Hasta La Ideas

This Wood Species series of entries comes to us from guest writer Rob Wilkey, an Atlanta-based woodworker and industrial designer whose expertise is in small home goods, furniture, and large installations.

Over the next few articles, we’ll be analyzing a number of common imported wood species. This week’s featured species:

Rosewood lumber is harvested from a handful of trees in the Dalbergia genus, all of which emit a sweet, rose-like scent when cut or sanded. The wood of these trees is prized throughout the world for its remarkable coloration and density. Certain species of rosewood have been in such demand that they are now threatened with extinction, and are heavily protected by international laws. In fact, CITES trade regulations restrict Brazilian Rosewood and the Madagascan ‘Bois de Rose’ from crossing international borders in any form.

Despite these heavy trade restrictions, illegal logging of Brazilian Rosewood and Bois de Rose still occurs, and sources providing it in large quantities are frequently under scrutiny. Many other species of rosewood are less restricted in their trade, and are arguably just as beautiful as the protected woods. The different rosewood species range in color from lighter brown to deep reds, browns and purples. Most rosewoods also exhibit very dark streaks along their growth rings, creating striking patterns in flatsawn boards. The softer sapwood is a light, pale yellow, and is sometimes included on a piece for contrast.

(more…)

This Wood Species series of entries comes to us from guest writer Rob Wilkey, an Atlanta-based woodworker and industrial designer whose expertise is in small home goods, furniture, and large installations.

Over the next few articles, we’ll be analyzing a number of common imported wood species. This week’s featured species:

Mahogany is harvested from trees of the genus Swietenia, whose natural range is in Central and South America. The lumber of these trees is extremely popular, and has been exported throughout the world for centuries. Like cherry, mahogany is prized for its favorable working properties, as well as its durability and beautiful color. Mahogany is initially a lighter pinkish brown hue, and can darken to a rich, deep reddish-brown over time.

The wood is straight-grained, diffuse-porous, and suffers from very little shrinkage and seasonal movement. At 900lbf Janka, mahogany is soft enough to be cut and sanded quickly and easily, but is hard enough to resist dents and scratches. These properties make it an ideal lumber for every kind of woodworking. The wood also glues and stains well, and becomes even more beautiful under a good coat of finish. In fact, with a glossy finish, the wood will refract light so vibrantly that it changes shades depending on your viewing angle. This effect enhances areas of figured grain, as can be seen on the side table below, built by the talented Todd Clippinger.

(more…)

In the early 1900s, guys dressed like Indiana Jones were ripping through Egyptian tombs in a somewhat shameless search for treasure. In 1911 a collection of elementally rare beads was uncovered in a 5,000-year-old tomb south of Cairo. Primitive early-20th-century tests revealed the beads had an unusually high nickel content, and it was assumed that they were carved out of meteorites.

As Live Science reports, archaeology professor Thilo Rehren recently made a more startling discovery. By X-raying the beads, Rehren and his team observed an elemental composition consistent with iron meteorites, which merely confirmed suspicions; but the X-rays also showed that these beads were actually tubes, of the sort that can only be made by forging metal into thin sheets and then rolling it.

(more…)

From Canon’s Mixed Reality System to Microsoft’s see-through 3D display to Google Glass, the world’s biggest technology companies are getting good at tricking our eyes into seeing things that aren’t really there. But the missing piece in the feedback puzzle has always been the sense of touch. Videogame controllers can vibrate to simulate gunfire and racing car engines, but they require you to be physically grasping the devices.

Now, however, the folks Disney Research have created a way for those tingly little nerve endings on your skin to receive feedback. And they’ve done it by sculpting air.

This new haptic technology is called Aireal, and through it the gamers that it’s initially aimed at can feel virtual objects, experience the sensation of touching various textures, or get kinetic feedback. All without any need to wear gloves, vests or suits. Puffs of air can be controlled in terms of varying strength and speed. So it will be capable of creating a sensation as gentle as a butterfly’s wings or as strong as a baseball caught in a glove.

So how the heck does this work? The technology creates a vortex, which is a tightly held column of moving air that can travel relatively far and keep its shape and speed. (A tornado is a type of vortex.) Vortices can travel much farther than regular jets of air. In fact vortices can travel nearly five feet before accuracy drops below 80 percent. But when this traveling spinning ring of air touches something, like a person’s skin, the low-pressure within the vortex collapses and this produces a force the user can feel.

Next question: How can this “force” provide haptic feedback that is perceived by the user as three-dimensional?

Aireal uses a flexible nozzle secured to a gimbal (a gimbal is a structure that allows for something to rotate in all directions on a single axis.) A 3D depth camera tracks the user and using data from various sensors this nozzle can send a vortex of air to precise locations anywhere within a three-dimensional space. Place multiple nozzles in multiple locations, and you’ve got your dimensional bases covered.

(more…)

While a watch face may be timeless (pun not intended), over the course of changing seasons a watchband can wear out or its novelty can wear off. Fresh off the digital printing press in Seoul, South Korea are );…

Continue Reading…