Peter’s dad floated the idea five years earlier. An aquarium sounded nice, yet the feeding schedule and water changes did not. The comment lingered until Peter teamed up with Filip on the CPSdrone project to build something better. Small submarine-like machines now patrol a glass tank in place of live fish. Each one carries its own motors, battery, and controller inside a sealed body. They move on command or follow simple rules that keep them cruising without constant human input.
Chris Graue has a track record of pairing forgotten game hardware with actual camera gear. A Super Nintendo on a tripod came first. His latest project pushed the idea much harder by bolting a 1998 Game Boy Camera onto the 60-inch telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory. The camera carries a sensor that records only 128 pixels across and four shades of gray. Those numbers sound impossible for anything beyond a toy, yet the rig delivered a clear view of Jupiter that shows the planet’s banded atmosphere and the clean curve of its edge.
Daniel Riley spends his days turning ordinary hardware into machines that do more than expected. His latest project takes a small four-stroke engine of the type found on string trimmers and connects it to an electric motor normally used in skateboards. The result is a compact generator that produces up to 780 watts of electrical power. Installed in a boat, the assembly becomes the core of a hybrid drivetrain built around one clear goal: keep the gasoline engine running where it works best while the electric side manages everything else.
Space missions have long been constrained by the amount of propellant rockets can haul off the launch pad. NASA sees a path around that limit through refueling stops once a craft reaches orbit. Engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama recently put a new connector through its first serious checks. The device, called a cryocoupler, would let two spacecraft link up so one can pass super-cold liquid fuel to the other while both float in space.
China’s Guizhou province has once again made a name for itself by going overboard with extreme infrastructure; the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge is a new addition to the list as the world’s highest bridge, with its roadway dangling 625 meters over the Bei Pan River. Drivers may pass by in about a minute flat, which represents a big improvement over historic mountain roads and ferry crossings that used to take more than an hour if they were fortunate.