Tag: Netherlands

You may be aware of the rather explosive effect of combining Coke and Mentos – by simply putting these two tighter you can have an eruption that can shoot 20 feet in the air. But what if you were to combine 108 bottles of Coke and 648 Mentos? Well, the end result would be enough to create your own jet powered vehicle.

Actually this is a version 2 of the original design, which saw Mentos and Coke powered human transport using only 54 bottles of Coke Zero and 324 Mentos. But the video compares the two runs, and naturally you can imagine which one went the farthest. However, both reach traveling distances over 200 feet, a testament to creative engineering everywhere. You can find out more about their experiments on the eepybird website.

Another video, with more focus on the Rocket Car: Mark II

via Discovery

Giant wind turbines are in the news a lot these days, and they are a relatively effective way to gather energy from the wind. But giant kites, which man has used to extract power existed before the turbines existed, could prove to be an effective means of gathering energy as well.  The kites have a small footprint, and a series of kites could generate enough energy to power 10,000 homes.

Scientists from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands have harnessed energy from the wind by flying a 10-sq meter kite tethered to a generator, producing 10 kilowatts of power. The expanded project, called Laddermill, hopes to increase that to 100 megawatts of power. Wubbo Ockels, a professor of sustainable engineering and former astronaut leading the Laddermill project, said,

We need to use all the energy supplies that are offered to us by nature, we need diversity and kites are … intriguing and fascinating

One of the hopes of the project is to get the kites up about 800 meters, where it can start taking advantage of the prevailing winds and the effects of the Jet Stream.  Conventional structures are make it not practical to attempt this, but kites can reach those heights without much effort.  This allows the kites to use the JetStream as an Alternative Energy source. 

I hate to say it, but watching kites fly and swing about without having any solid control on them sometimes freaks me out, but with a pseudo steady wind such as the jet stream pushing them I would imagine that the kites could be held aloft without much concern.  Just don't put too many of them close together – imagine untangling those lines.  But this does seem to be a fascinating project,  with a huge potential payoff. 

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 The Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands has created a new gadget, and it is a small one.  The team has developed a Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) which they claim is the smallest ornithopter in the world that also has a camera attached. 

The tiny aircraft measures only 10 cm from wingtip to wingtip, and it has a range of 50 meters.  Power is provided by a 30 mAh lithium polymer battery, and this gives three minutes of stealth flying.  Light weight construction techniques involve the use of Mylar foil for the wings and carbon and balsa wood for the vehicle body. 

The DelFly Micro is the latest from the University's DelFly project, and it improves on the original 50 cm Delfly and the 28cm DelFly II.  The goal of the project is to bring together ideas from different fields while creating a tiny aircraft that is capable of achieving independent unmanned (well, uncontrolled) flight.   

You can find more information at the DelFly website.

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