Machine

Precision milling used to mean giant, pricey shop machines out of reach for most makers. You could design the "next big thing," but could you actually build it? Now you can.

Using biowaste from cassava plants, scientists have created a coating that virtually eliminates friction in metal parts. The breakthrough has the potential to deliver better fuel economy and deliver enormous savings in myriad industries.

A fruit fly's pinhead-sized brain is not the place you'd expect find inspiration for new robotics. But in a bold move, researchers have built a speedy robot with a 'brain' based on the insect's low-energy, highly efficient navigational neural network.

These little-known machines have to rank as some of the greatest sandpit toys in history. Walking spider excavators offer an extraordinary range of capabilities through their articulating, extending legs, stabilizers, tilting wheels, and buckets.

Visitors to The Dali Museum will now be greeted by a digitally resurrected simulation of Salvador Dali. Created using machine learning and deepfake technologies, this digital Dali is programmed to communicate in novel ways from commenting on the day’s weather to taking a selfie with museum patrons.

Paper engineer Robert Sabuda has teamed up with the Leonardo da Vinci Robot Society to create the Drawmaton drawing machine that's based on a rumor, that da Vinci's so-called Robot Knight coudl not only sit, stand and hug guests at parties, but could also draw.

Neil Mendoza's Rock Band is a set of electromechanical instruments that make sounds when genuine rocks are thrown at the them.​ For its first public outing, the machine was set up to play The Beatles "Here Comes the Sun" - but maybe Rollin' Stone by Muddy Waters would have been more appropriate.

Few of us these days have the time to break out the teapot and make a proper brew, so we resort to tea bags plonked in a mug of hot water. But who wants to waste energy on dunking when a machine can do it for you? That's precisely what Dorian Damon's Tea Dunker does ... rather loudly.

A team of Philadelphia University freshmen were recently tasked with creating a visual showpiece machine based on a painting which incorporated da Vincian thought processes. They built a cranked machine where sections of a topographical map are slowly raised when the handle is turned.

With the goal of developing a robot able to understand natural language commands, the Cornell University "Tell Me Dave" project is getting robots to learn complex tasks by seeing and doing, thereby continually learning without written software updates.

Oncle Sam is a popcorn machine art installation which focuses on popping corn one kernel at a time.

Business travel in the 21st Century is a whole new ball-game.