There's a great article at IEEE Spectrum on the new wind farms being installed off the coast of Denmark. These aren't cute little generators like the Air 403 buzzing its three foot diameter blades up on Mom's cabin. No, these puppies have blade diameters of almost 300 feet and a nacelle (where the spinning gears, generator, and electronics all reside) which is 42 feet long by 13 feet high. Take a look at this picture of a nacelle (and two mounted rotors) on the special installation ship. The nacelle is the blue and white "box" with the two guys in black standing next to it.
There are many benefits to having wind generators on the ocean, but ease of installation isn't one of them. The article talks about the people installing these wind farms and the complexity of the work. It goes on to say that wind energy is the fastest-growing energy sector in the world.
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email thisRoomba the robot probably isn't what the kids will want, but you might. It's a little robot vacuum cleaner that autonomously rambles about the room cleaning things up. Instead of the 1000 watts of power the normal cat chaser (er, vacuum) uses Roomba gets by on 30. Roomba is rechargeable and powered by an 8 bit, 16mhz microprocessor.
Four infrared (IR) emitter-detector pairs provide "cliff detection," which tells the machine it's approaching the edge of a step or drop-off.
"Most of the intelligence is not in the navigation, but in the hazard response," Angle said. "Roomba has to ask: 'How do I know if I'm stuck? What do I do if I'm stuck? What are my strategies for getting unstuck?' "
Cool! Student built solar powered houses on Washington's Mall.