Here’s your fun fact for today: unlike data-encoding electronics that utilize an electron’s negative charge to store data, spin electronics (or ‘spintronics”, for short) use the electron’s natural motion and magnetic properties around an atom to encode and store data. Up until now, physicists have only been able to move electrons around a single atomic layer; drastically limiting their ability to process, encode, and store data. But with the recent discovery by a team of physicists led by colleagues at the University of Glasgow, humans can now transfer information from one electromagnetic layer to another. This breakthrough in spintronics not only puts it on par with electronics, but gives it…

Get that stretch out of your system with this week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist. It’s fashioned up, ready to make you pull your shoulder blades back and knock out another week of meaningful work while you bob your head to the beat. Whether you’re in the shop milling aluminum, sketching the latest product prototypes or modeling up a 3D storm, consider these tracks as a tool for your process. This week on SolidSmack Radio we’ll fire things off with “Radiate” from Maranta before diving into tracks from Clinic, Palehound, Sinkane, and others before wrapping up with “Dive” from The Soft Cavalry. Ready? Let’s Rock! Have suggestions? As always, let us…

Hey there Solidsmackite’s I’ve got good news. “There’s a mouse in the house!” Now don’t go faint of heart on me, as I’m talking about a computer mouse, not the four-legged furry type. Yep, a highly organic, fully surface modeled object constructed using Onshape the cloud-based CAD modeling software. For those who have sought to surface model in Onshape in the past, this is news! Until recently Onshape had been pretty lean with regard to surface creation tools. Not so anymore! Check out the recent Onshape article I authored “How Does Onshape Handle Advanced Surface Modeling?” for the scoop. The blog post is a high-level overview of a pretty extension…

After stepping on them for years, a Finish YouTube creator has had enough of tiny LEGO bricks. Using his aptly named Brick Experiment Channel, he makes videos which pit a variety of LEGOs against fire, concrete, and quite possibly their only worthy opponent: other LEGO pieces. In this particular video, he tests just how much punishment the smallest LEGO gears (a LEGO Technic Gear 8 Type 1 and a LEGO Technic Gear 8 Tooth Type 2) can take from its brethren before breaking. Using a PF M-motor, he tests whether or not the Type 1 and 2 gears survive certain load scenarios. While a 1:1 load measuring 4 Newton-centimeters (Ncm)…

If you’re engineering hardware that has any one of: a camera, an LED, a display, an IR sensor, a lens, a laser, a reflector, or an optical fiber, guess what?! You’re working with an optical system. What’s more, there’s an entire branch of engineering that specializes in optics. And, if you’re not involving an optical engineer in your development, you’re very likely doing it wrong. And time-consuming-ly. And expensively. And possibly dangerously. Lots of Big, Costly, Preventable Mistakes Most of y’all working in startups (and sometimes even larger corporations) are doing it wrong. I know because I am an optical engineer (OE) running an engineering consultancy (SpireStarter.com). Last year, I…

You might have your own opinion on who broke Captain America’s shield, but regardless whether who or even if it really happened (IT DID), there’d have to be some power behind that shield slap. Maybe you already have a Captain America mask, or a shirt with a star stencil spraypainted on it. You’ve got to complete the look and the only way to do that is with Cap’s Vibranium/Adamantium shield… that’s actually made of a fragile, 3D printed plastic but, ya know, looks kinda cool. The Inspiration (Spoiler Alert!) Surely, you’ve seen Avengers: Endgame? Nope? Me neither. Waiting for it to come out on LaserDisc. “What’s Laserdisc?” Superior to VHS.…