"The Lab in the Corner"Ode
to test engineers and the role they play in product quality, by Test & Measurement
Magazine's Senior Technical Editor Martin Rowe.
Rube Goldberg
A video collection of really clever
Rube Goldberg mechanisms.
Control the Show
Control the Show is a unique Christmas display which allows anyone
in the world with a computer connection to log on and control the lights. We are
currently live each night from 5pm until midnight until New Year's Day.
This year the Virginia Tech /
Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences (SBES)
has been generous enough to sponsor the entire show!
![Salt patterns on a membrane being driven by an audio speaker - RF Cafe](images/salt_patterns_on_membrane.jpg) ![Here's another switching station circuit breaker opening video. I've actually watched one of these things opening - RF Cafe](../images/circuit_breaker.jpg) Watch the salt patterns on the membrane change in response to varying
frequencies. It gives me terrifying flashbacks of physics exams with Bessel equations.
You will have to sit through a commercial first, but it is worth it! Click here
to see lightning strike a Boeing 747 airplane. Here's another switching station
circuit breaker opening video. I've actually watched one of these things opening
- way cool.
University
of Iowa Farm Machine Music
This is just amazing - a work of genius! Click on either image to
view the video. This incredible video has been passed around the Internet as a real-life
contraption. The myth is repeated widely; indeed, I received it in an e-mail from
a friend that believed it to be real. The first thing I did was look at the University
of Iowa website for the named music and engineering schools, and of course they
did not exist. Here is the text that goes with the video clip:
"This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between the Robert
M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the
University of Iowa. Amazingly, 97% of the machines components came from John Deere
Industries and Irrigation Equipment of Bancroft Iowa, yes farm equipment!
It
took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment, calibration, and tuning
before filming this video but as you can see it was WELL worth the effort.
It is now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the University and
is already slated to be donated to the Smithsonian."
The real source of the video is the Animusic
company. Amazon has the best price on the DVD set - please
click here.
"It's an eyesore." "It's a monstrosity." Whiny neighbors in an exclusive
Lubbock, TX development want to take down this 40-year Ham's antenna. The FCC protects
him. Score one for the good guys!
Cloak of Invisibility at Duke University. "The cloak would act like
you've opened up a hole in space," said David R. Smith, professor of electrical
and computer engineering at Duke's Pratt School.
Watch a teardown
of the Sony PlayStation 3 by Semiconductor Insights
Swiss
veteran combat and commercial airline pilot Yves Rossy has done the "impossible."
Really cool slide show of construction of the "Gateway Arch" in St.
Louis.
Wicked cool! This is a video with a little sound, so you might want
to turn down your speaker volume.
Digital Phosphor Technology
(DPX™)
(video link below)
This is NOT a paid advertisement for Tektronix, but after reading about this
new technology in an article in RF Design magazine and then visiting the Tektronix
website, I felt a duty to bring it to your attention.
Shown
above is a couple screen captures of one of the videos available on the Tektronix
website. It pits an Agilent E4440A PSA against the Tektronix RSA6100 RSA with Digital
Phosphor Technology (DPX™). The signal is a signal that is experiencing an infrequent
frequency hop due to a faulty PLO. The DPX display not only captures more information
in less time, but it uses color coding to imply the relative length of time a signal
dwells at a particular frequency. Hotter colors (more duration) are redder, and
cooler colors (less duration) are bluer. Click on the image above to select narrated
videos of a number of different scenarios on ISM band and radar signals.
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