Post #369,620
1/12/13 12:15:22 AM
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Design amphibious tank for DARPA, win $1M
http://www.wired.com...13/01/darpa-fang/
DarpaÂs software  built in part by researchers at Vanderbilt University  is called Meta. ItÂs an open source version of the same kind of complex design and simulation software that typically costs big corporations tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, says Lt. Col. Nathan Wiedenman, the Darpa program manager in charge of the challenge.
The code will be released Monday at noon EST, and the first phase of the contest  called the FANG (Fast, Adaptable, Next-Generation Ground Vehicle) challenge  will kick off. Contestants will use this code to build a drive train and mobility system, Wiedenman says.
Darpa plans to continue to refine the code as the FANG challenge evolves. And, eventually, it will also release the source code to the Vehicleforge.org website that itÂs using to manage the contest.
Once the drive train is built, the field gets winnowed a little bit, and the top 20 contestants will then design more of their amphibious vehicle. Contestants will move forward based on how well they meet about 150 design goals of the drive system.
When the $1 million prize winner is finally selected a few years from now, Darpa will try to build out the top design. But of course, they wonÂt do this in a standard way. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, theyÂre investing $3.5 million in Washington, D.C. and Pittsburgh hacker spaces where Darpa employees will literally work by night, building a new kind of reconfigurable foundry where theyÂll be able to quickly spit out prototypes of the parts theyÂre creating.
So much for the quick payoff, huh.
It's good they're thinking outside the box though.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #369,622
1/12/13 1:08:34 AM
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3D Printing at its finest.
--
greg@gregfolkert.net
PGP key 1024D/B524687C 2003-08-05
Fingerprint: E1D3 E3D7 5850 957E FED0 2B3A ED66 6971 B524 687C
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Post #369,623
1/12/13 3:26:55 AM
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Better, design the future of computing: it's analog ;^>
[I tol ya so.. Waaay-back.]
http://www.wired.com...campaign=Previous
Darpa Has Seen the Future of Computing Â
And ItÂs Analog
BY ROBERT MCMILLAN 08.22.12
By definition, a computer is a machine that processes and stores data as ones and zeroes. But the U.S. Department of Defense wants to tear up that definition and start from scratch.
Through its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), the DoD is funding a new program called UPSIDE, short for Unconventional Processing of Signals for Intelligent Data Exploitation. Basically, the program will investigate a brand-new way of doing computing without the digital processors that have come to define computing as we know it.
The aim is to build computer chips that are a whole lot more power-efficient than todayÂs processors  even if they make mistakes every now and then.
The way Darpa sees it, todayÂs computers  especially those used by mobile spy cameras in drones and helicopters that have to do a lot of image processing  are starting to hit a dead end. The problem isnÂt processing. ItÂs power, says Daniel Hammerstrom, the Darpa program manager behind UPSIDE. And itÂs been brewing for more than a decade.
ÂOne of the things thatÂs happened in the last 10 to 15 years is that power-scaling has stopped, he says. MooreÂs law  the maxim that processing power will double every 18 months or so  continues, but battery lives just havenÂt kept up. ÂThe efficiency of computation is not increasing very rapidly, he says.
[. . .]
Law above fear, justice above law, mercy above justice, love above all.
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Post #369,635
1/12/13 8:38:57 AM
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Everything goes in cycles.
When I started grad school in Cincy, there was an old analog computer that took up 3-4 racks in the VAX room. I heard some mumblings of what it was good for, but never saw anyone use it. The profs who did IC design work always spoke very respectfully of the analog IC designers out in industry - they were doing so much more interesting work than those combining masses of flip-flops into ever larger circuits.... ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #369,671
1/12/13 5:22:17 PM
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Automatic gearboxs are analog computers.
And many of them are very reliable, too.
Wade.
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Post #370,330
1/24/13 5:17:28 PM
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Great design tools for electrostatic lenses..
I recall seeing a (rather huge and elaborate) HeathKit! Analog Computer which I hadn't heard of previously:
used in electrode designs for ion sources. With obvious success.
It would seem that, as with so much of homo-sap's herd-instinct--yet another baby was thrown out as the bathwater--defined next:
the swimming pool in which All must toil in future, because:
Digital was so kewl, surely it must be The Technique for All problem solving, exclusively
--or, you're fired Mr. Tesla!
--and take those silly big coils with you! on your way out..
But I digress...
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