Boffin invents simpler way to see inside metal objects

THIS SCRIBBLER attended the "Innovate 2006" inventors' fair held until Saturday at the Jorge Luis Borges cultural centre in Buenos Aires City, in its second yearly edition. Here's what caught the eye of this correspondent.

The exhibition showcased 715 inventions from lone individual inventors, small business, university students, scientists, and even teams of high school students. A jury of five people selected a winner among the contestants, who received a modest $10,000 dollars prize at the end of the fair. The whole shebang is organised by the local Education and Finance Ministries as a way to encourage tech innovation in the country.

X-ray pictures of metal objects, no nuclear hardware needed
Cesar Moreno, who heads the "Plasma Focus" Physics research group at the University of Buenos Aires showed impressive pictures of metal objects, taken with the x-ray device built at his research lab -the unit is too large to fit on the small exhibition floor. Unlike other approaches to photograph the inside of metal objects which require irradiating the elements to be scanner with radioactive element, this one works just needs electricity to operate. His work started seven years ago, and at this years' fair he was able to show the result of his working machine: x-ray images of a photo camera, a door lock, and a bolt fixated to a metal bar, among others.

Boffin Cesar Moreno from the
Physics department at the public University of Buenos Aires
shows off sample pictures and explains the procedure to X-Ray metals

This machine is able to take photographs passing through any metal type -even lead- up to 25mm thick, and even moving objects. Moreno told the press his team was able to "photograph the inside of an airplane turbine spinning at 6,000 rpm". INQuired by this correspondent at the show floor if the process has any effect on the materials being photographed, he said there's no trace of radiation or even heat generated during the process "There's no radiation or other effect left on the materials, the whole process is measured in a few nanoseconds, it takes even less time than having x-rays taken of your body, and you don't have to hold your breath".

The Plasma Focus lab has a web page over here, where you can learn he's also working on obtaining 3D images using this technique. His work won the $10,000 price at the end of the exhibition.

The Borges art centre,
an unusual space for an inventions fair
It was hot as hell in the small
section devoted to the inventions exhibition

Weather Station
Engineer Vanesa Lee, showed at the show floor the "Pegasus" portable Weather Station designed by the local company bearing the same name. It's geared towards agricultural use, and is able to measure rain fall, wind speed and direction, air humidity, temperature, solar radiation, pressure, soil temperature, and leave humidity. It's made of the EP 2000 data acquisition unit with a wireless link to the EP 1000 portable console with a touch screen, which can store data for up to 583 days, in hourly measurements. The data be transmitted to a PC for later analysis. It includes an Ethernet and USB interface, and can also use a GSM modem for wireless transmission of the collected data to a PC for centralized data processing.

Eng. Vanesa Lee shows off the Pegasus portable weather station

The company can be found over here.

Wind Power galore
Several different Eolic turbine designs were shown, with the "ultra light" one made of polyester fibres from firm Teusa being the most interesting to my untrained eye. Also there was lone inventor Estanislao Perez showing his prototype, and he says he's got patents for his device in the EU as well. Of course, there is no warranty about the performance or efficiency of these prototypes, after all the inventors go to this exhibition to get further funding and a angel investors willing to back their ideas.

Ultralight wind mill from Teusa. Top-right: lone inventor E. Perez and his vertical wind turbine

...And more
And speaking of crazy ideas... Fernando Cardone was showing the "Rodalin" his own round invention, designed as a kid's toy for moving around the playground "while exercising the arms at the same time". Of course, it must be used on a level terrain, otherwise it might be as fun as running down a hill, inside a barrel.

A "concept car" designed by architects. Next: buildings designed by engineers. ;)

Totally outside the "high tech" field, I found a company showing its own invention, now in production: a Lego-like concrete brick allowing one to erect brick walls in minutes rather than days, without any cement layer between the bricks, using vertical metal bars if needed, for added structural stability.

From a kid's toy to an engine that runs on biodiesel and water

Finally, another noteworthy invention on display was a "vision magnifier" built out of a simple CCD with a built in light and lens, allowing visually impaired people to read the fine print on paper, the packaging on medications, and even objects with round surfaces like tiny spray cans. It connects to a PAL or NTSC TV using the composite video input.

Gabriel Maissonave of www.videoscopio.com.ar showing off his e-magnifying glass for people with vision impairment

Of course, what I described here due to space constraints is just a small subset of hundreds of interesting inventions showcased at the fair. Overall, this scribbler thinks this a good move by the government to promote local inventions and entrepreneurship, even while the prize amount leaves a lot to be desired. µ

L'INQS
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EXPOCOMM 2006 Argentina coverage
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Centro Cultural Jorge Luis Borges
Innovar 2006: entries showcase (Spanish)

See Also
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Chinese boffins have 150Mhz Windows chip