Month: March 2015

3D printing, CeBIT 2015, cutting edge technology

CeBIT Trade Fair 2015, Day 4 and closing notes

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13:45

The weather kept up but there was a brisk breeze as we headed out to the Messe for the final visit. By now we had been to all the halls and seen all that was available, and the purpose of this day was to go and check out some things again.

I spent two hours checking the multitude of Chinese thingamajigs and whatchamacallits, most with Bluetooth if not gigabit LAN. It’s amazing what they have come up with, and were I in the market for importing USB connectors or cabling or selfie sticks, I’d have been in heaven. It was interesting as it was, don’t get me wrong. Like this Taiwanese window washing robot.

Continue reading CeBIT Trade Fair 2015, Day 4 and closing notes →

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CeBIT 2015, Haaga-Helia

CeBIT 2015, Day 4 and closing notes

By

The weather kept up but there was a brisk breeze as we headed out to the Messe for the final visit. By now we had been to all the halls and seen all that was available, and the purpose of this day was to go and check out some things again.

I spent two hours checking the multitude of Chinese thingamajigs and whatchamacallits, most with Bluetooth if not gigabit LAN. It’s amazing what they have come up with, and were I in the market for importing USB connectors or cabling or selfie sticks, I’d have been in heaven. It was interesting as it was, don’t get me wrong. Like this Taiwanese window washing robot.

http://youtu.be/oGTwL5Jzgxo Continue reading CeBIT 2015, Day 4 and closing notes →

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3D printing, CeBIT 2015, cutting edge technology

CeBIT Trade Fair 2015, Day 3

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On Wednesday we hopped on the commuter train 8 again in the direction of Messe Nord. It’s very handy to have the hotel right by the railway station from which the trains leave for CeBIT and also for Hamburg tomorrow.

When I see men in lederhosen with traditional musical instruments, I can’t resist the urge to start this day’s blog with a video.

Continue reading CeBIT Trade Fair 2015, Day 3 →

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3D printing, CeBIT 2015, cutting edge technology

CeBIT Trade Fair 2015, Day 2

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Another sunny day here in Hannover.

Sunny morning
Sunny morning

We went to the fair around ten this morning, and I started from halls 1 and 2. Mostly filled with IBM and other very large companies, but it was interesting nevertheless. IBM was trying to get back into academic co-operation (apparently Microsoft has ousted them from the close relationship they had previously, so my business card was hot stuff). Continue reading CeBIT Trade Fair 2015, Day 2 →

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3D printing, CeBIT 2015, cutting edge technology

CeBIT Trade Fair 2015, Day 1

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Haaga-Helia sees it fit to send teachers to trade fairs to sniff out the latest trends in IT. This year it was my turn to join the team and fly out to Hamburg, then take the train to Hannover where the gigantic expo is held every year. Together with two colleagues I signed in at the fair around noon today and will spend four days walking around. This is what I found today.

Quadcopter with ordinary iPhone or Android phone as control
Quadcopter with ordinary iPhone or Android phone as control

The first thing that got my eye was this very light quad. It has a HD 1080 camera, a 9 volt battery driving the four tiny motors, and an endurance of 10 minutes. Continue reading CeBIT Trade Fair 2015, Day 1 →

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3D printing, Blender, Haaga-Helia, Minifactory

Trebuchet, or counterweight catapult, part I

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Finished print assembled and loaded

For some time now, I have been thinking of printing a trebuchet. On Youtube you see massive trebuchets capable of hurling a flaming piano (!) to a distance of 200 meters, or trailer-based versions used in pumpkin-throwing contests. This sort of machinery is clearly beyond my MiniFactories and even the Print-Rite model I was handed the other week, but a small one should be within reason.

As always I first tried an unstable one before hitting on the right design. The first version seemed fine in Blender, and I was thinking of creating a system with many separate parts to maximize size. The first version looks like this in Blender:

V1.0 in Blender
V1.0 in Blender

Continue reading Trebuchet, or counterweight catapult, part I →

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3D printing, Autodesk Inventor, Minifactory

Quick but not dirty printing

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So, my son scavenged two 320GB drives from two laptops that were not very functional. He had space inside his own cavernous computer for them, and even a drive cage where he could fix the 2.5″ drives side by side. He screwed the drives onto the cage and it looked solid enough, but surely it’d look even better if there was something holding the tops of the drives. It was also a question of having space for the connectors, because this is not a standard layout, but would enable him to install both at one go. Continue reading Quick but not dirty printing →

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