Podcasts and Vodcasts by Topic
Sound
Meet the Hexapod Robot - September 28, 2009
Matt Bunting is an Electrical Engineering student at the University of Arizona. He built his first robot when he was 11 years old. In this video he demonstrates his six legged robot known as a hexapod. He began building this hexapod when he was still in high school. It is controlled by a wireless Playstation controller with motion sensitivity.
Oh and he also wrote the background music.
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Rubberized Roads - April 24, 2009
Acoustical Engineers Rubberize Roads to Quiet Highway Noise.
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Doppler Radar Tracking Babies - April 10, 2009
Electrical and Computer Engineers Monitor Baby's Breathing with Doppler Radar
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Dolphins, Bats and Scientists Help the Blind - March 27, 2009
Cognitive scientists and artificial intelligence experts constructed a device that may help the visually impaired by using ultrasonic sounds
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Big Quakes Trigger Small Quakes - February 06, 2009
Seismologists Find Large Earthquakes Can Trigger Smaller Ones in Unlikely Locations
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The Plane Truth about Birds - January 16, 2009
A radar system that alerts birds can help prevent collisions
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Man-Made Diamonds - March 01, 2007
New and improved technology has now made growing diamonds cost-competitive with mining them. Diamond-making machines subject a graphite-carbon core and a diamond seed at a pressure of 850,000 PSI for four days, recreating conditions similar to those 100 miles below the earth's surface. The lab-grown diamonds that come out are optically, chemically and physically identical to those that occur in nature.
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Sonic Golf Club - July 01, 2005
A new golf club uses motion-detection sensors and wireless technology to coach players through the use of sound. A golfer can "hear" the speed of the swing in wireless headphones, and adjust swings accordingly. Professional golfers generate the loudest, highest-pitch sounds. Most golfers say they see improvements within 15 minutes.
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New Combat Helmet - July 01, 2005
Wearing a helmet can make it hard to figure which direction sounds -- such as gunfire -- is coming from. Soldiers in Iraq are using a new helmet, called the Advanced Combat Helmet, which is padded internally to prevent sound from reverberating and masking its direction of origin.
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Jaw Bone - November 01, 2004
A new cell phone blocks out background noise by determining the difference between background noise and the vibrations from a user's voice. The phone's headset contains a mini-circuit board and signal processors that use mathematical formulas to figure out which sounds are the user's speech, then weeds out the other noise.
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Take a Swing - August 01, 2003
Computer simulations and lab experiments are helping scientists understand what makes a good swing. When a baseball bat hits the ball in what players call its "sweet spot," less energy goes into making the bat vibrate and more goes into the ball, making it go further. The researchers have also studied the differences between wooden and aluminum bats.
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