Rechargeable Lithium Battery Powered Street Car

Rechargeable Lithium Battery Powered Street Car

A streetcar that recharges itself during breaking, eliminates the overhead wires commonly found on modern streetcars. This technology could improve and eliminate some barriers from streetcar’s in modern city public transportation.

The Railway Technical Research Institute in Kokubunji, Tokyo, has developed a streetcar powered by a lithium battery that can recharge in under a minute. The institute will start conducting test runs in Sapporo at the end of November to check the streetcar’s capacity. Powered by the onboard battery, the vehicle runs at a maximum speed of 40 kph for 15 kilometers and is capable of converting 70 percent of its deceleration energy into electricity, which it sends back to the battery. The rest of the power is supplied by recharging stations, where the streetcar connects its pantograph to overhead wires.

Source

Popularity: 9% [?]

  • Share/Bookmark

DIY Silly String Shooter

This week on Systm, the guys over at Revision3 put together a motion activated silly string shooter. They used a common motion flood light to trigger the project. The project also used compressed air and a solenoid to press the silly string can. My only issue with this project, is that I would think you could use electric solenoid to press the can. The hole tank of compressed air to activate the silly string seems like overkill. Also, the tank of air should run out very fast if activated every 5 sec. on Halloween.

Popularity: 13% [?]

  • Share/Bookmark

DIY Video: Cotton Candy Machine

With an electric motor, two juice caps, a lighter and some sugar, this guy was able to spin some cotton candy.

Popularity: 7% [?]

  • Share/Bookmark

DIY High Altitude Balloon

DIY High Altitude Balloon

My project launched a payload with GPS, camera, sensors and communications to an altitude of 30km. I obtained most parts ready years ago, but only recently had time to finish it.

High altitude ballooning is an emerging hobby, since price of GPS and communications equipment has gotten quite low. It is an excellent hobby for people fascinated by space flight and telerobotics and has many learning aspects — from systems design to electronics design to software engineering. There is also an exciting risk factor, namely, that you could lose your precious electronics if something malfunctions. In this project, many of my interest and knowledge areas came together. Also, I have verified that the Earth is indeed round and that space is black.


Project Website

Popularity: 12% [?]

  • Share/Bookmark

Systm Podcast: Underwater ROV

This weeks systm features underwater ROV’s.


Popularity: 17% [?]

  • Share/Bookmark

Homemade Nigerian Helicopter

homemade helicopter

24 Year old Nigerian physics student builds helicopter, using two cars.

Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi, seen here, a 24-year-old physics undergraduate in northern Nigeria, takes old cars and motorbikes to pieces in the back yard at home and builds his own helicopters from the parts

Read The Article

Popularity: 13% [?]

  • Share/Bookmark