Want to help design a moon robot? NASA needs you.

A NASA-sponsored competition asks participants to improve the design of a bucket drum for moon excavation.

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
  • NASA wants your help redesigning the bucket drum system for its RASSOR excavator.
  • The Moon's weaker gravity and the excavator's light weight pose unique design challenges.
  • RASSOR will one day excavate regolith so it can be processed into the resources necessary for sustainable lunar exploration.
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Ask Sophia the Robot: What can AI teach humans?

Through experiencing time in a nonlinear way, can artificial intelligence provide us more perspective?

  • Is Sophia the Robot, of Hanson Robotics, conscious? Not quite, she says. Instead, she reflects the consciousness of humans in the same way the moon reflects the light of the sun.
  • While we don't know if humans possess free will, she advises us to act as if we do. We can benefit from this.
  • So, what can humans learn from robots? Artificial intelligence can view the world in a way that's more objective, being present while still able to look toward the future and the past.
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How the Nazis faked part of Hamburg to fool Allied bombers

'Operation Invisibility Cloak' was a waste: Hamburg would soon be firebombed to bits

Image: Reddit
  • In 1941, the Nazis camouflaged an entire lake at the centre of Hamburg.
  • A painted tarp was made to look like a bunch of city blocks from above, in the hope of misdirecting RAF bombers.
  • But the Brits weren't fooled, and Hamburg would later suffer horrific firebombing.
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Resurrected tech: How discarded devices are recycled across the globe

Technology best serves the user when organic development combines necessity with collective values.

  • How are global innovators overcoming the inequality that is forged in the technologies of Silicon Valley?
  • Ramesh Srinivasan, a professor at UCLA, points to examples of indigenous communities in Mexico that have created their own cell phone networks, as well as groups in Ghana and Nairobi that recycle discarded devices from the West to make entirely new technologies.
  • These groups have successfully decentralized technology governance by using their resources and upping the ante on creativity and innovation.
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This is the training any graphic designer should have. It’s on sale now for under $40.

Come to grips with the fundamentals of graphic design and master the field's top tools.

  • The School of Graphic Design Mastery Bundle covers basic industry philosophies and tools.
  • Special courses dig into branding techniques as well as using the Adobe Creative Cloud apps.
  • The $1,400 training course is available now for only $39.
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