Recycled Tennis Balls Could Protect Buildings from Earthquakes

Earthquakes cannot be forecast, but engineers can prepare for them. Seismic-isolation systems built into the bases of certain buildings in high-risk areas, such as San Francisco’s City Hall, use complex structures of concrete, rubber and metal to reduce quake damage by absorbing the ground’s horizontal oscillations, like a car’s suspension does with vertical motion. But … Read more

Robots: Watch a robotic arm play table tennis after just 90 minutes of training

By Chris Stokel-Walker A table tennis-playing robot can keep up a rally against humans, but like many amateur players, it struggles when attempting fancier shots. Yapeng Gao, Jonas Tebbe and Andreas Zell at the University of Tübingen in Germany began by designing a computer simulation in which a virtual robot arm equipped with a table tennis racket … Read more