If materials designers and engineers keep this going who knows I could see the tech and materials in a book like ‘Lucifer’s Dragon’ (Jon Courtenay Grimwood) around in a few years

When you think of concrete you don’t think soft, inviting, or airy do you? Well you might soon with the introduction  of light transmitting concrete. A company called Litracon has produced a concrete material filled with optical fibres running from one end of a poured block to the other. These fibres effectively transmit light from one side of the block to the other, they can transmit light over a distance of 50 feet and as the fibres only occupy a vary small percentage of the block it doesn’t significantly effect the structural capabilities of the concrete. I love this material as it has so many opportunities to transform our urban landscape from something harsh and rigid into organic and artistic.

These are really just for fun, thermochromic pigments have been around for a while. The shower application is brilliant!!

?!?!? see through metal? Now I’ve seen everything. This new development is stronger than glass but still just as transparent this aluminum was made by adding in variuos bits and bobs including rubies and sapphires! For the moment it’s being trialed in various military applications and a thin foil version is being used to wrap computer and car parts that need to be protected from static. It’s not cheap enough for main stream use yet but with new developments being made all the time we might yet see the see through drinks can being sold

Aerogel is a super low density material that has incredible properties. It can support thousand of times it’s own heat, block out intense heat, cold and sound yet it’s composed of 99.8% air!!! It’s 1,000 times less dense than glass and just as transparent, a single one pound block can support half a tone of weight. Aside from its other capabilities, aerogel also has amazing absorbing abilities. Some say it could be the future solution to oil spills. It is also being tested as a possible slow-release drug deliver system for human patients.

These brilliant tea bags were designed by Takashi Yamada as an eco friendly alternative to tea lights. Just add water and you have a  beautiful glowing liquid in just about any colour. I think they’re awesome but where could you use them? Restaurants? hmmm… children would be seriously tempted to drink it… Adult only situations then like clubs? Nope not there either, drunk people are a lot like children only less sensible

 

Last but by no means least, liquid wood. Thats right you heard me correctly, liquid wood. It looks like wood, feels like wood, is even made of wood – but it shifts shape and solidifies like plastic, bringing together the most powerful material assets of two of the most used materials on the planet. It’s made from lignin, the bit of trees that is left over during the paper-making process. It’s combined with natural resins, flax and fibers that can then be injected into moulds just like plastic! Arboform, as it is known, can be made into just about anything plastic can be with the added bonus that it can break down quickly into products like water and carbon dioxide. In short: I am talking about the precision, flexibility and durability of plastic … with the 100% recyclable, renewable, tactile and aesthetic advantages of wood, in a single new material. Eat your heart out, see-through concrete and transparent aluminum!

This has to be the best wireless charger I’ve ever seen! You place the item to be charged in the ‘bird bath’ and watch the ripples of charge flow out. The level of the ‘water’ indicates the level of charge and when your device it fully charged the birds glow! Designed by Sun Kyung Kim this charger is tech meets still life sculpture.

You may think this looks a little like a chunky graphics tablet and you’d sort of be right, except it’s a toaster!

You can write your significant other, house mate or family a message on their morning toast. Anything written on the screen is burnt accurately on to the toast. Totally breakfast innovation of the century

Think again!

I came across these while I was trawling the Internet in an effort to avoid working, procrastination is occasionally so worth it

AirPenguin – autonomously flying robotic penguins

With the AirPenguins, the engineers from Festo have created artificial penguins and have taught them “autonomous flight in the sea of air”. For this purpose, control and regulating technology had to be further developed into self-regulating biomechatronic systems, which could also play a future role in adaptive production.

A group of three autonomously flying penguins hovers freely through a defined air space that is monitored by ultrasound transmission stations. The penguins are at liberty to move within this space; a microcontroller gives them free will in order to explore it.

The bionic Fin Ray® structure, derived from the anatomy of a fish’s fin, was extended here for the first time to applications in three-dimensional space. If the 3D Fin Ray® structure of the head and tail sections is transferred to the requirements of automation technology, it can be used for instance in a flexible tripod with a very large scope of operation in comparison with conventional tripods.

Excerpt from http://www.festo.com/cms/en-gb_gb/10247.htm  

Video from YouTube.com

This is not just a case of ‘cool, we made a flying penguin’ the tech involved in making the penguins so flexible can be applied in some really cool areas for example…

The Festo BionicTripod with FinGripper! (great name isn’t it)

This amazing piece of kit has taken the bionic Fin Ray® structure used in the flexible nose and tail sections of the AirPenguin and applied it to a versatile gripping device. It can grip varying irregularly shaped objects in direct sucession without needing calibration, as it is so flexible it can grip very delicate objects like the lightbulbs below. This has so many potential applications, areas that a delicate, complex grip is needed but the human hand can’t go, production lines that could produce differently shaped objects without needing a seperate peice of kit for each product. So cool.