Category Archives: Science & Engineering

You gotta know some heavy stuff in order to build cool cars. Get your learn on.

Toyota Corolla WRC Documentary

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This is another vintage YouTube gem of a video. It’s a late 90’s documentary that follows Toyota Team Europe (TTE) as they build the AE101 based Toyota Corolla WRC to replace the ST205 Celica GT-Four. You get a great inside look at a world R&D process from component testing to wind tunnels and finally having the drivers put the car through its paces in different environments. The narration is in Japanese, but all of the interviews with the TTE staff are in English.


Source: YouTube user hiroun156

Suidobashi Heavy Industries Kuratas – Skynet Here We Come!

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Lets all be honest here. Exactly zero people should be surprised by the fact that a company in Japan, home of Gundam, Macross, Evangelion and countless other giant robot anime series, has made a mech suit that you can now purchase for a mere $1.3 million dollars. It’s easy to get very excited about this upon first impression. Finally! a 13 foot tall, 4.4 ton mech suit that I can ride around in punting off all the people who drive slow in the passing lane! Biped legs would make for a more graceful punting form, but I’m sure they’re working on that for Kuratas 2. Oh look, here’s a very cheery promotional video to go with the Kuratas. I’m not completely sure, but I think there’s an F-Bomb in the lyrics of the song, so it gets a precautionary **NSFW WARNING**

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Virgin Galactic LauncherOne

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Virgin Atlantic released this promotional video for their new satellite launch system, The Galactic Launcher One. The idea is to use aircraft based launches to significantly reduce the cost of putting 500 lbs. payloads into orbit. The claim is that this system is cheap enough to open space to individual businesses, organizations or even universities.

 

This is WhiteKnightTwo and LauncherOne demonstrating the air launch concept.

Source: Virgin Galactic via Gizmodo

Helicopter Physics – Smarter Everyday

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If you enjoy figuring out why the things in the world around you work the way they do, you should subscribe to Smarter Everyday on YouTube. The host is named Destin and he has set out investing money into these YouTube shows so that he can educate the masses and put the proceeds from ads and donations towards his kids’ college funds. He’s a Mechanical Engineer by trade and education and he has a knack for making engineering interesting. For the last couple of months, Destin has been posting a series about the physics that  makes helicopters work. It’s really fascinating because they’re capable of a lot of mind blowing stunts and the way they work is different from how you probably intuitively think they do.

Part 1: Introduction
Destin introduces us to the series and his buddy Carl Groover who flies remote controlled helicopters for the Curtis Youngblood team. Watching Carl at work is a pretty eye opening experience in terms of what a helicopter can and cannot do.

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How It’s Made: Ferrari Engines

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I’ve rebuilt a couple of engines during my time as a car guy and I have to say that I find it really fun. It’s probably because I can be a very details oriented person. Everything is precision machined, all the parts are clean and have a designated place to go and every fastener is perfectly matched for its job and torque spec. It’s an immensely complex piece of machinery that you get to put together from the ground up. That’s why I like posting these “engine porn” videos. The How It’s Made show got access to the Ferrari factory in Maranello to bring us this footage their high performance engines being produced. My favorite part is at the beginning where they sand cast the heads. It’s not a process you get to see very often even though pretty much everybody uses aluminum heads made like this.


Source: YouTube user 94tbird