bots IN BRIEF
READY TO ROLL
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project will
launch Curiosity in late 2011 for arrival at Mars in
August 2012. The mission will study whether an
intriguing area of Mars has offered environmental
conditions favorable for supporting microbial life and
for preserving evidence of whether life existed there.
On Mars, of course, Curiosity will not need an
umbilical cord. It will communicate by radio, and it will
be powered by a radiosotope thermoelectric
generator — essentially a nuclear battery that reliably
converts heat to electricity — to be installed just
A test operator in clean-room garb holds umbilical cables for
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity during the rover's first drive test
back on July 23, 2010.
Technicians and engineers conducted the drive test
in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
GROWS ON YOU
Meet Plant. (Yep, that’s what it’s called.)
Each of Plant’s 169 artificial leaves are controlled by a piece of shape
memory wire. When cameras mounted above Plant see your hand move
over it, it signals Plant to shimmy its leaves in the same area in response
to a ‘virtual wind.’
Plant was designed by Akira Nakayasu, and will be on display at Ars
Cool tidbits herein provided by Evan Ackerman at www.botjunkie.com, www.robotsnob.com, www.plasticpals.com, and other places.
Photo of Plant sans leaves.
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