Not so long ago, a tennis ball appeared in our garden. It's a rather distinctive red one. It doesn't belong to us. It was lying close by to the (low) fence between us and our neighbour, so I just chucked it back. Next morning, it was there again. I threw it back. And, more or […]
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Seeing spots before my eyes
"Doctor, Doctor, I keep seeing spots before my eyes" "Have you ever seen an optician?" "No, just spots". The concept of seeing an optician floating across my field of view is a scary one indeed. However, the concept of seeing spots doing the same is one I'm coming to terms with. I had a talk […]
Continue readingModes of a square plate
Alison has drawn my attention to this video. It demonstrates vibrational modes of a square plate by using sand. At certain frequencies, there are well defined modes of oscillation, in which parts of the plate 'nodal lines' are stationary. The sand will find its way to these parts and trace out some lovely pictures. Vibrational […]
Continue readingThe changing face of professional institutions
I'm sure many readers will know that one of the hats I wear is the treasurer of the New Zealand Institute of Physics. NZIP is the professional organization for physicists within New Zealand. Its aim is to promote the interests of physics and physicists, at all levels, within the country. In addition to counting the […]
Continue readingArchimedes principle: think carefully
Benjamin has recently acquired a 'new' book from Grandma and Grandad: Mr Archimedes' Bath (by Pamela Allen – here's the amazon link – the reviews are as interesting as the content). The story-line is reasonable guessable from the title. Mr Achimedes puts water into his bath, gets in, and the water overflows. What's going on? […]
Continue readingRobot racing
The Engineering Design Show is currently in full swing here, with the competitions for the various design projects. The white-line followers kicked off proceedings. They were pretty impressive, with all but one team successfully being able to follow the (very squiggly) line without mistakes. There were traps to confuse the robots – the line got […]
Continue readingCircling line-following robots
A few weeks ago I commented on a task our second year software-engineering students are doing: building robots to follow a white line with the Lego 'Mindstorm' kit. It's been entertaining watching their various attempts and their design selections. Most groups have pretty-well optimized their robot now, and there's some final tweaking going on, ahead […]
Continue readingWhen energy conservation doesn’t add up (or does it?)
In the last few weeks holes have been popping up all over Cambridge. They are being dug by 'ditch-witches' – pieces of machinery designed for making small-diameter tunnels for cabling – as part of the installation of fibre-optic cables for the much vaunted ultra-fast broadband. A ditch-witch is about the ultimate in machinery-obsessed-toddler heaven. We've […]
Continue readingTelepathy breakthrough – great science, not science fiction
The 'Science' news hitting the media at the weekend was Guilio Ruffini and Alvaro Pascual-Leone's demonstration of 'telepathy'. There's been a lot of media coverage on this – for example the neat little interview of Ruffini on the BBC's 'Today' programme. Their article on this can be read here. It's not a long one, and, […]
Continue readingEngineering, lego and line followers
In the last few weeks I've been working with some second-year software engineering students on a design project. Their particular task is to build (with Lego – but the high-tech variety) a robot that can follow a white line on a bench. It's fun to watch them play with different ideas and concepts – there's […]
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