Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2016 i Popular Mechanics

IN THIS ISSUE of Popular Mechanics, among many other things, we feature two kinds of vehicles: the kind you drive on roads and the kind you fly in the air. Now, I know what you’re thinking: Cars don’t fly, you’re thinking. True. But the thing is, we optimists here at PM are convinced that flying cars are less of a crazy dream than they were when this magazine first started writing about them, around 1906. Innovations in electric motors and propulsion, navigation software, and lightweight material are making the crazy people who talk about flying cars seem less crazy. Not totally sane, maybe, but a lot less crazy. RVs, too, have been a regular topic in the magazine for decades. So back on earth, we test-drove a couple—I took out…

Walking into the post-bankruptcy RadioShack feels like guest-starring in a burgeoning engineer’s fever dream: aisle after aisle of tiny parts and power connectors and remote-control toys, DIY kits for building all manner of electronic games, stacks of the latest in headphones and speakers. Near the front door, there’s an entire aisle of drones that can do barrel rolls over the shelving units. And you can play with anything you want. Despite this, most of America believes RadioShack is gone. In February 2015, the company declared bankruptcy and announced that it was closing or selling all of its American stores. Late-night comedians pecked at the news like vultures on carrion. Jimmy Kimmel cracked that “people just aren’t buying as many blank VHS tapes as they used to.” John Oliver delivered a…

The debate over gun control continually returns to the background check, most recently with President Obama’s action to enforce the requirement that people who sell guns perform them. But what are they, really? First, the seller contacts the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), part of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division, which runs your information through three national databases that report crime, mental-health records, and dishonorable military discharges. Sometimes local courts and police departments send details too slowly to catch new offenders, but it’s still nice to know someone is paying attention.…

COMPOSITING (“COMPING”) Overlaying multiple visual elements, such as an actor over a landscape that doesn’t exist, often using a green screen. RAY TRACING Rendering natural-looking light by reverse engineering its reflection off objects in a particular shot. KEYFRAMING Animators define a character’s features at key frames, and the computer interpolates their position between them. ROTO CAPTURE Before modern motion capture, animators traced stills from live-action footage by hand to use as frames.…

IN CLEVELAND, "LOCAL" isn’t just a word stamped on the menu at the new speakeasy Pretentious & Sons. Deep in the Rust Belt, a new generation of craftsmen is sourcing supplies to make beautiful new items out of the detritus of the city’s commercial heyday as a leading garment producer and center for iron, steel, and wire. As makers across the country advocate the comeback of urban manufacturing, Cleveland’s affordable cost of living, deep stock of commercial property, and availability of refurbished production equipment make it feasible for even first-timers to establish a workshop. Here’s how to enjoy it the way its makers do. KEVIN BUSTA Scrap Material Artist • I like to work with oxidized materials—things that haven’t been stored properly— because there’s a randomness in rust and stains,…

Q I want to build a wall in a room with a sloped ceiling. How do I measure the angle to cut the tops of the studs? RICHARD P., SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS A The easiest way is to copy the angle onto a 2 x 4. Stand the 2 x 4 on the floor as if it were a stud. Rest one corner against the ceiling to steady the wood. With a level held or clamped along its edge, make the 2 x 4 plumb. Now have a helper place a block of wood flush against the ceiling, across the width of the standing 2 x 4, and trace a line where the block crosses the 2 x 4. The line corresponds to the ceiling’s slope. You can use this line…

As fresh daylight stretches westward down Vine Street in Philadelphia’s Old City district, Roland Sotello swings open the steel double doors of the Spare Parts Company, his vintage motorcycle repair shop, and begins rolling out the bikes. The work space inside is small, and with up to twenty motorcycles being serviced at a time, storage is an issue. But the minor inconvenience has become important street advertising for the business Sotello took over from his old boss, who opened Spare Parts in 1981. The bikes, mostly European—1960s Moto Guzzis, boxy ’70s-era Ducatis, Moto Morinis, Hondas, and ancient-looking Triumphs—line the sidewalk in front of the shop’s redbrick building, chrome glinting. Sometimes people walking by poke their heads in the door, a little dumbstruck by the sight of the place and the…

On her first day of college, Claire Shorall mentally prepared to introduce herself to the roomful of strangers in her Intro to Engineering Computation class. The professor suggested that everyone share their hometown and any languages they knew. Shorall had her answer ready: “Hi, my name is Claire, I’m from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I speak Spanish.” Then the icebreaker started, and her classmates began ticking off skills: “I’m proficient in Java.” “I know C++.” “I didn’t even know what they were talking about,” Shorall says of the litany of programming languages the other students listed. “I felt so underserved by my high school. I ended up not becoming an engineer, and I think part of it was just because I felt really defeated by computers.” Shorall ended up majoring in…

In the moments before Paige Alms caught the wave that changed her life, she was bobbing on her aqua-green surfboard— a sleek nine-foot-four-inch gun shaped by her boyfriend—chatting with some other surfers she hadn’t seen in a while, scanning the horizon for signs of a rising ocean. She was a mile off Maui’s north shore at a surf break known ominously, and for very good reason, as Jaws. For about 360 days a year, Jaws lies sleeping, waiting for big storms to surge down from Alaska and trip on its fan-shaped reef, sixty feet below the surface. When that happens, Jaws awakes and roars out waves the size of office buildings. The spot’s beauty is equaled only by its menace—and no one knows this better than the surfers who flock…

TRIP 1 OF 2 Westchester County, New York to Acadia National Park, Maine MILES 884 VEHICLE 2016 Winnebago Brave 27B The term “recreational vehicle” is weird because—like, as opposed to what? A vehicle that’s all-business? And is the idea that one engages in recreation while inside the vehicle itself, or is it that the purpose of the vehicle is to transport us to places where recreation is the primary activity? And yet the term is also undeniably accurate, because there is no reason to drive a thirty-foot house on wheels on crowded highways and tight village streets and winding back roads unless you are absolutely determined to have a good time if it’s the last thing you do. That’s what we were doing as I drove a 2016 Winnebago Brave…

FRI 4/15 WHEN IT PAYS TO DO IT YOURSELF If you made any energy-efficient home improvements in 2015, you might qualify for a tax break. Even small seasonal upgrades count. If you installed storm doors, energy-efficient windows, central air conditioning, a new furnace or water heater, insulation, or a new roof, you could qualify for up to $500. And if you went all in on green energy, you can get back 30 percent of the cost of geothermal heat pumps, residential wind turbines, solar-energy systems, and fuel cells, with no upper limit. SAT 4/16 SLIGHTLY MORE PALATABLE TAX RELIEF Whether you just filed your taxes or are almost there, you deserve a drink. The Income Tax takes a Bronx cocktail and adds bitters, presumably to match the sting of forking…

DO-IT-YOURSELF: RUNNING MICROBUG KIT This kit makes a tiny, photosensitive bug that scurries toward light! PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARD I grew up taking apart phones to tinker with the circuitry. Raw parts like a circuit board hold a lot of potential. ION SNAPCAM LITE I never remember to take pictures when I do fun stuff. This camera clips to my clothes so I don’t have to.…

In 2007, Dolby identified a gap in the market and assembled a team of algorithm specialists and optical scientists, plus software, electronics, and mechanical engineers to begin developing a monitor that would match—and exceed—the old CRT technology. For nearly three years, Dave Schnuelle, Scott Miller, Ray Tonks, Matthew Robinson, Trevor Davies, Thomas Wan, and Jared Smith consulted with industry professionals about their needs, while constructing, deconstructing, and rebuilding their experimental hardware until they had a proprietary Professional Reference Monitor prototype. The first PRM model was officially launched in 2010; the second debuted in 2013. In February, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored Dolby’s PRM team with a Scientific and Technical Achievement award for providing modern movie makers with an invaluable tool to fully realize their craft. “Color…

Graco TrueCoat 360 DS MOTOR: 2.5 amps PAINT CAPACITY: 32 oz The Graco holds its paint in a heavy disposable plastic bag that nestles into a frame. The sprayer sucks paint out of the bag and applies it in a 4- or 12-inch-wide pattern, depending on the spray tip. After a brief self-priming period, the machine sprays the moment you squeeze its trigger. Because the paint is held under vacuum, the sprayer can be held horizontally, vertically, or even upside down. It applies a professional looking coat in any position, even when traveling at a relatively high surface speed of about 11 inches per second. Cleaning, too, was impressive. It took about the same amount of time and care as you would need to clean a blender. $170 Wagner FLEXiO…

THE CARPENTER’S PENCIL With a sturdy core and a flat shape that keeps it from rolling away, a carpenter’s pencil is pretty darn good at its day job. But here are three handy additional uses: Scribing When scribing an irregular surface, the thick lead of the carpenter’s pencil provides a bold cut line, and its extra width means you can trace more variable surfaces without having to use a spacer or a compass. Spacing At a standard width of ¼ inch, the pencil is an ideal spacer when fastening parallel slats, as on decks or privacy fences. Lubricating Powdered graphite is a good dry lubricant. If a fastener such as a finely threaded machine screw is being finicky, rub it against the graphite of the pencil.…

MIDWEST Based in Woodstock, Illinois, the Midwest Antique Classic Motorcycle Club (macmc.org) hosts up to ten group rides a year, local swap meets, and consultations to meet DMV requirements. WEST COAST The Central Coast Classic Motorcycle Club (centralcoastclassicmc.com) hosts an annual motorcycle show and a ride out of San Luis Obispo, California, on the first Sunday of every month. PACIFIC NORTHWEST Among rides and swap meets, Oregon Vintage Motorcyclists (oregonvintage.org) holds monthly meetings across the state in Portland, Salem, and Eugene. EAST COAST Customers of Spare Parts are often members of the Chin on the Tank club (chinonthetank.com) in Philadelphia, which hosts weekly meet-ups on Thursdays. ACROSS THE COUNTRY The Antique Motorcycle Club of America (antiquemotorcycle.org) boasts sixty-five local chapters across the country, many with monthly meet-ups and annual shows…

I never even considered learning to program a computer until we started talking about the lack of women in technology a few months ago, but now I wish I had done it sooner. The learn-to-code programs I tried are mostly made for young kids, but at twenty-two, I can still remember what it’s like to be in high school, so I feel qualified to comment on their effectiveness. And honestly, they kind of worked. If I’d found these programs a few years ago, I might be writing lines of JavaScript for a living instead of articles about learning to code. VIDCODE (AGES 11 TO 14) This free online program draws girls in by teaching them to code short, personalized videos they can post on social media. It has a heart…

It is the first week of January in western Wyoming, right around zero degrees, but the cold doesn’t seem to bother Jimmy Chin. “Hopefully we’ll find some soft snow,” he says, looking up at Mount Glory, a 10,032-foot peak atop Teton Pass near Jackson Hole, the town Chin has called home for more than a decade. He straps his skis to his pack—a design from The North Face equipped with a nitrogen-triggered air bag that prevents being buried in an avalanche—and starts uphill, the snow squeaking beneath his boots with each step. The climb will lead to some of the more accessible backcountry skiing in the Tetons—terrain full of 40-degree pitches, powder stashes, and open tree skiing. For most people, the one-and-a-half-mile hike takes an hour from the trailhead to…

Popular Mechanics What’s the first thing you tell people when they buy an RV? Logan Gastio Be open to new experiences. It introduces you to a whole subculture that a lot of people don’t know exists. People think it’s something that they’re just going to use on weekends in state parks. But once they get out there, they see it’s a network of people. It becomes like an extended family. PM How did you get into RVs? LG I was on the U.S. National Luge Team, so I spent a lot of time traveling through Europe and in mountainous regions in the Adirondacks, being around nature. I gravitated toward RVs as a way to get back to nature. PM Is there an RV “type”? LG I’ve seen families that don’t…

One day, I hope that my kid’s kid’s kids will sit beside my wall. That they’ll cast shadows against it in the long light of late summer evenings, just like we do now. That they’ll boast to friends about the outdoor shower tucked into a nook at the far end, just like we do now. And that, every once in a while, they’ll appreciate the thing that swallowed entire vacations and summers and more than a few frozen weekends of my time. It started with a sales brochure I saw at a landscaping place in the late 1990s. The company was called Rockwater Ltd, and they built beautiful stone walls and benches. We didn’t need a stone wall or a bench, but for some reason I held on to that…

THE PODCASTS! A BRIEF PRIMER ON OUR TWO HIT SHOWS THE SUMMARY A look at the science and technology behind current events and culture. Plus, each episode we decide if a new technology is stupid or amazing. Twenty to thirty minutes packed with timely know-how and advice for every facet of your life. WHAT YOU’VE MISSED Interviews with Neil deGrasse Tyson and Marc Maron, an investigation into the science of real-life ghost busters, and a brief history of submarines. Go back and listen. Tips on winter driving from an expert at Bridgestone tires, and how to avoid hangovers with the help of an anesthesiologist. WHEN IT AIRS Fridays, biweekly, which in this instance means every other week, not twice per week. On alternating Fridays from the How Your World Works…

“We’re all explorers at heart.” - Andrew Greenberg In 2001, “Rockets” seemed the perfect project to break then-PSU student Andrew Greenberg and friends free from the predictability of Engineering 101. And the Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS) was born. The first to push amateur rockets past Mach 1, PSAS and Greenberg (now an adjunct professor in Electrical & Computer Engineering) are pioneering carbon-fiber composite airframe and control systems technologies (among others). Reminding us that mere “amateurs” can be anything but. What height constitutes “space”? And how will you close the gap to get there? Reaching space (defined as 100 km above sea level) has been done twice already. Staying there— which means getting into orbit—is a different matter. So like any good engineering project, we’re taking small, measurable steps to…

MODEL: MACKISSIC MIGHTY MAC 12PT1100 PRODUCED: PARKER FORD, PENNSYLVANIA TIME TO DISASSEMBLE: 9 HOURS, 7 MINUTES NUMBER OF PARTS: 487 NOTES: In 1947, Elton MacKissic made hardware for farmers on the edge of Pennsylvania Dutch country. One tool he often made was a hammer mill, used to mix feed and molasses. When a customer requested something to help him shred leaves, it occurred to MacKissic that a maelstrom of blunt objects capable of combining grain and thick syrup could probably annihilate yard debris. So began the Mighty Mac. The 12PT1100 contains a heavy-duty knife for larger limbs, but the heart of the machine is still a hammer mill made in the woods of Pennsylvania. MOVING THE MIGHTY MAC The Mighty Mac is stationary during operation, so it has to be…

First, a Quick Refresher A 3D PRINTER turns digital designs into physical objects using a variety of substances, from plastic to ceramic to something that kind of looks like wood. Before you even touch a printer, you’ll need a design— a precise computer-generated model that will tell the printer what to make. You can use one of the millions of free design files online—vacuum-hose adapters, water-bottle holders for your bike, and much, much more—or your own imagination, which will require you or someone else to create an object using computer-aided design, or CAD, software. Designs must then go through separate “slicing” software. Slicers break the object down into flat, two-dimensional layers that will stack up to create it, like slices in a loaf of bread. The software even determines the…

HEET GAS-LINE ANTIFREEZE AND WATER REMOVER Scene: winter, 1984. Augusta, Maine. A 1982 Subaru wagon is wheezing its way across a busy bridge, traffic backed up behind it. Some of the fuel is frozen. The driver coaxes the car to a gas station, buys a bottle of gas-line antifreeze, and pours it into the tank. A mortally embarrassed child in the backseat watches the parade of angry motorists. A minute later, the Subaru fires up, instantly cured. That child would grow up to keep a bottle of this stuff in the car at all times, even during trips to Florida. BAR’S LEAKS RADIATOR STOP LEAK CONCENTRATE If you see neongreen radiator fluid on your garage floor, pour this in when your car’s cold. This goop clots when it finds the…

Buzz Bissinger is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and the author of Friday Night Lights. I was worried about running late. My wife, Lisa, and I live in the southwestern corner of Washington State—a two-hour drive to where I was headed. The cop lying in wait on Route 30 East must have thought it was Christmas come four months early. He got me doing 107 in a 55. “Where you going so fast?” he asked. “A motorcycle safety course,” I said. He looked at me deadpan. Then he placed me in handcuffs and put me into the back of his SUV while he ran my license. I was charged with the criminal misdemeanor of reckless driving, then he let me go. I soon wished he hadn’t. It was already hot at…

No. 1: Bolt Motorbikes While dirt bikes are outlawed in many American cities, electric bicycles are usually legal. (Except in New York, where kamikaze delivery guys have ruined the fun for everyone.) The crowdfunded Bolt M-1—set for release later this year—can hit forty miles per hour and lasts around thirty-five city miles on a single charge. And with exposed shocks and an elongated seat, it looks like it could handle the track. $5,495; BOLTMOTORBIKES.COM No. 2: Surfset Sure, it looks ridiculous: a bunch of people wobbling on surfboards strapped to bouncy exercise balls. But Surfset is one hell of a workout, combining yoga with surfing techniques like the pop-up to increase core strength and cardio. One forty-five-minute session can burn up to eight hundred calories. And unlike other sadistic group…