Posted by jerry on September 9th, 2008 — Posted in Journal, Technology
Wednesday will not be like any other normal Wednesday. At least at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) it won’t. Wednesday is when the large hadron collider gets switched on. The large what?? A great big machine for winding up very small particles very very fast and smashing them into each other. If that sounds like a rather strange thing to do, it may be. But it also may be the start of a project that could just unveil the secret of matter itself and the start of the universe from the Big Bang.
While there have been rather fanciful stories circulating about how when the machine gets switched on, the world will be swallowed by a black hole – that, according to Dr Brian Cox, is plain nonsense.
The LHC will be dealing with such small particles that the energy produced by the collisions would barely power a small light globe, but it may just reveal where all the universe’s energy actually comes from.
Here’s hoping anyhow – it’s great to see that there are still enough scientific visionaries to do big science. Good luck guys!
Cheers
Jerry
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Geoff Hudspith has been developing this bike since the 1970s, and has been riding it at shows for years. But it is also a practical workhorse as well as a beautiful piece of home engineering
Seen here on Google video, the bike is seen being fired up and run – even taken on a ferry. This is no museum piece, but everyday transport. And it runs on steam.
The bike runs on 125 psi and burns kerosene. Performance is about 8mph sustained speed, 6 – 8mpg of water and about 60 – 70mpg of paraffin. The engine has run for 11 years – five years on the bike, and shows no sign of wearing out!
This exhibition of the latest woodworking equipment, demonstrations and stacks of timber is one of the must-see events if you are a woodworker – whether hobbyist or semi professional.
As you arrive, there are demonstrations of the Lucas saw mill, and the Swedex Logosol mini saw mill. This latter made short work of a large log using a chainsaw mounted in a frame that holds the saw horizontal for cutting slabs. The whole thing is adjustable for slab thickness and slope of the log. Very impressive for such a small mill.
Once inside I went in search of lumber – I have in mind to make a couple of musical instruments – another pochette fiddle and a travel mandolin. Trend Timbers was my first and primary stop as they had some lovely birdseye maple and rosewood. I also found blackwood, silkwood and purpleheart. But alas no spruce. It seems I have to go to Sydney for that, or order it on the internet. I also got the last piece of American sycamore in captivity in Canberra.
The guys there were very friendly and helpful – they even helped me carry my acquisitions to the parcel pick-up place. And I learned that Brazil is the only country to be named after a timber! Brazil wood was known before the country had a (Western) name.
There were great demonstrations and seminars – don’t miss the chair making one by Richard Vaughan titled ‘Seat yourself’. Richard Raffan and Bruce Bell did wood turning demos and Roger Givkin showed off his dovetail jig and demonstrated the art of small box making.
While there are many great new toys out there, one really stood out for me this year – the SawStop. This is amazing and will save countless fingers from being injured by table saws. A small electrical current passes through the saw blade, and trips a sensor as soon as the blade touches flesh rather than wood. Within 5milliseconds – ten times faster than a car airbag deploys in an accident, and seven times faster than we blink, a gas charge propels an aluminium brake into the saw blade and the whole blade drops below the table. I just had to film this demonstration:
I hope every educational institution teaching woodworking buys this as it will save countless hands from serious injury.
There was a great selection of books at the Australian Woodworker stand – and you could pick up any back issues you missed on the news stands.
If you are into bush crafts there wasStan Ceglinski with his crosscut saw race – but he is also very skilled with a riving knife too!
There were also demonstrations of pole-lathe woodturning
and demos of chair making by a master bodger using green wood and a draw-knife
But in case you thought it was all about rough timber – there were excellent displays of fine woodworking from the ANU School of Art and Sturt universities and ACT Woodcraft. For example there was this beautiful cabinet…
If you are into boats – then the Cape Boatworks is a must visit – they are building a canoe from wood strips through the course of the weekend. It’s the first day and the canoe is already well advanced!
And I came away with new knowledge – and a small stash of rather special timber
David Nergaard’s 1922 Stanley steamer had lain abandoned for many years to decay until it was found in the 1950s. At that point a custom body was built for it and the steam plant installed. The car is regularly driven and David puts about 5000 miles per year on the clock.
The Powerhouse museum encompasses a massive collection of technology and design. One aspect of particular interest is the computer and telecommunications collection.
Before the Internet, there was the Victorian internet – the telegraph. One of the more sophisticated telegraph machines is this one – the Wheatstone 5-needle telegraph. It was a combination transmitter and receiver, and was used used on English railways. This one was made c. 1837 – 1842.
The needles were activated in pairs by electromagnets to point to the letters. Perhaps this was the sort of machine used by Abraham Lincoln when he checked his t-mail (telegraph mail)
Another radical development was the Apple computer – the first version was built in 1976 in Steve Wozniak’s garage along with Steve Jobs, later joined by Daniel Kottke, Randy Wigginton and others. They made 200 of them – but it was the start of a personal computer revolution.
Each was handmade and users built them into a small case – bearing some resemblance to the ‘enigma’ encoding machine used by the Germans in WWII. Storage was by cassette audio tape, and a TV was the monitor. The machine used a MOS Technology 6502 motherboard with 8kb of RAM. The later ones used a Motorola 6800 board.
Then came telepresence in the form of virtual reality technology – remember the VR cafes of the 1990s? This was the start of truly immersive 3D environments. The accompanying data glove enabled the user to interact with the environment and fight dinosaurs and the like. When these were around I remember people complaining that the refresh rate was too slow and that the sense of disconnected movement gave people motion sickness. But it was a major step forward in immersive environment technology.
The Powerhouse is well worth a visit – check out the ‘Wedge’ 3D environment – one of the prototypes developed by the Australian National University.
It is open every day except Christmas day 10.00am-5.00pm, and is located at 500 Harris Street, Ultimo, Sydney NSW. There is an admission charge – you can find the details on their website.
Cheers
Jerry
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