The big news is that a documentary about the Urbee car (which took filmmaker, Doug Howe, 2.5 years to make) is being premiered tonight in Winnipeg.
I featured the Urbee in a couple of Sept. 28, 2011 postings titled, Manitoba’s Urbee, which described it and mentioned a 3-D printing process used for the car panels, and *an Interview with the Urbee car’s Jim Kor where I asked if nanotechnology enabled some of the refinements such as the 3-D printing process (it did), and more.
Sadly, I’m not getting to Winnipeg tonight but if you can, here’s more information about the premiere,
The public premiere of the URBEE DOCUMENTARY. This is the story of the building of the urban vehicle of the future. URBEE is the world’s greenest passenger car. And it’s being built right here in Winnipeg!
WHEN is this happening?
Tuesday August 28th doors open at 6:00 PM [rush seating]
6:30 Music by Bucky Driedger/Matt Schellenberg of the Liptonians
7:15 URBEE the documentary premiere
WHERE is it?
The Park Theatre 698 Osborne Street
HOW did they do it?
URBEE is designed and constructed by an elite group of Winnipeg engineers, industrial designers and environmental enthusiasts led by Jim Kor
WHY do we need URBEE?
It’s estimated there are 1 billion cars currently on the road across our planet. By 2050 there will be 2.5 billion. The rampant consumption of fossil fuels by these automobiles is an unsustainable drain on the world’s energy. And the resultant dumping of carbon into the atmosphere comes at a grave cost to the environment. Built right here in Manitoba, URBEE is the prototype for a 21st century approach to automotive design that redefines energy efficiency and minimizes impact on the environment.
Here’s an image of the Urbee on the road at Bird’s Hill Park near Winnipeg,
And here’s another angle on the Urbee,
You can see why the car has attracted so much interest here and internationally. Here’s news about the Urbee now that it’s back from Europe (from the Jan. 2012 WOW backgrounder document),
Urbee has just returned from Europe, and is now safely back in our shop on Erin Street. Work continues on the car. This winter [it’s not clear if they mean 2012 or 2013] we plan to drive Urbee during one of our worst Winnipeg snow storms, to demonstrate that Urbee can also be a great winter car!
Congratulations to the filmmaker, Doug Howe, and Jim Kors. I look forward to hearing more about the Urbee (or URBEE).
There will be a DVD of the documentary available soon. If you contact them via jkor@urbee.net, you will be placed on a waiting list.
In an earlier posting today, (Manitoba’s Urbee) about the Urbee, I promised an interview with Jim Kor, project leader and lead designer. Befoe getting to the interview, here’s a little biographical information from the Urbee website’s Team page,
Jim Kor is a professional engineer (mechanical) with over 35 years of experience in designing automotive, bus, rail, agricultural, and heavy mobile equipment as well as civil structures and product for the aerospace and medical industries. He is the senior designer and project leader for the Urbee project. Jim is the owner of Kor Product Design, a 30 year old international consulting firm.
Congratulations on your achievement, i.e., getting your first prototype completed. Could you describe the 3D printing process in simple terms? (e.g. do you lay down layers of atoms? particles? bits of polymer?; what does a 3D printer look like compared to the printers most of us are accustomed to?; etc.)
The 3-D printing process is an additive process, where a ‘3-D printer’ precisely places a material (such as plastic), thin strands or particles at a time, layer by layer, with each layer bonding to the next, all under computer control, until a rigid part emerges. These 3-D printers look like large metal boxes, and can be the size of bar-fridges (desktop models) or walk-in freezers (floor-mounted models). The input to the machine is strands of material (wound in loops, like wire), and the output is finished parts.
Has this 3D printing process been enabled by nanotechnology?
Yes, I believe so. The head, where the material emerges hot and bonds to the lower layer, is where all the action takes place, and most of the technology is focussed.
Is every single element (tires, windows, seats, panels, etcl) of this car produced by 3D printing?
On our first prototype Urbee, just the body panels are 3-D printed. All the windows were also 3-D printed, but these 3-D printed parts were used as patterns for making the plastic and glass windows within Urbee.
How long does it take to print a piece?
The larger pieces currently can take a long time, or at least they did on our first prototype. But, we are learning, and this machine time will come down, especially with further progress regarding the printing of larger panels.
I gather you’re raising funds for your 2nd prototype. Is that one going to be identical to the first or are you refining the design and how?
The second prototype will greatly benefit from the first prototype (the first time we have seen all major components working within the car). We plan on refining and expanding our use of 3-D printing, taking it into the interior and parts of the chassis. How close is your product to being commercialized and what would it take to get it commercialized?
We are at first prototype stage. Most optimistic production date would be 2014. It will take continued Research & Development by our Team to get us there.
Could you tell me a little bit about how this project came to be located in Manitoba?
The originators of the project, and most of the Urbee Team lives and works (as designers and engineers) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Have you gotten provincial and federal support for this project? And, if any, what kind? Have you also gotten support from venture capitalists, banks, etc.?
We have gratefully received financial assistance, but the project remains largely self-funded. Without financial assistance (especially donations), and without the expertise and in-kind support of our sponsors (as listed on our website), the project could not have advanced to the point it has. We continue to receive fantastic support from some of the best people, within some of the best companies and organizations in the world. Hats off to them for making this project what it is today.
On a completely different note, Urbee sounds like Herbie, the name of a Volkswagen beetle featured in a number of Disney movies. Was this intentional?
No, it was not intentional. URBEE stands for URBan Electric with Ethanol as back-up. It is a project name that has stuck, is rather unique (easy to do google searches), and which I personally have grown to like. I don’t mind being associated with the original VW Beetle, one of the best-selling cars in the world, … ever, …. (over 24 million units sold worldwide, I believe).
Why did you choose that particular colour for your prototype?
The Industrial Designers within the Team chose the colour. They are extremely talented (the best in the world, in my opinion). They have designed the body to not only look aesthetically pleasing and ‘correct’, but have achieved a Coefficient of Drag (Cd) of 0.15, … extremely low for a practical car. Some would say impossibly low, but two independent computer aerodynamic simulations have verified this number, so we are satisfied that we are there. It is what makes us claim that ‘One day all cars will look like this’, because this body shape honours the physics of the problem (a car body moving at the bottom of an ocean of air).
Is there anything you’d like to add?
Yes. Thanks to all those that have helped advance this groundbreaking and important project. Thanks for your interest in this project, that is helping propel it forward. And keep your eye on our website (www.urbee.net), to see where we’re going next.
Thank you and I wish you and your team the best of luck, Jim Kor.
Here’s one more look at the Urbee,
Urbee rear side at TEDxWinnipeg Sept. 15,2011
ETA Sept. 28,2011 11:50 am PST: I’ve corrected a few grammatical and spelling errors of my own. I am including two videos featuring the Urbee. The first is promotional video produced by the Urbee team,
This second video is a clip from a television programme interview of Jim Kor and Jeff Hanson discussing the 3D printing process and the Urbee,
Late last week I wrote about a new report, Nanotechnology in Australia: Trends, Applications and Collaborative Opportunities, that was supposed to be launched today. The news article which originated the story was by Cheryl Jones of The Australian, who noted,
THE number of Australian companies in a nanotechnology market likely to be worth trillions of dollars within a decade has plummeted, according to an Australian Academy of Science report.
Federal government reports previously put at about 80 the number of companies engaged in the technology underlying a burgeoning global market.
But now there are only 55 to 60, say nanotechnology experts cited in the academy report, to be released next week.
Little work has moved from the benchtop to the market, the report says, and one obstacle to commercialisation is “often dysfunctional” university intellectual property services.
I checked and this item from the Government of Australia was announced instead (from the Azo Materials site),
The Rudd Government is introducing a comprehensive national framework to guide the safe development of new technologies such as nanotechnology and biotechnology as part of a $38.2 million National Enabling Technologies Strategy released today.
“Technologies like nanotechnology and biotechnology have enormous potential, but we can only realise that potential with the community’s support,” said Innovation Minister, Senator Kim Carr.
“Health, safety and environmental protection are paramount for the Government. This strategy is about ensuring we meet the highest standards while at the same time maximising opportunities to develop these cutting-edge technologies.
I’m not sure what happened to the report but this announcement was a bit of a surprise. Given the material cited in Jones’ story, I would have expected the government to pull back rather than invest more heavily. It seems the government has recognized the barriers noted in the report (which has yet to be released or even seen by anyone other than Cheryl Jones [see my posting here] ETA: my apologies to Ms. Jones, I did find the report days later here at a location I failed to check, for penance I will leave my original wrong-headed and now embarrassing comment) and decided to address the issues head on.
Meanwhile, the ‘Olympics of Science’ is finishing today in San Diego (Feb. 18-22, 2010), the 176th annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). From the AAAS site,
The 2010 AAAS Annual Meeting is coming to San Diego for the first time, bringing cutting-edge research and a host of free events for the public in its role as the United States’ largest general scientific conference.
Described in The Times Higher Education Supplement as “the Olympics of science conferences,” the Annual Meeting has long been known as the premier multidisciplinary science gathering in the United States. This year, it will continue its evolution to a prime international affair: When the 176th meeting of the society convenes from 18-22 February, scientists, journalists, and educators from more than 50 nations will be there.
Under the banner “Bridging Science and Society,” top researchers will discuss their findings in the context of global challenges in the environment, economy, health, and education. Attendees can explore research in the neurosciences, energy, astrobiology, public health, and environmental change, and learn how these advances directly affect courtroom trials, care for the elderly, sustainable cities, border security, and other public concerns.
As part of an unprecedented effort to share the excitement of scientific discovery with the public, AAAS’s Family Science Days and other free events offer a chance at hands-on learning for students of all ages.
I mention it not just because I’m currently experiencing Vancouver’s Winter Olympics but because, in 2012, the AAAS will be hosting its annual meeting in Vancouver. To get a better idea of what this means, I’ve excerpted parts of a story by Maggie Koerth-Baker on Boing, Boing about attending some of the presentations at the AAAS 2010 San Diego Meeting. First an excerpt from a nanotechnology presentation,
[David] Cahill [University of Illinois] is part of a team working to improve thermal insulation with nanotechnology. His goal: Create some kind of new material that will disrupt the transfer of heat energy between two objects. Getting it right would have big implications. For instance, we could drastically improve our ability to capture the waste heat from electrical generation and put it to use in other ways.One possible solution is silicon nanowires. These structures are normally baby-butt smooth, but as you make their surfaces more and more rough, the nanowires conduct less and less thermal energy. Right now, it’s not exactly clear why that trick works. But understanding it could put Cahill’s team on the right path.
He’s not the only one taking energy technology nano. Another researcher on the same panel, Yi Cui, Ph.D., of Stanford, is applying nanostructures to energy storage, in hopes of developing smaller batteries that can hold more power.
In fact, according to Cui, nanotech is absolutely essential to any future progress with batteries. Storage capacity for size has plateaued, he explained. To go further, we have to start making electrodes out of completely different—and probably completely new—materials.
Note: I’ve mentioned Cui and his work at Stanford University here. More from Koerth-Baker, this time it’s from a science history presentation on measurements and averages,
Before that [1761], obviously, scientists still made mistakes. Multiple measurements or experiments still yielded varying results. But they dealt with the variation in a very different way—they picked the answer they thought represented their best work.
To modern ears, that sounds like cheating—”You just randomly decided on the number you liked best? That’s science?” But, at the time, it was perfectly logical. Historically, scientists viewed themselves as craftsmen,[Jeff] Buchwald said. If you were building a piece of fine furniture, you wouldn’t make a bunch and pick the average to display. You’d choose the finished version that was the best, and best displayed your woodworking skill.
Intriguing, eh? If you want to find out who introduced the concept of averaging scientific measurements and why he was too embarrassed to publish this in his first research, do read Koerth-Baker’s piece.
For my last bit, I’m back on the copyright trail and thanks to Techdirt for alerting me to this essay on file-sharing and morality written by a grade 12 student at Balmoral Hall School (all girls) in Winnipeg,Manitoba. Kamal Dhillon won the 2010 Glassen Ethics competition,
This year’s essay topic was: “Is it OK to download music, movies and games without paying?” There were about 80 entries from high schools in Winnipeg and across the province. The contest, held annually since 2007, is jointly sponsored by The Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics and The Department of Philosophy at the University of Manitoba. The winner receives $1,000. The Winnipeg Free Press publishes the winning essay.
From the Winnipeg Free Press (Feb.13, 2010 edition), an excerpt from Dhillon’s essay,
MILLIONS of people, mostly but not all young, engage in file sharing.
The multinational corporations who make and sell the material are not happy with this development. Their profits are threatened and they, in turn, are threatening to sue, for huge amounts of money, individuals who engage in file sharing.
I support the act of file sharing and argue that the free sharing of these forms of intellectual property would likely produce, overall, more good than harm for society.
