My English Diary: What if 3D printing was 100x faster?

Joseph DeSimone, chemist and inventor, spoke about the potential of 3D printing.

He worked for the last two years in the additive manufacturing area. 

In the video below he showed a particular piece witch was very complex. It is not manufacturable by traditional manufacturing techniques. It is manufacturable by 3D printing, but most 3D printers would take at least 3-4 hours to fabricate it.

DeSimone said 3D printing was a misnomer.; it is in fact 2D printing over and over, in fact it used the technologies associated with 2D printing.

He and his staff of inventors (2 chemists, 2 material scientists and one physicist) began to be interested in 3D printing and inspired by “Terminator 2” where an object (T-1000) arise out of a puddle in real time.

Their challenge was to create a 3D printer like “Terminator 2”, 

but they had to solved a big issue:

Velocity: “there are mushrooms that grow faster than 3D printed part” he joked. 

The layer by layer process is very slowly, if we expedited this process, we would be allowed to start using materials that are "self-curing". 

They started to use a polymer to harness light and oxygen to make parts grow. They used light to convert liquid resin to a solid and the oxygen instead, to inhibit this process.

They made a CLIP (Continuous Liquid Interface Production) consisting of three parts:

1. -          A reservoir that holds a puddle, just like the T-1000;
2. -          A special window at the bottom of the reservoir. This window is a composite. It's not only transparent to light, but it’s permeable to oxygen like a contact lens.
3. -          A digital ultraviolet light projection system under the window.

After that they made a sophisticated software to control the production process and the many variables like oxygen content, the light, the light intensity, the viscosity and the geometry of the piece to make.

The result was staggering. This machine was 25-100 times faster than a traditional 3D printer, with the possibility to go faster in the future (they believe almost 1000 times faster).

In addition, they eliminated the layer and the parts were monolithic. 

They could make pieces with great mechanical properties like high elasticity, high dampening, incredible strength or high strength to weight ratio.

Link: What if 3D printing was 100x faster?

My English Diary: Star Trek Beyond plot

 

After three years of five-years trip had passed, the federal starship USS Enterprise arrives at spacebase called Yorktown which receives a distress call from a nearby uncharted nebula. The rescue turns into an ambush when the USS Enterprise is attached by a massive swarm of small alien ships under the command of Krall (the new dangerous enemy). Krall and his crew board the ship to search for a relic called "Abramath" which Kirk (the captain of Enterprise) obtained in a previous mission. The Enterprise was destroyed and its surviving crew makes an emergency landing in a nearby planet.

On the planet's surface, Sulu, Uhura, and other survivors are captured by Krall. The chief engineer Scott is rescued by Jaylah, an alien who previously escaped Krall's encampment. The girl decides to help the Enterprise survivors. She lives in the USS Franklin, a Starfleet vessel reported missing over a century earlier wicth it was the first to pass warp 4. Scott is reunited with Kirk, Chekov, McCoy, and Spock. Using the ship as a base, they organize raid on Krall's camp and transport the crew to the Franklin, then repair the ship and escape from the planet.

Kirk and the other federation officials discover that Krall's plan is to make an all out massive ship attack, swarming on the Yorktown station and killing a lot of people with ancient biological weapons.
The crew drive the Franklin until Yorktown to stop the deadly swarm. Scott transports Spock and McCoy into one of Krall's ships. After killing the pilot, they learn that VHF transmissions can  destroy his swarm fleet. Krall and his surviving officers crash in Yorktown. Kirk follows Krall into Yorktown's ventilation system, where Krall activates the bioweapon. Kirk at the last moment ejects Krall and the weapon into space. Krall was beaten and the crew awaits the costruction of their new ship, USS Enterprise-A before starting out an a mission.

Directed by	Justin Lin
Produced by	J. J. Abrams Roberto Orci Lindsey Weber Justin Lin
Written by	Simon Pegg Doug Jung
Based on	Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry

NB: For lover of Star Trek there is a good news. Star Trek Discover is coming.




"Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilization, to boldly go where no one has gone before…"

My English Diary: How we''ll find life on other planets

To search another planet in the universe where life exists is not easy.
To do this some astronomers follow this rule:

• the planets should have "flowing water"
• it must orbit at the right distance from its star

But this is not correct. There are many other factors besides distance from its star that control whether a planet can support life.

Take for example Venus, its distance is inside the parameters but measurements revealed a different story. The surface temperature is 500 degrees Celsius.
It's also important to consider the dimension of the planet and the atmosphere.
But to studying atmosphere there is a big issue: the distance between the planets and us.
In order to know the atmosphere of these planets we need to show how the light is reflected or absorbed. This determins the colors of these planets.
But is very difficult because it's like "trying to see a fruit fly passing in front a car's headlight. Imagine that car is 100 trillion miles away and you want to know the precise color of that fly"
So a computer model was made to calculate the kind of planets atmosphere would need to host life.

Link: How we'll find life on other planet

My English Diary: String Theory

Last week we spoke about what string theory is and why this theory is important.

To understand string theory, it's important to know that the universe consists of four forces:

• gravity
• electron-magnetism
• weak nuclear
• strong nuclear

To describe the universe's laws, physicists have made two fundamental theories:

1. the general theory of relativity(originated by Einstein's mind) is a theory which describes the rule of the universe at the grandest scale;
2. quantum physics studies the very smallest objects in nature; 

String theory attempt to unify the four forces in the universe with quantum physics and relativity laws into one unified theory.

String theory is a work in progress but now the key string theory feature includes:

• all objects in nature are composed of vibration filament (string) and membrane (branes) of energy;
• this theory attempt to reconcile general relativity with quantum physics;
• a new connection (called super-symmetry) exists between two fundamentally different type of particles: bosons and fermions. Under super-symmetry a fermion must exists for every boson and vice-versa. At now these extra particles haven't detected;
• extra dimensions to the universe must exist but usually invisible (unobservable);
• parallel universe can be possible;

But why is string theory so important?

We don't know. Today string theory probably has no practical application. Although we spend billion of dollar on particles accelerator or research of satellite programs. This is no reason to think that string theory can give us something practical, bat this is the physics theories.

In 10 years this theory might open the door to new incredible technology.

Link: Michio Kaku: The Universe in a Nutshell

My English Diary: How to escape education's death valley

Ken Robinson spoke about the dropout and american's wrong method to try to improve education.
For Robinson, America spends enough money for education. The trouble is that this money is spent in the wrong way.

American education is based on conformity, not diversity, but all the human beings are different and diverse.

A real education has to give equal weight for all subjects (arts, science, math or physical education). Furthermore human beings curious, curiosity is the natural way to learn.

"Curiosity is the engine of achievement "

Most important is the role of the teacher. Great teachers are not only a teachers, but also mentors and stimulators. The task of a teacher is to facilitate learning.

Another big trouble is that the dominant culture of education has come to focus on not teaching and learning but testing.
Children and teachers are encouraged to follow routine algorithms rather than excite the imagination and curiosity.

The solutions for a good education are:

• individualize teaching and learning. The educational system has to engage the students, their curiosity, their individuality and their creativity;
• Attribute a very high status to the teaching profession. Investing in professional development is not a cost;
• Delegate responsability at the school level. The education happens in classrooms and schools between teachers and students, not in committee rooms in legislative buildings;

Link: How to escape education's death valley

Usare DLL generate con Framework 2.0 in applicazioni 4.0

E' un problema che ti fa sbattere la testa sul muro per più volte. Mi è successo con la DLL della Matrix Vision per la gestione delle camere con .NET. Se si utilizza Visual Studio 2010 l'errore generato è il seguente:

Mixed mode assembly is built against version 'v2.0.50727' of the runtime and cannot be loaded in the 4.0 runtime without additional configuration information

La soluzione è semplicemente quella di aggiungere delle specifiche alla configurazione del vostro progetto.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
    <startup useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true">
        <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.0"/>
    </startup>
</configuration>

Queste righe devono essere inserite nel file App.conf, se non trovate dovete crearlo in Aggiungi\Nuovo elemento e selezionare File di configurazione dell'applicazione.