Shipping containers are cool. Here I drew one in Sketchup. I used a corrugated metal texture and the dimensions are 8 x 20 feet floor and 8.5 feet high, what’s called a TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit).
I’ve decided to table Blender until next month. It turns out that Sketchup is useful for more than 3D printing, it can express engineering ideas in a very crisp fashion.
Here’s a Sketchup drawing of a Falcon 9 rocket that I put together in about half an hour (the drawing, that is, the rocket takes longer to put together). The dimensions are way off because I just eyeballed it. Practice run, but it shows that I know how to make cones and attach objects to one another.
Here’s my Sketchup design for a DS game holder. You stick the games in the slots so that you can keep several out of their cases at one time for easy switching.
What this country needs is a good soap dish design. First, you need to elevate the soap from the dish so that it does not soak in its own scum. Then you need to keep the soap from slipping off the tray.
It’s a simple design, which I whipped out a couple months ago for Makerbot, before learning that Sketchup doesn’t export to STL. But at least I can paintbucket and smooth it for blog display.
Internet AI still has a ways to go before it gets a clue. For example, I was reading the chapter on oscillators in Digital Electronics Demystified and wondered how much a 555 timer chip costs. So I went to Yahoo search and got this as the top link:
As I mentioned in a previous post on quantum dots, I hadn’t seen anything in Wil McCarthy’s Hacking Matter about using artificial atoms as enzymes to facilitate biochemical processes. Well, the discussion is on page 160.
I wonder about the statement, “More than a thousand different enzymes have been identified . . . . ” Isn’t it more like several thousand?
I’m reading Hacking Matter by Wil McCarthy, and am looking for the killer app for programmable atoms. Sure, it’s great that you can switch from copper to iron, but how often do you need that? And a house that can turn invisible is swell, but that’s entertaining for about five minutes. Granted, that’s longer than I could stay interested in Lost or American Idol, but is it worth reading a book about?
One possible app I haven’t seen so far is the possibility of using programmable atoms as enzymes. Instead of giant refineries and chemical processing plants, you could produce any kind of chemical reaction by simply running the basic chemicals along wafers of programmed artificial atoms. Now, that would be magic, but I see no mention. Is that because the developers of programmable matter aren’t thinking in terms of chemical engineering, or because there’s no prospect there?
I’m reading Digital Electronics Demystified as a refresher. I have a degree in electrical engineering, but it’s been over thirty years since I graduated, and I’ve forgotten a lot.
Surprisingly, judging by this book, a lot hasn’t changed. I recognize topics like Karnaugh maps, for example. But I wonder, don’t they have programs to do that now?
I remember that I spent long hours working on circuit analysis while in college, only never to touch the stuff after I graduated. Then, a few years later, there was a point-and-click GUI circuit analysis package available for the PC for only a few hundred dollars. All that time and money wasted to learn something of no practical value to my engineering career.
I wonder how much digital logic design is being done these days, insofar as microcontroller chips are so cheap and can do all the logic via software.
Well, if you’re my age or older, you know that in the movie The Graduate, the title character is advised on his career prospects with one word, “Plastics.” Actually, for the late sixties, the word should have been, “Microelectronics.”
Anyhow, I suspect that in the near term, the word will be plastics. After the dollar collapses, China will no longer be churning out stuff for the US, so we Americans will have to revitalize our manufacturing industry, and plastics manufacturing in particular.
In that regard, I’m reading a book called The Production and Properties of Plastics. It was written in 1947, so it’s kind of an historical introduction to the industry. What’s most interesting is the organic source of so many plastics — ground walnut shells, skim milk, things you’d never think of.
On the uninteresting but possibly important side is the names of so many plastics and chemical compounds that are being thrown at me. I’m not even sure what urea is, and that’s only four letters. At least I’ve learned the difference between thermosetting (sets permanently with temperature) and thermoplastic (sets repeatedly with temperature), and that there are five components of plastic: binder, filler, color, lubricant, and accelerator. Who knew?
More importantly, why would they want to know? Well, I have a suspicion that if 3D printing takes off, knowing the properties of plastic might come in handy. But don’t give me a pop quiz on this book. A lot of it is just a blur at this point. And yes, I intend to read something more modern, as soon as I finish this one.
I’m reading The Wright Brothers: A Biography, by Fred Kelly. It’s the only authorized biography of the Wright Brothers. I’ve read two books on the Wrights before this, but this one really gets into the technical aspects.
It’s really surprising how little scientific, technical, and engineering work was done on flight before the Wrights, and how much of what was done was simply wrong.
Here are a couple of bicycle mechanics who never graduated from high school, and they are inventing the field of aeronautical engineering.
Anyhow, I’m up to the part where they flew. The reaction of most newspaper editors at the time was (a) it didn’t happen or (b) if it did it wasn’t important.
Engineer Zero 