How Tech Works - First Season

On this episode of How Tech Works...

This massive model is being built by flying robots!

And its success is giving city planners some very big,

very real-life ideas.

And we'll check out a car that's not only a speed demon

it's also devilishly good on fuel!

Hi there, and welcome to How Tech Works ,

the show that is jam-packed with the latest gear and gadgets

from the world of science and technology.

My name is Dr. Basil Singer.

On this episode...

we'll meet a man who creates, and drives, a speed machine

without ever leaving the comfort

of his living room recliner chair.

Plus...

an incredible brick-laying device in the Netherlands

that's putting big smiles on the faces of road crews

and some of the locals, too.

But first...

here at How Tech Works, we love stories about flying machines.

So let's head off to France to meet a group of designers

who are building a model city

using tiny flying robots to do it!

Take a look.

At an Arts Centre in Orléans,

hundreds of people turn out to watch machines,

called quad copters,

raise robotic construction to new heights...

piece by piece.

Robotic construction is the future of architecture.

The objective is to build

a six-meter- tall structure, something never done before,

with fully autonomous vehicles.

The structure is an architectural model

made from 1500 pieces, called modules.

Each module must be positioned precisely

or else the structure could collapse.

The only part humans play is putting glue on the modules

and placing them in a dispenser.

The quadcopters do the rest.

The project, called Flight Assembled Architecture,

was created in Switzerland.

A team at ETH Zurich designed the robotic system.

Its leader is Canadian researcher, Raffaello D'Andrea.

We're trying to push the boundary

of what autonomous systems can do,

in particular flying vehicles.

The structure was designed by the Swiss architects

Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler.

It's called The Vertical village.

By building with the quad copters

you can actually place each module

at the specific point in space.

And those modules don't have to be in a repetitive manner,

but they can actually create more diverse shapes and forms,

as you see in the undulation of the structure.

Furthermore, I think,

one advantages is you don't need any scaffolding

to build up really high constructions.

Each module would be 30 meters long

and 10 meters high.

So each of those modules can actually be,

for example, a large-scale cinema space,

like a movie theatre,

or it could also be 6 apartments within such a module.

When the village reaches 60 storeys,

it could house up to 30,000 people.

For the model,

the modules are represented by polystyrene bricks.

The quad copters pick them up by pushing pins into them.

The quad copters have limited intelligence.

They have an on-board computer.

They have sensors. They have actuators.

Just think of them as little athletes,

but they are not very intelligent.

The intelligence for our flying vehicles is off-board.

On the ceiling: motion capture cameras.

They map the locations of marker balls on the robots

so the computers know precisely where they are in 3D space.

The software runs itself like a real construction team

following a blueprint

with a master program acting as foreman,

controlling every crew member.

The system is inherently robust.

It can imagine doing something this complicated

as putting these bricks down with changing conditions,

the brick height was changing, lighting was changing.

If a module is positioned off center,

sensors detect it and the system corrects itself

and re-positions the module.

In Orléans, the build starts

two days before the crowd appears.

The quad copters get power at wall-mounted charging stations,

then begin delivering modules

at a rate of about 80 an hour.

The foreman assigns no-fly zones around each robot

so there are no mid-air collisions.

Before the audience arrives,

the quad copters successfully position over 700 modules.

The structure reaches about three meters

almost halfway there.

When the crowd appears the robots resume their work.

It really was a wonderful, magical experience.

There was all this tension leading up to the people seeing

for the first time, an autonomous flying vehicle,

carrying a module in space and put it on the structure.

And they were flying above the heads of the people,

in the audience.

You felt the thrust of the wind.

Everyone in the crowd was going "0o! Ah!"

The quad copters lay down another 125 bricks

before the audience goes home.

And the next day, in front of a smaller crowd

they work to finish the job.

They reach the final storey, number 60. Six meters high,

and crown it... with the final module.

An architecture made by flying robots

reaches a whole new level.

Wow flying robots!

Definitely a case of what will they think of next.

Well, the machine in our next story is more conventional...

somewhat. A petro-fueled sports car

that gets more than 100 miles to the gallon?

You've got to see it to believe it!

Joe Justice has got a lot of volunteers.

Forty four volunteer team members in four countries

and that was completely unexpected

I didn't mean to be growing a volunteer team.

That's what happens

when you come up with a great idea

for a super fuel efficient car.

I did simulations of lightweight safe designed chassis

that I was working on and they were returning

right around 70 miles per gallon in simulation.

And I blogged everything that I discovered

and everything that didn't go well

and folks started visiting the shop

to see how this was unfolding.

And they ended up staying and volunteering.

Joe's named his car wikispeed.

Wikispeed is based on the Hawaiian word for speed...

Wikiwiki.

It's a seriously fast car.

Zero to sixty comes in right about five seconds

It can reach a top speed of 143 miles an hour.

But that's not why Joe named it wikispeed.

The body of the car is carbon fiber

and we are able to detach that from the car

to make changes to it quickly without redeveloping the car.

The car is a little bit like lego.

You have the main frame

and everything else can be swapped out quickly.

We are able to make changes quickly

because our vehicle is modular.

The engine, the entire drivetrain is a module,

the transmission, the cooling system,

the fuel system, the emissions system.

It all rolls out together and we can test another one

in about the time it takes to change a tire.

Joe's team is working on

all sorts of body types for wikispeed, but today

they are getting the sportier version ready for a test run

We care about aesthetics as much as we can

but the governing factor is efficiency.

Efficient shapes happen to be what people think is sporty

and beautiful right now, so it's really lucky for us.

But the shape of the car is dictated by aerodynamics

and by safety, and lucky for us

it ends up looking like a Le Mans style race car.

With looks like this

you'd think Joe's driving a gas guzzler.

A hundred miles worth of awesome is how it is running.

Right now we're probably getting

about 125 miles per gallon

around town cruising at this speed is pretty high.

It runs on petrol. This is not a hybrid car.

Joe's maximized fuel efficiency by making wikispeed

aerodynamic and light.

The chassis is extruded aluminum,

a similar tech to what Lotus, Jaguar, and Aston Martin use.

We use an extremely light set of aluminum extrusions

and then provide an aerodynamic shape outside them,

made of all carbon fiber.

It was making more...

noise vibration and harshness than I would have liked.

I think our next step for this body is going to be

upgrading some bushings and sound deadening

so that it's a more comfy, cozy ride.

I am going to drill two bolt holes on each side

and put bolts through the body into the body mount frame.

and that is going to help calm down

some of the noise vibration and harshness

that we're experiencing today.

Should give it a little quieter ride.

Bryan Ford has a lot of experience working on cars.

He found out about the wikispeed project online

and immediately got involved.

In fact, his wife and three sons are also helping out today.

You're alright. You're alright. There you go.

You gotta push your butt through.