The inventor of Avalanche Blast, a device that makes controlled ava- lanches safer, says that CAD software played a big role in helping him turn his idea into commercial reality.

Controlled avalanches—traditionally started with explosives detonated in specific locations—are used to avert catastrophic natural avalanches that cause injuries to skiers, hikers, and climbers, and sometimes threaten entire communities.

Avalanche Blast is the brainchild of Werner Greipl, who designed the 1,387-part assembly using design-modeling software. Greipl, a mechanical engineer, helicopter pilot, and alpine rescue instructor in Ottobrunn, Germany, learned the 3-D software at the same time he developed his idea and sketched the initial parts for his device. He used Alibre Design from the software maker Alibre of Richardson, Texas.

"Dynamite in the cabin and someone having matches made me a little nervous."

His inspiration came from conversations three years ago with fellow pilots Gabriel and Marco Kostner of the Italian helicopter firm EliKos. Greipl and the Kostners had previously relied on conventional explosives when flying avalanche management missions.

"As we were throwing dynamite out of the helicopter's side door, it was always a little touchy," Greipl said. "Having 50 kilograms of dynamite or more in the cabin and some guy sitting in the back with a lighter or some matches—it always made me feel a little nervous."

So Greipl decided to define his idea for a device that could induce snow blasts without having to deal with the hazards of storing and transporting conventional explosives.

Greipl constructed most of the individual parts in his own shop from his CAD models.

Slightly larger than an oil drum, the device's apparatus hangs a safe distance below a helicopter at the end of a tether. The machine holds tanks of oxygen and hydrogen that inflate a 1.5-meter weather balloon at the bottom of the assembly. The gas becomes volatile when mixed at a critical proportion.

Through remote control, the operator in the cabin ignites the balloon as it strikes the snow, creating an explosive force comparable to three or four kilograms of dynamite. The operator can inflate a new latex balloon in less than 30 seconds; the initial design fires 11 balloons in a single flight.

The device eliminates the need for conventional explosives, which pose a danger not only in the air, but also on the ground because they explode only 50 percent of the time when they land on snow, Greipl said. If not retrieved, unexploded charges remain on the mountain until the snow melts and could mean an unpleasant surprise for springtime hikers.

Will the future robots that help astronauts in space be as friendly and likeable as the ones in Star Wars?

NASA scientists are now at work on robots that will behave more like humans, even if they won't exactly look like them, said Illah Nourbakhsh, a scientist at NASA Ames Research Center of Moffett Field, Calif.

Robots that act like people could work more intuitively and efficiently with astronauts, he said. Such human-robot cooperation could be the key to further moon and Mars landings and even large-scale construction in extraterrestrial places.

Johnson Space Center's Robonaut performs a mock weld (foreground), while Ames Research Center's K10 robot assists crew inspecting a previously welded seam. The robots will behave and act like human helpers.

Because human crews will be limited to small teams, astronauts will need robot helpers to do much of each team's work, Nourbakhsh added.

He leads the NASA group developing those human-robot teams. It's a collaborative effort among researchers at NASA Ames, NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Carnegie Mellon University, the Naval Research Laboratory, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The researchers took inspiration from Star Trek for a human-acting machine they're now perfecting: the personal satellite assistant. The small machine might one day help International Space Station astronauts with their daily tasks and could monitor the space station's environment and survey areas that may be too dangerous for humans.

The team also continues work on four exploratory rovers, designated K10, that will travel over difficult terrain collecting samples to be sent back to Earth. In addition, NASA scientists are putting finishing touches on the Robonaut, a robot that can stand in for astronauts in harsh environments.

The Robonaut, which even looks like an astronaut, might be put to work welding seams outside the Space Shuttle, for example. The robonaut effort also includes contributions by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

"We believe that by building robots with reasoning mechanisms and representations that are similar to what humans use, we can make human-robot interaction more natural and human-like," Nourbakhsh said.

"Our goal is not for robots to have the same thought process as humans, but rather for them to act, respond, and interact more naturally in ways that humans do with other humans," he said.

Engineers called upon design analysis software to help perfect key systems on a Canadian solar car that passed a recent round of track tests.

Called "The Power of One," the solar car whizzed through a battery of speed, brake, and stability trials last summer. Its suspension and steering systems are ready to drive on Canada's roads as soon as the government grants permission, said Marcelo da Luz, Power of One's program director.

Many solar cars are designed only for controlled conditions on a track, but the focus of the Power of One project is practical solar technology that manufacturers can adapt into future mass-produced vehicles, da Luz said.

Engineers expect the solar car to set distance records for a solar-powered vehicle while it promotes sustainable energy, he added.

Engineers for the Toronto-based project used the CosmosWorks analysis software from SolidWorks of Concord, Mass., to determine whether the braking and steering systems could stand up to real-world road conditions—from warm and dry to cold and icy—at speeds up to 50 miles per hour. The solar car drove for the first time in December 2004, then again in March 2005, in its first tests on icy roads.

"By the time we drove the car again in July we had only one failure, and that was due to a manufacturing flaw and not the design," da Luz said.

Quantum computers continue to be the next big thing.

Now, researchers at the University of Michigan have produced what they say is the first scalable quantum computer chip, which could lead to big gains in the quest to develop a quantum computer.

Quantum computers could solve certain problems much faster than conventional computers, thanks to the bizarre features of quantum mechanics, said Christopher Monroe, a Michigan physics professor and principal investigator on the project.

One of the most-favored-candidate quantum computer architectures would store quantum bits, or qubits, on individual atoms. The electrically charged atoms for such quantum computers are stored in what are known as ion traps. Trapping isolates the qubits from the rest of the world, which is essential for the system to behave in a quantum-mechanical fashion.

Researchers at the University of Michigan have made a scalable, easily produced quantum computer chip that they say could help speed the quest to develop a quantum computer.

Scientists know how to program a quantum computer composed of any number of trapped ions; the problem is to get the ions trapped in the first place.

That's where Monroe's research team comes in.

With the same semiconductor fabrication technology used to make everyday computer chips, University of Michigan researchers have trapped a single atom within a semiconductor chip and controlled it using electrical signals, Monroe said.

Current ion traps can hold only a few atoms or qubits. Because they're assembled laboriously by hand, they're not easily scaled. So one of the obstacles to perfecting the quantum computer is making a scalable, integrated quantum computer chip that can store thousands of atomic ions or more, Monroe said.

The chip produced at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, is about as big as a postage stamp. It's etched with electrodes, each of which is connected to a separate voltage supply. Various electrical voltages control the ion by moving it in different ways as it hovers in a space carved out of the chip.

Using existing microfabrication technology, the chip could be scaled up to include hundreds of thousands of electrodes, Monroe said.

"An integrated chip structure shows a way to scale the quantum computer to bigger systems—just like the microfabrication of conventional chips have given us the impressive gains in conventional computing speed and power," Monroe said.

How do you get middle school students interested in future science and engineering careers? Maybe through computer games.

Researchers at North Carolina State University in Raleigh expect to funnel children's love of computer games into a love of science.

The researchers—who come from the university's education, computer science, and engineering schools—are at work developing software that middle school instructors would use to make computer games that teach their students science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, said Len Annetta, assistant professor of science education and lead principal investigator on the project. It received a grant from the National Science Foundation.

A teacher might come up with a game in which students combine analysis with biology while they try to solve an ancient murder of an Egyptian pharaoh, Annetta said. The player would find the pharaoh's tomb and analyze the shroud of the mummified corpse. When they discover ancient blood samples, students analyze the DNA and test the results against possible suspects to find the pharaoh's murderer.

"Ultimately, it's our hope students will gain a greater appreciation for science, pursue higher levels of science coursework, and eventually seek careers by playing these games," Annetta said. "For teachers, the tools and training we're developing will provide a way to take ownership in curriculum design and find a fun, innovative approach to technology integration."

If you have a cell phone, you'll soon have a hard time getting lost in Bath.

The city in England is set to host a citywide wireless computing network as part of a research project that aims to influence the future of mobile technology.

The project, based at the University of Bath, will turn the city center into what's termed a pervasive computing zone—one where users have access to computer services wherever they are without the need for cell phone towers that would clash with Bath's famous 18th-century Georgian architecture.

You could log on via mobile phones, laptop, or handheld computers. Services will include software that guides people around the city, interactive games, and information services, said Dana' Stanton Fraser of the University's Department of Psychology, one of the investigators on the project.

Location-recognition software will help lost tourists get their bearings, based on the photographs they take of buildings around them. The tourists will send their pictures to a central server, which will compare them with a database of images to recognize where the senders are. The server will also send back information about the history of the building and other local points of interest.

The newly oriented travelers will be able to upload the information and pictures to a Web site that charts their travels through the city.

About 30 city residents have volunteered to work with the project over the next three years, said Eamonn O'Neill of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bath, who leads the project.

Volunteers will report back on how the citywide technologies affect their lives.

The Cityware project will make use of Bluetooth and Near Field Communication short-range wireless networks at different locations across the city. Researchers will be able to measure the volunteers' use of these technologies and look at other issues like security and privacy.

Their preferences will guide high-technology firms in how to develop the next generation of applications available on mobile devices, O'Neill said.

"Pervasive technology that is available to everyone, everywhere and at all times promises to be the next big leap in mobile computing technology," he said.

DotSoft of Ewing, Ky., is offering the fourth release of its Excel to CAD application, XL2CAD.

A maker of electrical design software, Aceri of Barcelona, Spain, has upgraded its electrical design program, Electrical Designer 2006.

Omnify Software of Andover, Mass., which makes product lifecycle management software for original equipment manufacturers in the electrical, mechanical, medical, and defense industries, is now a SolidWorks partner. Omnify software now integrates with SolidWorks CAD software.

AutoDWG of Hangzhou, China, is shipping AutoDWG, an AutoCAD drawing-format to portable-document format conversion tool. Users don't need AutoCAD installed to run the program, which supports AutoCAD 2006.

Flomerics of Marlborough, Mass., is shipping an upgrade to its Flo/PCB thermal simulation software. The upgrade helps engineers solve thermal problems in solder reflow processing associated with the use of lead-free solders, says the developer.

Stratasys Inc. of Minneapolis says a new version of its Vantage rapid prototyping systems, called the Vantage X, offers three more modeling material options and higher resolution than the company's previous base model.

Sepialine of San Francisco now offers its Sepialine Cost Recovery Suite 6.2.5, an upgraded software that analyzes and reports office activity, including print, copy, scan, and fax use.

A maker of rapid prototyping software, Materialise of Leuven, Belgium, has released Rapid Shell Modeling software for the automated design of hearing aid shells.

SoftInWay Inc. of Burlington, Mass., has released version 1.7.05 of AxStream for rapid turbomachinery flow-path design and optimization.

Dosch 3D of Marktheinfeld, Germany, now offers textured 3-D models of well-known airplanes, including the Bell 222 helicopter, the Airbus 330, and the Boeing 747. The models can be used for visualizations, animations, or technical illustrations.

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