Build a roller coaster!!

Hi kids, i found these websites where you can build your own roller-coaster.

*Warning: you might suffer from giddiness :p

1. http://www.learner.org/interactives/parkphysics/coaster/
2. http://www.abc.net.au/spark/games/rollercoaster.htm
3. http://www.sci-quest.org/home/just_for_kids/coaster.phtml
4. http://www.mhhe.com/physsci/physical/giambattista/roller/roller_coaster.html

14 challenges for next 50 years

Experts believe solving these problems will make life better for mankind:

1. Make solar energy affordable.
2. Provide energy from nuclear fusion.
3. Develop methods to capture carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels and tackle global warming.
4. Manage the rate at which human activity removes nitrogen from the air, worsening global warming.
5. Provide access to clean water.
6. Restore and improve urban infrastructure while preserving the environment.
7. Advance health informatics so that doctors can track carefully patients' biological information.
8. Engineer better medicines.
9. Reverse engineer the brain and determine how it works.
10. Prevent nuclear terror by finding ways to protect energy sources.
11. Secure cyberspace from identity thefts and viruses.
12. Enhance virtual reality so that it can be used for training experts and treating patients.
13. Advance personalised learning by using Internet courses or virtual reality.
14. Engineer the tools for scientific discovery.


Which do you think is the most important?

Materials and Manufacturing

Challenges in the aviation industry

GLOBAL CHALLENGES:
Materials and manufacturing

• Titanium

Titanium is used in the aerospace industry because of its lightness, but cutting it to shape is challenging.

The tool bits of machines used to cut and shape the metal wear out easily.

Shards of titanium - the waste from the cutting process - have been known to stick to the piece of titanium being cut and become obstacles to manipulating the material.

Titanium has to be cut slowly, which does not augur well for an industry already plagued by delays in delivery of planes.

• Magnesium

This could be used as aircraft material, but it oxidises easily and is not easy to manipulate.

• Self-healing material

Aerospace researchers want to develop a material which, when cracked, can release an adhesive to seal the crack by itself.

• Composite material

This is getting popular in the industry for the external body of the plane.

But not much is known about how electricity is conducted by composite material, unlike metal whose properties are established. Information on its conductivity will have implications for flights amid lightning storms.

• The process

Research is being done on how components, damaged as they are delivered from the manufacturing plant, can be repaired.

• In operation

Titanium and nickel are valued in aerospace for their ability to withstand the high temperatures and pressures of combustion in aircraft engines, but technology in advanced cooling systems is also needed to prevent overheating.

• Inspection and testing

Composite materials are also becoming popular in the making of the external body of the plane, but engineers need to find a way of detecting cracks in a material which is made up of a mesh of different materials.

• Repair and maintenance

Every hour an aircraft is not in the air is money not coming in for airlines. The challenge, therefore, is to develop new techniques of maintaining and repairing aircraft parts without having to take them to a hangar elsewhere for disassembly.