technabob » engine

747 jet bed: just try and sleep with all that engine noise

technabob — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:21:53 +0000

How’d you like to curl up for a nice nap inside the engine cowl of a 747? Well ask, and ye shall receive…

The madmen over at MotoArt have taken the engine nacell from a decommissioned 747 jet engine and turned it curvy metal headboard. The bed has an 84″ diameter round mattress and boxspring that set perfectly inside the bifurcated engine jacket. And to make sure you don’t slice your head open on the aluminum edge, they’ve thoughtfully cover the sharp metal edges with some Plexiglas. For each bed, MotoArt cleans up the engine cowl’s paintjob and carefully polishes each one to a shiny mirror finish so you can look at yourself first thing in the morning.

Engine not included.

strenco st-2 steambot: your own steam powered robot

technabob — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 13:00:32 +0000

Batteries schmatteries. Electricity shmelectricity. Who needs modern energy sources when you can have scalding hot steam to power your gadgets? This unique robot from Germany gets its juice from good old H2O.

Strenco’s ST-2 Steambot lumbers along thanks to a tiny copper Wilesco steam engine that’s been implanted in his chest cavity.

Now don’t expect to just flip a switch to get this retro robot going. You’ll need pop his head off, fill him up with water, and light a tiny (stinky) Esbit fire in his belly before his mechanical innards get started.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

And despite the wild gyrations of his internal steam engine, the robot moves at a snail’s pace once up to full speed.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Only 300 of these $600 (USD) limited-edition Steambots were created, so good luck finding one. A couple of places to start on your robot quest include MiniSteam, ManuFactum and General Robots.

tech demos from next-gen star wars game

technabob — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 14:11:16 +0000

The folks over at LucasArts are showing off some pretty cool new tech that’s planned for the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, planned for next-generation consoles.

The first video shows off the enhanced AI engine (called “Euphoria”) which provides each enemy with a “central nervous system,” which makes them intelligent and emotional reactions to stimuli in their environment:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The second video shows off “Digital Molecular Matter,” which provides objects with much more realistic physical properties than seen in other game engines. Surfaces such as wood don’t simply break into pre-determined pieces, they actually splinter and fragment like they would in real life:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

It’s pretty amazing what the hardware in today’s gaming systems can enable. Let’s hope these technologies make it to the final game, and that other developers follow suit.

[via TechEBlog]