The Design Technology Blog

Author: Deniz

  • Arch Bridges

    Arch Bridges are one of the main types of bridges currently spread across the world. The other types being suspension and beam bridges. The structure of an arch bridge consists mainly of an arch. The pathway can be either on the arch,

    below the arch or ontop of the arch. The pathway is never exactly on the arch, because near the ends of the arch the steepness would be to severe. The picture to the left shows how arches are used to suspend the path of the bridge. This is one of the ways that arch bridges are oriented. This bridge is the Humber Bay arch bridge in Toronto.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Pictured to the right is the cold spring canyon arch bridge in Santa Barbara, California. In this bridge the pathway is ontop of the arch that supports it.

     

    Pictured below is Old bridge in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. This arch bridge, originally built by the Ottoman’s in the 16th , was designed by architect Hayruddin. A student of the famous architect Sinan. On this bridge the pathway is still supported by the arch but it also forms around the arch and is not completely flat. This bridge is not only importaint because it can let pedestrians cross the Neretva river, but it is Bosnia and Herzegovinas most recognisable landmark.

     

    Arch Bridges have a strong structure and have the advantage that there doesn’t need to be anything in the middle and the path for ships under the bridge is easily passable. The arches can be very large and still structurally support a long road without having pilars in the middle of the structure. All of the tension is put onto the foundations on the sides of the bridge. This is why it is importaint that the foundations are good with arch bridges.

  • Ergonomic Keyboard

    Common keyboards force you to type on a flat plane. Also laptop’s have a flat keyboard. This is not the most ergonomically comfortable position to type in. There are several different types of ergonomic keyboard designs or at least designs that claim to be ergonomic. There are contoured keyboard’s like the Kinesis:

    In this design the two areas with keys are the same distance apart as average shoulder width. This causes the person using it to not  have to make as much shoulder movements.

    There are also keyboards that only split the keys into two seperate groups. “Split Keyboards” such as this one made by Apple:

    This is the Apple adjustable Keyboard, it allows you to change the angle between the two groups of keys by means of a hinge.

    A further development of the split keyboard is the angled split keyboard such as the maltron keyboard. File:Maltlayout.jpg

    The keys are located at different heights and towards the inside they get higher making your index finger type higher.

     

  • Robotics for Medical Purposes

    The use of robot’s to aid mankind has endless possibilities. Robotics can be used in many areas including medical purposes. One area where robot’s can help is medical procedures that require high precision. Operations are done by expert’s that are skilled at what they do but people can only be so accurate. Also these skilled people might not always be available. If a robot can be built that can make operations on people it will greatly aid our society. Robot’s will not only make operations with more accuracy and precision than humans, but also they can easily be mass produced making them much more readily available for people in need than skilled medical professionals.

    Robot’s can also be made to physically enhance human abilities. Exoskeletons can be robotics that are in a suit/harness type thing that can be worn and will enhance muscle movement’s of the human body. In the medical view people who have multiple sclerosis might be able to use this to enhance their muscle movement’s since their condition limit’s their muscle movement. If a muscle is weak the robotics could sense the slightest force in a body part and then add power to it to make the person have a strong movement.

    Scientists Report Breakthrough in Quest For "Prosthetic Exoskeleton"

     

    The harness could be made to cover only some limbs or the whole body potentially letting a person who is confined to a wheelchair stand up and walk on their own leg’s again.

  • Heat Sensitive Colors in Ceramics

    Thermochromism in ceramics or ceramics that change color with change in temperature can be used in many places. A casual use of this technology is in mug’s made of ceramic. When hot tea or cofee etc. is poured into it the image appears on the surface of the mug. The heat of the liquid causes the thermocromism of the ceramic to take affect.

    As you can see here the handle of the mug hasn’t changed color. This is most likely because it is further away from the hot liquid content of the mug and therefore not affected by it’s heat.

    Another nice application for thermochromic ceramics can be tiles. Tiles can be used for flooring or walls in bathrooms or kitchens. This can be very useful in some cases because you can tell where someone has been if they touch thermocromic tiles along their pathway. This can be applied in high-security buildings. Below are some images of more casual uses; shower tiling, flooring etc.

    image 1 from: http://www.ecvv.com/product/3052896.html

    image 2 from: http://dornob.com/hot-or-cool-color-changing-chameleon-tiles/

    other sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermochromism