINK: Boingboing

Light source glows for 12+ years without power

Lightroenergy is an amazing new source of illumination which can produce a bright glow for up to a dozen years without any electricity or exposure to sunlight.
Litrospheres are tiny self-luminous particles which can be injection molded or embedded into paints. Brightness is said to be about the same as that of a 20-watt light bulb, but I’d imagine that would depend on how much surface area is covered with the particles. The material is extremely cost-effective, covering an 8.5 x 11 surface for about 35 cents. The particles can even be customized to give off just about any light color. There’s a good description of how the technology works over on PESWiki.

MPK, the company that manufactures this glowing goodness expects Litrospheres to make their first appearance in safety gear, but I’d love to coat all kinds of surfaces with this stuff. Can you imagine how cool it would be to drive down the street in a luminescent car? LINK