Shell Eco-marathon

The Shell Eco-marathon challenges high school and college student teams from around the world to design, build and test energy efficient vehicles. With annual events in the Americas, Europe and Asia, the winners are the teams that go the farthest distance using the least amount of energy.

More information:
http://www.shell.com/home/content/ecomarathon/

Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger?

Is it a hopping dredger or is it named after its inventor?

No, it is a swimming dredger used to excavate easily removable sediments such as sand. The self-driven cargo hold suction dredger removes solid material from the bottom of waters through trailing heads and pumps it into the hopper tanks in the ship through a suction pipe. Among others, the hopper dredger is used to deepen ship channels.

The biggest hopper dredger so far is the Vasco da Gama, built in 2000. It was also used for the construction of the Palm Islands of Dubai.

http://www.shipcad.com/en/03_ref_vdg.php


Image source: Wikimedia "Crestway"

"The new mechanical wagon with the awful name automobile has come to stay..." New York Times (1897 article)

The New York Times' mention of the name automobile was the first public use of the term by the media and helped to popularize that name for motor vehicles. However the credit for the name automobile goes to a 14th century Italian painter and engineer named Martini. Martini never built an automobile but he did draw plans for a man-powered carriage with four wheels. Martini thought up the name automobile from the Greek word, "auto," (meaning self) and the Latin word, "mobilis," (meaning moving).
The other popular name for an automobile is the car. The word car is derived from Celtic word "carrus," (meaning cart or wagon).

link: inventors.about.com

Pre-college science competition

Society for Science and the Public (SSP) and Intel hosted the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair 2011 in Los Angeles on May 8-13. The Intel ISEF is the world's largest international pre-college science competition for students in grades 9–12.



It provides an annual forum for more than 1,500 high school students from 65 countries, regions, and territories to showcase their independent research as they compete for over $4 million annually.

This years top prize winners were Matthew Feddersen and Blake Marggraff from Lafayette, Calif.. They won the Gordon E. Moore Award, and $75,000, for developing a potentially more effective and less expensive cancer treatment that places tin metal near a tumor before radiation therapy.

The next ISEF will take place in May 13-18, 2012 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Here you can find more information:

http://www.societyforscience.org/intelisef2012

As light as a feather

... with a weight of 120 kg including batteries Elektra One is a real ultralight aircraft. The one-seater can fly about 400 km with a maximum flight time of three hours. Elektra is driven by an electric motor HPD13.5 from Geiger Engineering with a weight of 4.7 kg and a power of 16 kW.

In March 2011 the aircraft completed its first test flight. In summer 2011 the PC-Aero team wants to participate with Elektro One in the NASA-/CAFE-Green Flight Challenge competition in California. Two and four-seater variants are planned for the future.

Click here for more information:
http://www.aircraft-certification.de/

Every gramme counts

... when it comes to fuel-saving driving. The company Elmoto shows how you can make even a scooter lighter and protect the environment. The 45 kg light electric scooter of the company holds an L1E approval allowing to travel "from A to B" at 45 km/h with a clear conscience. Here we go - for a price of € 4,498.

Click here for details: http://elmoto.com/en/

Driving a car using thought control instead of a steering wheel?

An iPhone, iPad or even thought-controlled car - this is made possible using technology which was developed for autonomous cars. It proves: In the future artificial intelligence will find its way into traffic - but only from the passenger seat.



Further information about the project AutoNOMOS:

http://autonomos.inf.fu-berlin.de/

Who is that - the solution

The Nobel Prize winner who wanted mankind to benefit from his discovery is Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen.



Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (27 March 1845 – 10 February 1923) was a German physicist, who, on 8 November 1895, produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range today known as X-rays or Röntgen rays, an achievement that earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.

Following transliteration conventions for characters accented by an umlaut, "Röntgen" in English is spelled "Roentgen", and that is the usual rendering found in English-language scientific and medical references.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_R%C3%B6ntgen

Who is that?

He was the first physicist who was awarded a Nobel Prize and refused to take out patents on his discovery.

Maverick – the flying car

A driving car is just too boring for you and you have 80,000 euros and don't know how to spend them? Just invest your money into Maverick, the second flying car since 1956. The tandem designed two-seater gets off the ground with a propeller and a parachute. The small craft can fly on one tankful for about 2.5 hours at 65 kilometres per hour.



Click here for more information:
http://itecusa.org/maverick.html