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Cubify, a manufacturer of “affordable” desktop 3D printers, was named one of Popular Mechanics magazine’s Breakthrough Product Awards for 2012. The unit sells for about $1300. The magazine awarded ten Breakthrough Product awards and ten Breakthrough Innovation awards at an Oct. 4 gala in New York. Credit: Cubify; 3D Systems Corp.

If you are like me, you enjoy a good list, and the folks at Popular Mechanics just released their 2012 Breakthrough Awards to recognize “world-changing innovators” in two categories: innovation and products. Two additional awards are made to innovators, one for leadership and one to recognize a “next-generation” innovator.

The PM Breakthrough Leadership Award went to Elon Musk, the barely forty-something, South African-born billionaire who made his fortune as the inventor of PayPal. Now, he has turned his entrepreneurial talents and drive to transportation—space-bound and earth-bound. His company, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), was the first private company to successfully build and launch a spacecraft that docked with the International Space Station. You may be more familiar with his other company, Tesla Motors, manufacturer of premium all-electric automobiles. PM’s editors interviewed Musk, which you may find interesting.

While you may have heard of Musk, or at least his companies, you probably never heard of Katherine Bomkamp, winner of the PM Breakthrough Next-Generation Award. Bomkamp, a junior at West Virginia University, got PM’s attention with her prototype prosthetic limb designed to address the problem of phantom limb pain in amputees. She was awarded a patent for the device earlier this year and is working toward starting human trials. The device is powered by a solar-charged lithium-ion battery that runs an automatic temperature regulation system with embedded thermoresistive wiring.

The award winners were showcased at an Oct. 4 gala held in the Hearst Tower in New York City. PM is a Hearst publication.

Here are the ten Breakthrough Innovation Award winners, followed by the ten Breakthrough Product Award winners.

Breakthrough Innovation Awards

• Elon Musk, Breakthrough Award Winner: Transportation innovations.
• Katherine Bomkamp, Next-Generation Award: Prototype prosthesis to reduce phantom limb pain in amputees.
• Breaking Through the Heliopause, Voyager 1 & 2, Mechanical Lifetime Achievement Award: NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory was recognized for its achievements launching the Voyager program.
• Self-Regulating Tire: A Goodyear Research team developed a tire that regulates and manages its own tire pressure.
• MABEL, Teaching Robots to Walk: A University of Michigan-Oregon State University collaboration developed a robot that moves with a humanlike gait and dexterity, which could be helpful in situations like the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
• Grooved Disc Oil Skimmer: Elastec/American Marine founder, noticing that oil from an oil spill clung to the sides of a 5-gallon bucket, developed grooved plastic skimmers that can collect 4,670 gallons of spilled oil per minute with 90 percent efficiency.
• IBM Blue Gene/Q Sequoia Supercomputer: Big Blue’s new supercomputer, the world’s fastest, was installed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in June and can crank out 16 quadrillion calculations per second.
• Brain-Computer Interface: Brainpower may give quadriplegics the ability to interact with the world through robotics, thanks to research at the Univerisity of Pittsburgh that picks up electrical signals from the brain surface to guide a robotic arm.
• CORNAR Camera: Ultrafast photography and reconstruction of time-of-flight data allows for imaging around corners. MIT professor Ramesh Raskar, whom we featured in an earlier post, developed the technology.
• Ultralight Micro-Lattice: A California industry–university collaboration makes crush-resistant metallic meshes that are lighter than Styrofoam using a photolithographic process.

Breakthrough Product Awards

• The North Face Powder Guide ABS Vest and Backpack: A life preserver against avalanches.
• Lytro Camera: The light field camera captures light from all directions so an image can be focused after it is shot.
• Autodesk 123D: Free software tools that give “amateurs the power to create, share and print 3D models”
• Microsoft Surface + Windows 8: The new operating system effectively wipes out the line between PCs and tablets.
• Ford 1-Liter EcoBoost Engine: Ford’s three-cylinder engine is designed to deliver fuel efficiencies in the mid-40s without compromising power or torque.
• Dow PowerHouse Solar Shingles: Photovoltaic roof shingles made of CuInSe₂ covered by tempered glass are installed similar to ordinary household roof shingles and wired into the home’s system.
• Cubify Cube 3D Printer: A pretty cheap desktop 3D printer designed for the DIY crowd. Check out some of the creative uses at their blog.
• Lehr Propane-Powered Outboard Engine: Propane-powered engines are cheaper to run, easier to maintain and have ultra-low emissions. Water-skiers and anglers alike should appreciate this outboard motor.
• Leap by Leap Motion: This gesture-control allows you to throw out the mouse and keyboard and, instead, use finger and hand motions to interact with the computer screen.
• GM Crash-Avoidance System: Less annoying and probably more reliable than a “backseat driver,” a camera mounted on the rearview mirror helps the driver watch the road and avoid collisions and unintentional lane changes.

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If you are thinking of building a new home for your family, you might want to watch this TEDx talk by a USC professor who has engineered a way to build a house using additive manufacturing methods.

Wowser! I thought this technology was for smallish stuff, like electronics, bones or coffee cups.

Behrokh Khoshnevis, though, is thinking way outside the 3D printing box with his “automated construction,” which he calls Contour Crafting, and has developed the equipment and programming to “print” concrete buildings.

Khoshnevis is a professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering and Civil & Environmental Engineering, as well as director of the Center for Rapid Automated Fabrication Technologies. According to the CRAFT website, his vision is to revolutionize housing construction, and the team has set an audacious goal for itself-the ability to build a custom-designed house in a day. The new approach is expected to “drastically [reduce] the costs, injuries, waste and environmental impact associated with traditional construction techniques.”

The professor thinks the approach could be used to construct dignified, affordable housing to replace slums, as a rapid response option in disaster areas and for extraterrestial construction. (Some of his funding comes from NASA).

However, just like smaller-scale rapid prototyping manufacturing, the method offers flexibilities that are difficult to achieve with traditional stick or brick-and-block construction, for example, buildings designed with “curved organic designs.” (Which means Frank Gehry might be able to muscle in on the housing market. Sign me up!)

The video of his TEDx talk is about 12 minutes. He shows simulations of the process starting at about the 2:20 mark, and a demonstration of the system comes in at the 6:40 mark. He says the concrete they use is reinforced with composite fibers, has strengths in the 10,000 psi range (the standard for traditional construction is 3,000 psi) and that all the mechanical systems—plumbing, electric, windows, etc.—can be built in along the way.

Khoshnevis admits that rapid prototype construction may be a disruptive technology for the $1 trillion construction industry and might mean hefty job losses in the sector. He estimates that costs of financing could be reduced by 20-25 percent, materials costs could be reduced by 25-30 percent and labor costs could fall by a whopping 45-55 percent.

But he is unapologetic, citing agriculture as an example. A century ago he says 62 percent of Americans were farmers; now fewer than two percent are. We still eat; we still work. He also points out that a technology like this could open opportunities for groups of people that tend to be sidelined by the construction industry, like women and the elderly.

The Obama administration, too, hopes additive manufacturing will be disruptive in a positive way and open new opportunities in the nation’s manufacturing sector. Just yesterday, the announcement was made that an Ohio–Pennsylvania–West Virginia-based consortium will be the “pilot institute” of the National Network of Manufacturing Innovation. The NNMI is envisioned as a private-public partnership network of 15 institutes supported with $1 billion of federal investment and consortium matching funds. Five federal agencies agreed to contribute up to $45 million to the pot to fund the pilot institute—DOD, DOE, Department of Commerce, NSF and NASA.

Things moved pretty fast. The NNMI proposal was announced by the president on March 9, and the RFP for the pilot institute was announced on April 13. According to a press release from DOE yesterday, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute will receive $30 million in federal funds which the consortium will match with $40 million. The National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (Latrobe, Pa.) leads the consortium of 40 companies, nine research universities, five community colleges and 11 nonprofit organizations (listed below).

A NCDMM press release says that the bulk of the cost sharing funds are from industry and the state governments of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. It says, “This I-80/I-79 corridor with nearly 32,000 manufacturers, commonly known as the “TechBelt,” represents a smaller geographic area but larger manufacturing output with more combined average production workers per year (1.01 million) than the two largest manufacturing states (TX, CA).” (That is, the “TechBelt,” formerly known as the Rust Belt.)

The winning consortium beat a field with twelve other competitors from across the country, including some with big research universities involved, including MIT and Georgia Tech. The NAMII will be headquartered in Youngstown, Ohio, according to a newspaper report.

And now, because this is a blog, I am allowed to opine, which I shall now do.

When I first moved to Northeast Ohio over 25 years ago, Republic Steel’s mills were pushing out tons of steel. That’s gone, and I think, finally, everyone has pretty much figured out that commodity steel is mostly manufactured offshore now. (The US is still a leader when it comes to production of highly engineered steels, like high alloy stainless steels.) But, I have long argued that we need to get over the loss of steel and look at what our region’s competency is. And that is, the “Rust Belt” knows how to manufacture.

We have the infrastructure and know-how to get materials in and products out. We have lots of smaller manufacturers that know how to heat treat, form, machine, coat, assemble, etc. Let’s stop pining for what we’ve lost and watch for and adapt to new opportunities that capitalize on what we’ve been doing for the better part of a century. Industries like renewable energy and medical devices need us. Let’s make sure they know it.

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Consortium participants:

Companies: Allegheny Technologies, AlphaMicron, Applied Systems and Technology Transfer, Autodesk, Boeing, Catalyst Connection, Energy Industries of Ohio, ExOne, FMW Composites, General Dynamics, General Electric, Honeywell, IBM, Johnson Controls, Kennametal, Kent Displays, Laser Technology Assts, Lockheed Martin, Lubrizol, M-7 Technologies, MicroFab Technologies, Morris, Northrop Grumman, nScrypt, OSRAM Sylvania, Optomec, Oxford Performance Materials, Paramount Industries / 3D Systems, Parker Hannifin, Plextronix, POM, RTI, Ruger, Sciaky, Stratasys, Stratonics, Timken, Touchstone Research Lab, Westinghouse Nuclear, Wohlers Associates

Research Universities: Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, Kent State University, Lehigh University, Penn State University, Robert Morris University, University of Akron, University of Pittsburgh, Youngstown State University

Community Colleges: Eastern Gateway Community College, Lorain County Community College, Northampton Community College, Penn College of Technology, Westmoreland County Community College

Non-Profit Organizations: Association for Manufacturing Technology, Ben Franklin Technology Partners, JumpStart Ohio, Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network, MT Connect, NorTech, National Digital Engineering and Manufacturing Consortium, Ohio Aerospace Institute, Robert C. Byrd Institute, the Youngstown Business Incubator, and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers

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UGA discovery uses ‘fracture putty’ to repair broken bone in days

Broken bones in humans and animals are painful and often take months to heal. Studies conducted in part by University of Georgia Regenerative Bioscience Center researchers show promise to significantly shorten the healing time and revolutionize the course of fracture treatment.”We have been successful in formulating a product that contains mesenchymal stem cells and allows them to survive in the environment of the fracture long enough to elicit the rapid formation of new bone,” says said Steve Stice, director of the Center. This year, the group showed bone can be generated in sheep in less than four weeks. The speed in which bone is formed is one of the truly unique features of this study.

MIT’s Concrete Sustainability Hub Life Cycle Assessment platform releases its February 2012 Research Profile Letter

This issue (pdf) focus on “Homes: A Match for Concrete Innovation.” In general, the LCA’s research aims at moving LCA in the design space of architects, engineers and developers, by quantifying the link between energy costs and architectural, materials and construction technology design parameters. This research makes it possible to match specific material solutions with structural tightness levels that need to be implemented in order to enhance the energy efficiency of homes in the United States.

A tough tip for nano manipulation: New coating promises to turn an atomic force microscope into an even more useful tool

IBM’s Zurich Research Laboratory-where several groundbreaking microscopy tools have been invented-has created a tough new coating for the tip of an atomic force microscope, a device that can be used to capture nanoscale imagery as the tip is run over a surface on the end of a microscopic cantilever. The coating could expand the range of ways that AFM can be used to include making lithographic masks for electronic manufacturing with features 10 nanometers in size-beyond the limits of traditional processes such as e-beam lithography.

Early study suggests nanodiamonds safe for implants

Nanodiamonds designed to toughen artificial joints also might prevent the inflammation caused when hardworking metal joints shed debris into the body, according to a new study. In the race to create longer-lasting and less-painful artificial joints, University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers are exploring whether nanodiamond coatings can reduce wear on joints made of metal alloys. Based on the way nanodiamonds interact with macrophages in a dish, the study authors suggest that the usual size and concentration of wear debris should cause neither inflammation nor toxicity. The macrophages that engulf smaller nanodiamonds release fewer inflammatory chemicals than those encountering larger particles shed by the metal and polymer surfaces of conventional implants.

Japan offers $65M in rare-earth subsidies

Japan, the world’s biggest importer of rare earths, will provide 5 billion yen ($65 million) in subsidies for projects that reduce the need for the elements as it aims to cut its reliance on imports to meet demand. The funds will support projects that reduce consumption of magnet products that use dysprosium and neodymium, improve recycling and develop new technologies, according to a statement from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. An additional 3.5 billion yen will be allocated for use from May, according to the statement.

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Warning on fracture of the alumina-bearing couple delta ceramic liner in hip implants

Although the fracture rate of third-generation alumina-bearing couples is low, we believe that it may not be possible to eliminate the actual risk of alumina head fracture. Patients should be informed about the potential for this complication before receiving an alumina-bearing couple.

Polymer nanocomposites drive opportunities in the automotive sector

Polymer nanocomposites represent a new class of multiphase materials containing dispersion of nano-sized filler materials such as nanoparticles, nanoclays, nanotubes, nanofibers etc. within the polymer matrices. These multifunctional nanocomposites exhibit excellent mechanical properties, but also display an outstanding combination of optical, electrical, thermal, magnetic and other physico-chemical properties. It is believed that the molecular level interactions between the nanoparticles and polymer matrices along with the presence of very high nanoparticle-polymer interfacial area play a major role in influencing the physical and mechanical properties of nanocomposites.

Magnetic memory miniaturized to just 12 atoms

The smallest magnetic-memory bit ever made-an aggregation of just 12 iron atoms created by researchers at IBM-shows the ultimate limits of future data-storage systems. The magnetic memory elements don’t work in the same way that today’s hard drives work, and, in theory, they can be much smaller without becoming unstable. As the semiconductor industry bumps up against the limits of scaling by making memory and computation devices ever smaller, the IBM Almaden research group, led by Andreas Heinrich, is working from the other end, building computing elements atom-by-atom in the lab. Data-storage arrays made from these atomic bits would be about 100 times denser than anything that can be built today.

The solar shakeout, and what to expect in 2012

With bankruptcies an unwanted but increasingly common feature of the photovoltaic landscape, questions abound as to what to expect from 2012. Lux Research’s Matt Feinstein investigates and picks a list of winners from the up and downstream markets. Innovation it seems, and not just when it comes to technology, is the key

New thermal diodes: Jumping droplets take a lot of heat, as long as it comes in a cool way

Microscopic water droplets jumping between surfaces that repel and attract moisture could hold the key to a wide array of more energy efficient products, ranging from large solar panels to compact laptop computers. Duke University engineers have developed a new way of producing thermal diodes, devices which regulate heat to preferentially flow in a certain direction, effectively creating a thermal conductor in the forward direction and an insulator in the reverse direction.

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