Engineering eye - February 2017

News, rumours and gossip from the world of engineering.

One engineer may have been celebrating Burns Night in a rather unusual fashion on 25 January. The patriotic Scot has created a bagpipe-playing robot dubbed Ardu McDuino. It is built from an Arduino microcontroller computer and a pair of 3D-printed prosthetic hands. The fingertips are lifted off the holes of a bagpipe chanter with 12V DC solenoids controlled by the Arduino board. Currently the robot requires a human to blow into the bagpipes. However, the engineer, known only by his online username XenonJohn, is planning a version that will be able to pump air automatically. Instructions on how to make a bagpipe-playing robot can be found at www.instructables.com

Mark Rober, a Californian mechanical engineer, has entered the record books with the creation of the world’s largest Nerf gun. The oversized children’s toy is 1.82m long and shoots foam bullets at 40mph. He decided to create it to join his colleagues who regularly have Nerf gun fights to let off some steam in the office. Not a man to back down, Rober told Guinness World Records that he had decided that he would have to “go big or go home”. A video of his efforts can be viewed on YouTube.

A mechanical engineering student at the University of Louisville in Kentucky has taken marriage proposals to a new level by presenting his bride-to-be with a one-of-a-kind engagement ring. Keren Callen said that as a student he was on a budget but still wanted to present his girlfriend with something special. He designed the engagement ring on his computer and moulded it in wax in a 3D printer. It was then sent out to be lost-wax cast into 14-carat gold.

If you have any rumours or gossip, email pe@caspianmedia.com