Marek Kubiak

Computer Controlled Orchestra

smarterplanet: Making Cheaper, Better Windmills | Fast Company GOAL: Cheaper, Better Windmills PROJECT: Makani Airborne Wind Turbine (aka the Flying Windmill) ThesisWind power can be cheaper than solar and greener than coal, which bodes well for the $77 billion (and counting) annual market. But turbines are clunky and expensive—both huge barriers to adoption. So what if they soared like kites? MethodMakani built a carbon-fiber wing, with triblade propellers to mimic traditional windmills. The gizmo, which flies in circles, is tethered to the ground by a wire that transmits the electricity its propellers generate. Onboard sensors and a computer chip work automatically to direct its path. “Once the blade gets high enough, it can coast without help from a motor,” says CEO Corwin Hardham. “It flies by hitting the wind flow perpendicularly, like a kite.”

smarterplanet:

Making Cheaper, Better Windmills | Fast Company

GOAL: Cheaper, Better Windmills

PROJECT: Makani Airborne Wind Turbine (aka the Flying Windmill)

Thesis
Wind power can be cheaper than solar and greener than coal, which bodes well for the $77 billion (and counting) annual market. But turbines are clunky and expensive—both huge barriers to adoption. So what if they soared like kites?

Method
Makani built a carbon-fiber wing, with triblade propellers to mimic traditional windmills. The gizmo, which flies in circles, is tethered to the ground by a wire that transmits the electricity its propellers generate. Onboard sensors and a computer chip work automatically to direct its path. “Once the blade gets high enough, it can coast without help from a motor,” says CEO Corwin Hardham. “It flies by hitting the wind flow perpendicularly, like a kite.”

(via emergentfutures)

twicr: Egg-Bot is proof positive that we truly are living in a post-robopocalyptic hellscape. 

twicr:

Egg-Bot is proof positive that we truly are living in a post-robopocalyptic hellscape. 

twicr:

Letting a robot armed with electric razors come at you? Yes, that sounds like a perfectly fine idea.

(Źródło: spectrum.ieee.org)