.Muzzle Safeguards Chickens
EASILY attached to a chicken’s beak, a new aluminum muzzle prevents vicious picking, cannibalism and feather pulling. The muzzle is so delicately balanced that it automatically swings out of the way when the chicken lowers its head for eating and drinking, swinging back into a closed position when the bird raises its head. The device thus prevents the chicken from attacking others, or its own body.
Apparently, this is one of those ideas that takes 30-40 years to catch on.
.Mailbox Camera
HOW often have you arrived at a scenic beauty spot without your camera? A. D. Weir got caught on this pictorial limb so many times that he decided to do something about it.The simplest remedy was a pre-loaded camera which could be rented at a near-by store for a small fee. That wasn’t a new idea—but in the past, devices to handle film inside such a camera had cost too much. Weir, a mechanical engineer, worked out a plan for feeding the 35-mm film without using a metal spool or winding device.
So, now you can drop into your drugstore, ask for a Photo-Pac and for $1.29 you get the loaded camera. After you take your eight exposures, you drop the entire unit in the mailbox. A few days later the mailman brings your prints and negatives. For helping to convert Uncle Sam’s mailboxes into darkrooms, we’re sending Mr. Weir Mi’s $50 Prize Gadget Award.
This is the fourth in a series of 5 articles I’ve scanned from an amazing 1952 issue of Scientific American about Automatic Control. Discussing automatic machine tools, feedback loops, and the role of computers in manufacturing and information theory, these are really astounding articles considering the time in which they were written.
This article is a fascinating exploration of the history and state of the art in automatic machine tools as of 1952. This is the CAM in CAD/CAM.
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An Automatic Machine ToolFeedback control has begun to advance in the working of metals. Presenting the first account of a milling machine that converts information on punched tape into the contours of a finished part.
by William Pease
THE metal-cutting industry is one field in which automatic control has been late in arriving. The speed, judgment and especially the flexibility with which a skilled machinist controls his machine tool have not been easily duplicated by automatic machines. Only for mass-production operations such as the making of automobile parts has it been feasible to employ automatic machinery. New developments in feedback control and machine computation, however, are now opening the door to automatization of machine tools built to produce a variety of parts in relatively small quantities.
The problem will be clearer if we first review briefly the history of machine tools and their relationship to manufacturing processes. The story begins in the last quarter of the 18th century. Prior to that time the tools of the millwright, as the machinist of that day was called, consisted chiefly of the hammer, chisel and file. His measurements were made with a wooden rule and crude calipers. His materials were prepared either by hand-forging or by rudimentary foundry casting. Crude, hand-powered lathes were already in existence, but they were used only for wood-turning or occasionally for making clock parts.
.Promise of a golden future
Yellow uranium ore from the Colorado Plateau is helping to bring atomic wonders to youLong ago, Indian braves made their war paint from the colorful sandstones of the Colorado Plateau.
THEY USED URANIUM-Their brilliant yellows came from carnotite, the important uranium-bearing mineral. Early in this century, this ore supplied radium for the famous scientists, Marie and Pierre Curie, and later vanadium for special alloys and steels.
Today, this Plateau—stretching over parts of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona —is our chief domestic source of uranium. Here, new communities thrive; jeeps and airplanes replace the burro; Geiger counters supplant the divining rod and miner’s hunch.
I’m crushed. I can’t believe the Sharper Image would lie to me like this. For years they’ve been telling us that they are the inventors of the ionic breeze, that it’s space age technology, a miracle of modern science. But it was all a big lie, now I know it was actually invented buy some undetermined person in 1938.
Sharper Image, how can I ever trust you again?
.Electrostatic Device Clears Air Of Smoke, Pollen
DESIGNED for home or factory use, a compact electrostatic air cleaner device was recently placed on exhibition at a convention of iron and steel engineers held in Chicago, Ill. The new cleaner is said to remove dust, smoke, and pollen from the air more efficiently than ever before.In operation the electrostatic cleaner forces the air through an ionizing screen and the solid particles in it, 90% of which would pass through the average filter, are electrically charged. The air is then passed over grounded plates, causing the dust and pollen particles to cling to them.
This ia brief article about a speech synthesizer, but in the last paragraph it sounds like they were actually doing research into psychoacoustic audio compression.
.PAT does the talking
“PAT” is the nickname given to a British talking machine which creates all the sounds that are normally used in speaking, and can string them together to produce the illusion of complete words and phrases. It can, in fact, talk.In place of the human vocal cords, PAT (short for Parametric Artificial Talker) has an electron tube oscillator. In place of tongue and lips which normally vary the size of the mouth cavities, electrical resonators are provided and their resonant frequencies varied.
Wow, this looks like it’s harder to make than than the street legal kart.
.Junior Cadet Space Helmet
As any budding young astronaut will tell you, his most important piece of equipment is a realistic helmet with light, radio, oxygen tanks, and plenty of colorful armor.
WETHER they’re solving re-entry problems on the living room banister or stalking Martians in the orchard, junior spacemen need plenty of imagination-inspiring equipment. So vital a piece as the helmet should be built at home where the astronaut can help and be sure the construction meets space-age requirements.
.Remote-Control STATION WAGON
A 7-1/2 inch scale model of the Jeep Station Wagon. Powered with a miniature electric motor, you can “drive” it yourself.
By Douglas Roffe
A flick of the switch, the lights go on and this realistic little station wagon starts to roll! A flick of the switch and it’ll back up! A twist of the wrist and you can steer it to the left or the right!
Powered with a miniature electric motor driven by batteries housed in a flashlight case, this remote control model car is as agile as the real Jeep Station Wagon after which it was patterned. Actually, the control system is very simple. One end of a flexible cable is connected to the steering mechanism on the car while the other end is attached to the flashlight case. By twisting the case the front wheels can be turned. Two wires extending from the batteries in the case are taped to the flexible cable and are connected to the electric motor which drives one rear wheel of the car.
My favorite part is the caption: “Solving a dynamics problem with the Boeing Computer”. THE Boeing computer? What just the one? Do they all have to share?
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What’s it like to be a Boeing engineer?
Boeing engineers enjoy many advantages — among them the finest re-search facilities in the industry. These include such advanced aids as the Boeing-designed, Boeing-built Electronic Analog Computer shown above.
This is part of the stimulating background that helps Boeing men maintain the leadership and prestige of an
Engineering Division that’s been growing steadily for 35 years.
My question is, what is an “confined induction loop area”? Does that mean you have to surround your building with an antenna?
.Pocket-Sized Radio Used in Private Paging System
Private and individual paging of personnel in plants and offices is possible with Motorola’s pocket-sized “Handie-Talkie.” Weighing only 10 ounces and slightly larger than a package of king-size cigarettes, the set is carried on the person. Its use eliminates the need for public-address type paging and loud call devices such as bells.
A typical paging system, using the “Handie-Talkie,” consists of a selector console with individual buttons for key personnel, and an FM transmitter that radiates alerting tones and voice messages within a confined induction loop area. The receiver is powered by a 4-volt mercury battery and is free from the noise interference common to many industrial establishments. Up to several hundred persons can be paged individually. (Motorola Communications and Electronics, Inc., 4501 Augusta Blvd., Chicago 51, 111.).
