Three dudes from Caltech just designed the first robotic bat. Alireza Ramezani, Soon-Jo Chung, and Seth Hutchinson scored the cover article with their research published in the latest issue of Journal of Science Robotics, detailing the successful construction and flight of the multi-articulating, adaptive flapping of our favorite flying mammal. Modeled after the species, Rousettus aegyptiacus (the Egyptian fruit bat), the robot does indeed look and move like a bat–Well, a creepy, mechanical, translucent bat. The crew claims it is among the agilest of flying robots ever built. They also claim that because it’s so light and squishy, it poses far less risk to humans than quadrotors and other rotorcraft.…

It’s embarrassing isn’t it? When you get caught in the garage with all the tires off, halfway between blowtorching the lower panels and wrapping tank tread around your freshly welded drive sprocket. Just tell your spouse the smell will dissipate over time. Then, quickly show them RC Speed Tank this to distract them. Sven Drechsel has created a very simple RC tank project with the majority of the parts, even the tread, 3D printed. The rest of the projects involves some very basic electronics and screw-together assembly. This is a great beginner project for 3D printing and electronics, or for anyone interested in making a fun little RC toy. Since…

I love the look and feel of handcrafted wood objects–a guitar, a speaker, a cutting board are all pretty typical, but a keyboard made of wood? I’m not sure I could get used to that. However, the Oree Board 2 may make me drop that plastic keyboard like a chunk of wood, err… you know what I mean. The board itself is beautiful, crafted from a single piece of either maple or walnut, sourced from family-owned forests located in the eastern area of France. Le Point published this making of video a few years ago that looks at the lengthy process of making each one of the boards. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_bFQhOZal8 The…

The books lined the walls and hallway, some stacked, some shelved, volumes and volumes of pages oiled with time and fingers. We were not supposed to find it there, the vibrating velvet orange volume of verses. Saying it glowed, would be an understatement. Looking at it too long would start you shaking. It wasn’t the color, but what resided inside–a mix of nitrous, enriched uranium, and these links. Raphael Lacoste – The worlds of Raphael Lacoste, indeed. from icy northern lands to floating cities, and those exploring them that make you want to take their place. Open Mind – The surreal porcelain sculptures of Johnson Tsang will likely stretch your…

Our last post on MakerBot’s new print software spurred on some conversation, internally and via email. One consistent concern we get from MakerBot Replicator owners, and questions we ask as Replicator owners considering their new products, are, “Has Stratasys put effort into making MakerBot’s work more reliably and consistently?” and, “Do the new products work more reliably, with more transparent maintenance procedures?” We wanted to get these questions in front of MakerBot, and they responded right away with comments from two of their top guys. They address what MakerBot is doing in the way of testing to ensure their 3D printers are producing high quality results, how they’ve re-engineered their…

A little over a year ago, Mokacam introduced a tiny 4K camera of the same name on Indiegogo where it was successfully crowd-funded several times over before it even got near the end date. With that much success, Mokacam is back for round two with a second, smaller version of the 4K camera, aptly named Alpha, and once again, they’ve already surpassed their target goal of $25K with over three weeks left to go. Actually, Makocam is introducing two new cameras–the Alpha and the Alpha S. Both are nearly identical except for a few features (more on that in a bit). There have also been a number of upgrades since…