BMW Kinetic Sculpture

I generally like abstract sculptures, but kinetic abstract sculptures are even better. Its also nice to see a company that puts a lot of effort into engineering put some effort into art. Art and science/engineering are really not all that different, though the people that study them might be. Well, this video gets pretty neat after about a minute. Its a bunch of metal balls suspended on wires from the ceiling making 3D sculptures.

Tractor Pulling

Though this may seem kind of pointless and bad for the environment, it's still really cool. And racing in all forms is essentially just R&D, just a really cool form of R&D. There are some neat engines toward the end of the video, including a quad-turbine tractor and a tractor that has a 42 cylinder 10,000hp radial engine. If that's not a feat of engineering, I don't know what is.

Granular Materials

Sand. Table Salt. Powders of any kind. These are classified as granular materials and this subject has been studied intensely by scientists and engineers in many fields (mechanical, chemical, materials, etc). From the perspective of a new researcher, this field has been beaten to death. The compaction of powders under pressure (aka jamming) is what differentiates the flow of powder from the flow of liquids. There are some other unique flow properties of powders such as the "Brazilian nut effect" where larger grained materials (Brazilian nuts) can flow to the top of a vibrating container that contains multiple grain sizes in it. So here is a very dorky powder simulation game. I spent more time playing around with it than I expected to.

http://dan-ball.jp/en/javagame/dust/

Friction Welding

Friction can be your best friend or your worst enemy. If you're trying to make a efficient engine, plane, boat, car, or basically anything with moving parts, friction is not your friend. However, if you want that car to move, friction on the tires is what allows that to happen. Also, if you don't like to slip and fall, then friction is your friend. But if you do fall, friction is what gives you a cut. But if there weren't any friction you'd still get a bruise. Blah blah blah.

In the case of friction welding, friction is what gets the job done. It heats up two cylinders that are in contact and spinning very fast relative to each other. Pressure makes sure they stay in contact to form a good weld. It's most often used to weld pipes, but like it the video, it can also weld solid cylinders. I think it could do rods of a non-circular cross section, but the corners would probably get pretty funky.