You are probably looking at this picture of the Stinger 609 supercharged V8 by Conley Precision Engines trying to figure out what’s so special about it. It will be tough to see because there isn’t a scale reference for the engine’s size. The “609” in the engine’s name stands for 6.09 cubic inches which translates to a little less than 100 cubic centimeters. To put everything in perspective, the Stinger 609 is a little over 14 inches long and 10 inches tall with the supercharger and dual carburetors. Other features include a dry sump oiling system, full ignition system and an integrated electric starter. The naturally aspirated version makes 5.5 hp at 9500 rpm and the supercharger bumps the power figure to 7 hp. Pricing is $5700 for the NA version and $7400 for the supercharged Stinger. Check out the dyno stand run below:
Hopefully you have built one of these simple electromagnets somewhere along your journey to become an educated human being. If you understand the basic principle of how an electromagnet works, then you can understand how wireless inductive charging works. In an electromagnet, the flow of electrons (current) causes a magnetic field. The magnetic field forms at a right angle to the direction of the current (the right hand rule). That means as the current flows in a circle around the nail (the fingers of your right hand wrap around the nail), the magnetic field forms along the nail (your right thumb points in the direction of the magnetic field) putting the poles on either end of the nail. If you’ve built one of these basic nail magnets, then you intuitively understand this already.
Here’s the really cool part. This relationship between current and magnetism works in reverse. A fluctuating magnetic field will also create a current in an otherwise dormant wire. Sustain the situation and you will eventually produce enough current to charge a battery. This is usually done with two coils of wire similar to the ones you wrapped around that nail to make an electromagnet. One of the coils is hooked to a power source and the other coil is hooked to whatever it is you’re trying to charge. The coil connected to the power source becomes an electromagnet that is switched on and off at very high frequency. This transforms the electrical energy into a usable form of magnetic energy. When the second coil is in range of the fluctuating magnetic field of the first coil, it transforms the magnetic energy back into electrical energy like an inverse electromagnet. Rapidly turning the electromagnet on and off allows you to broadcast energy as a magnetic field that can travel through the air without a physical wire connection. Check out this video from Veritasium to see how these principles were first discovered and a rad magically illuminated floating grill that would be perfect in a science nerd man cave.
I’ve already posted videos of the loading and landing of Space Shuttle Endeavour’s final flight, but this a different perspective of the journey. This video was shot from one of the escort FA-18 Hornets as they flew over Southern California. There’s cockpit audio so you can hear the pilot speak to the videographer and point out the attractions they’re flying over.
The Space Shuttle Endeavour took it’s last flight last weekend on the back of a Boeing 747 to Los Angeles to take its place in the California Science Center. Here are a couple of videos of the last flight that I found on Gizmodo commemorating the occasion.
The first video is a time lapse of the shuttle being mounted to the transport plane:
The second video is high speed footage of the landing at LAX under the escort of a couple of FA-18 Hornets:
Check out this a video from Ben Krasnow on YouTube. This is the first I’ve heard of him, but he seems to be a tinkerer and a maker based on the rest of his channel. Here he’s demonstrating a hybrid rocket engine that’s fueled by acrylic and gaseous oxygen that he built himself. It makes for a super cool demonstration because he’s able to throttle the combustion process with the oxygen valve and you can see the burn happen through the clear acrylic. The engine is incredibly simple and amazing at the same time. Building and playing with one of these really should be integrated into a school curriculum somewhere if we’re serious about jump starting our Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education. This is the stuff that captures peoples’ imaginations which then get crushed when they go to college and have to spend all night doing over-idealized calculations on hilariously impractical situations like cooling a live electrical wire in oil.
