Lifeboat Foundation

Keyed locks are relatively easy to pick if you’ve spent enough time mastering the skill. But researchers at the National University of Singapore have just made it even easier. If you can use a smartphone to record a sound, you can capture all the information you need to create a working duplicate of a key.

The newfound vulnerability – although it’s more a case of modern technology compromising an outdated technology – was discovered by cyberphysical systems researcher Soundarya Ramesh and a team at the National University of Singapore. The attack, called SpiKey, works on what are known as pin tumbler locks that are opened using a key with a unique ridge pattern on its edge. As the key slides into the lock, the ridges push six metal spring-backed pins to different heights which, when all are properly aligned, allow a tumbler to turn and a lock to be opened. They’re one of the most common types of locks out there, used in everything from doors to padlocks, which makes this attack especially concerning.

To open a pin tumbler lock without the key, a locksmith (or lock pick) uses a specialised set of tools to manually adjust the height of each pin, one by one, until they figure out the unique arrangement needed for the tumbler to turn. The SpiKey technique is magnitudes easier, and requires little to no special skills, aside from the ins and outs of operating a 3D printer.

U.S. Army researchers have teamed with Texas A&M University to create a new polymer material that can shape-shift and autonomously heal itself as part of a research effort to improve future unmanned air and robotic vehicles.

In early research, the first-of-its-kind, 3D-printable epoxy-based material can respond to stimuli, and researchers hope it will one day have embedded intelligence allowing it to adapt to its environment without any external control, according to a news release from Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s (CCDC) Army Research Laboratory.

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Unlike a traditional rocket engine, which consists of individually designed parts that are combined together the AI designed rocket engine was 3D printed as one continuous piece. This includes both the combustion chamber where fuel and oxidiser is burned and the surface channels, through which the fuel is circulated to cool the chamber and keep it from overheating.

“In a rocket, the cooling channels are generally welded onto the combustion chamber, which through wear and tear can cause errors and explosions,” explained Hyperganic’s design director Duy-Anh Pham.

For the past number of years I’ve been taking about the rise of so called Creative Machines, Artificial Intelligence (AI) based “innovation” machines, that can design and innovate things for themselves without any human intervention – things such as aircraft parts, chairs, fashion lines, interplanetary rovers, self-evolving robots, and Under Armour trainers. And now those same creative machines have made yet another leap, and again it’s another first for the space industry, after German software company Hyperganic announced they’d developed a 3D printed rocket engine prototype, which was completely designed by AI.

Continue reading “An AI just designed then 3D printed a completely new form of rocket engine” »

In Korea, scientists are turning to better ways for improving our screen time, and this means 3D printing something most of us know little about: quantum dots. Focusing on refining the wonders of virtual reality and other electronic displays even further, researchers from the Nano Hybrid Technology Research Center of Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI), a government-funded research institute under National Research Council of Science & Technology (NST) of the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT), have created nanophotonic 3D printing technology for screens. Meant to be used with virtual reality, as well as TVs, smartphones, and wearables, high resolution is achieved due to a 3D layout expanding the density and quality of the pixels.

Led by Dr. Jaeyeon Pyo and Dr. Seung Kwon Seol, the team has published the results of their research and development in “3D-Printed Quantum Dot Nanopixels.” While pixels are produced to represent data in many electronics, conventionally they are created with 2D patterning. To overcome limitations in brightness and resolution, the scientists elevated this previously strained technology to the next level with 3D printed quantum dots to be contained within polymer nanowires.

A start-up based in Berkeley, California, polySpectra, is attempting to make better materials for 3D printing. Their inaugural material, COR Alpha, promises to be a stronger and more durable material for digital light processing (DLP) printing. If it’s a compelling fit for your project, you could win $25,000 worth of 3D printing services from polySpectra.

In an attempt to spur the development of 3D printed projects with COR Alpha, polySpectra is holding the Make It Real 3D Printing Challenge. The challenge calls for submissions of designs that could benefit from the new material. The winner will receive $25,000 worth of polySpectra’s 3D printing services in the form of mentoring, design consultation, functional prototyping, qualification, testing and fabrication. Applications are due September 28.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have developed artificial intelligence software for powder bed 3D printers that assesses the quality of parts in real time, without the need for expensive characterization equipment.

The software, named Peregrine, supports the advanced manufacturing “digital thread” being developed at ORNL that collects and analyzes data through every step of the manufacturing process, from design to feedstock selection to the print build to material testing.

“Capturing that information creates a digital ‘clone’ for each part, providing a trove of data from the raw material to the operational component,” said Vincent Paquit, who leads advanced manufacturing data analytics research as part of ORNL’s Imaging, Signals and Machine Learning group. “We then use that data to qualify the part and to inform future builds across multiple part geometries and with multiple materials, achieving new levels of automation and manufacturing quality assurance.”

The company claims that it is set to disrupt the food supply chain with an automated robotic that can print a plant based burger and cook it up for you to your unique requirements within just six minutes.

This food robot could 3D print a patty and grill it to your specifications inside of six minutes. Welcome to the future of food preparation.

Dutch designers Eric Klarenbeek and Maartje Dros have developed a bioplastic made from algae, which they believe could completely replace synthetic plastics over time.

Klarenbeek and Dros cultivate algae – aquatic plants – which they then dry and process into a material that can be used to 3D print objects.

The designers believe that the algae polymer could be used to make everything from shampoo bottles to tableware or rubbish bins, eventually entirely replacing plastics made from fossil fuels like oil.

Building a sustainable future.

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