2007_06_24_archive

Space Elevator Blog on LaserMotive Team

The Space Elevator Blog has a post about one of the Space Elevator

Games teams, LaserMotive, being visited by the BBC for a documentary.

As you might expect, LaserMotive is using a laser in their power

beaming design.

Here's a link to the LaserMotive site. You can see a number of

interesting blog posts from the team. They discuss their team needs,

high-power lasers, a near-disaster with shipping (so many teams in the

different Centennial Challenges have had problems with shipping!), and

testing. You can see videos of tests here and here.

I won't forget the sponsors that make the competitions possible in so

many cases.

I should note that the team pages site at the Elevator2010 web page

doesn't have a Home page listed for LaserMotive. Hopefully they can

get a link to the above LaserMotive site set up soon (as well as to

any other teams, if any, who may have web sites but no corresponding

links).

Posted by Ray at 8:12 PM

Labels: Beam Power

CanSat 2007 Competition Results

Pegasus News has an article about the University of Texas at

Arlington's victory at the 2007 International CanSat Competition.

Here are pictures from the 2007 version of this annual event from the

CanSat Competition web site.

See my earlier post for background information on the competition as

well as links to pictures of the event from previous years.

Posted by Ray at 7:52 PM

Labels: CanSat, events, space innovation prizes, student prizes

Cornell University Team's Plans for the 100 MPG Automotive X PRIZE

InventorSpot has a recent post on the Automotive X PRIZE challenge,

noting that making a 100 MPG vehicle is one thing, and not too

difficult already, but making a 100 MPG to meet the requirements of

the Automotive X PRIZE - requirements such as meeting standard vehicle

safety regulations, doing well in a race, and providing the types of

features that are expected in the consumer car market - is quite

another thing.

Meanwhile, the Cornell University Chronicle Online has an article

about a team from the university that plans to compete for the

challenge. The team already includes professor and graduate student

talent from the Sibley School or Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering,

as well as the business school. It also has already received

sponsorship from Popular Mechanics, which plans to cover the team, as

well as the Engineering school, GE, First Manhattan, and the Roy H.

Park Foundation. This is a great example of how prizes can be managed

by the prize sponsor as well as the competitors to get more results

than one might expect just from the dollar amount of the prize.

AutoBlogGreen also has an article on the TechKnow forum on Alternative