Tech21's iPhone protector with d3o at IFA2011

This trade show video does have a decent bit of background noise, but it's a great display of d3o in its native form, a big, orange blob.

My understanding is that most cell phone glass - check the article - shatters much more commonly when hit on the edge of the glass than on the front. Coating the edge, then, is a great idea for screen protection.

Can anybody out there see the big orange line that he mentions at 1:05?

How Plastic Bottles are Made

This video shows how PET bottles are made, and I'm happy to see that it starts with at least some post-consumer plastic ingredients. I'm disheartened to  hear that no more than 10% of the bottle can be recycled content.

The note at 2:40 saying that the machine is being shown in slow motion is disappointing but not shocking. I wish we could get to see the machine at full speed, though, even if only to see that it's too fast for us to see.

The How It's Made series is brilliant and is an absolute must-see series for materials science teachers.

How It's Made Bronze Sculptures

Coat in latex...fill with wax...add a sprue...coat wax with ceramic...coat ceramic with silica...steam out the wax...fire the ceramic mold...melt bronze & fill mold...destroy mold...clean statue...coat statue...

And, of course, step 3: Make Money!

Anybody want to venture a guess as to why the statue is missing a heart?

How Its Made, Nuts and Bolts

The wire rod spends 30 hours in the furnace to become more pliable? Seriously?

And I have to mention that the chemistry teacher in me dies just a little when the narrator says phosphate is a chemical compound. It's a part of a chemical compound, sure, but it's not the full compound any more than the stuff you pour on a cut is really just peroxide rather than hydrogen peroxide.

The cold forging of the head of the bolt is amazing, and I wish we could see the forging as it happens. It's amazing to think of the head being forged that drastically in only three stamps.

So, nuts get hot forged while bolts get cold forged? I wonder why the difference.

Concrete Countertops: How reinforcing works

Concrete is great under compression but not nearly as good under tension.

A concrete beam would make a lousy support for hanging structures.

Here the president of the Concrete Countertop Institute (really? is there an industry group for every possible subindustry?) uses a Simpsons still to help us understand the issues that exist with a concrete 'beam' like a countertop.

He then brings out a great illustration (at 2:30) of the tension/compression forces that occur on a beam when the beam bends and goes on to explain where the different tension issues occur when a beam is supported on the ends or cantilevered away from the support.

The video is a little long (nearly 10:00 in total length) but does a very good job explaining how and why reinforcement measures have to be used in concrete countertops.

If only it came with a great medallion like this one.

By the way, is that guy to the right in the picture the same one speaking throughout the video?

What is ANGIOPLASTY and STENTING?

I'm guessing percutaneous coronary intervention is a phrase that is just casually thrown around in some medical fields, but it seems a pretty daunting introduction to me. The animation shows how balloons and stents - assumedly made of memory metal - are used to open a clogged artery.

It's a great explanation and illustration of a fairly complex process that would be nigh impossible to actually film from this same perspective.

Now I just need to get my hands on a stent to show in class.

Boeing 777 Wing Test

This one isn't for the faint of heart of the afeared of flying as the engineering team of Boeing pushes the wings of the 777 far past their design limit load.

The wing shatters at 154% of the strongest forces that the wing would ever be expected to encounter during a flight - and certainly well beyond anything it would encounter during a routine flight, and when it shatters, it shatters. This video then replays the shattering - with the echoing "154" - over and over again.

Oh, wait...


[Spoiler Warning]