Short reads about awesome gadgets, robots, space tech and inventions. Each one has a fun fact to share at dinner!
Robots use three big ingredients: sensors (to notice the world), a controller (a computer brain, often a microcontroller like an Arduino) and actuators (motors that move). Some robots explore underwater, some help in factories, and some even vacuum floors!
⚡ Fun fact: the word "robot" comes from a Czech play from 1920 and means something like "forced work".
Spacecraft can't plug into a wall! Many use big solar panels that turn sunlight into electricity. Missions far from the Sun, where sunlight is weak, often use special nuclear power sources instead. The International Space Station has huge solar wings bigger than a basketball court.
⚡ Fun fact: solar panels on spacecraft are folded up for launch and unfold like origami once in space.
A phone is packed with electronics: a processor with billions of transistors, a battery, a touchscreen that senses the tiny electricity in your finger, radios to talk to towers, cameras, a speaker, a microphone and even a tiny sensor that knows which way is up!
⚡ Fun fact: touchscreens usually don't work with regular gloves because cloth doesn't conduct electricity like your skin does.
Old-style incandescent bulbs made light by heating a thin wire until it glowed, and most of the energy turned into heat. Today's LED bulbs give the same light using a fraction of the electricity and last much longer. That's engineering making the world better!
⚡ Fun fact: lots of inventors worked on light bulbs. Great inventions are usually team efforts over many years.
A battery stores energy in chemicals. When you connect a circuit, a chemical reaction pushes electrons out of the − end, through your circuit, and back into the + end. Rechargeable batteries can run that reaction backwards when you charge them.
⚡ Fun fact: the first battery, the "voltaic pile," was a stack of metal discs and salty cardboard. Volts are named after its inventor, Alessandro Volta!
A wind turbine is a generator on a tall tower. Wind spins the blades, which spin magnets near coils of wire, which makes electricity. Some blades are longer than a hockey rink!
⚡ Fun fact: Canada has wind farms in every region from coast to coast.
Some modern prosthetic (artificial) hands use sensors on the skin that pick up the tiny electrical signals your muscles make. A small computer reads those signals and tells motors in the hand to open or close. Electronics helping people!
⚡ Fun fact: your muscles and heart make electrical signals that doctors can measure.
GPS works because satellites high above Earth constantly send out radio signals with super-precise times. Your device listens to several satellites and calculates where you are from how long the signals took to arrive.
⚡ Fun fact: the clocks on GPS satellites are so precise that engineers even correct them for Einstein's relativity!