The Nanotech BC Blog: Nano-Agony and Nano-Ecstasy

It's not winning that counts, it's how you play the game.

The SFU team at the Nanogram division of the 2007 RoboCup ran into trouble with their plastic-based "Whirling Dervish" entry to the worlds smallest soccer competition. It seems the robot -- less than one-sixth the size of an amoeba -- didn't have the weight to move smoothly across the "field."

Complications notwithstanding, the nanogram soccer competition is succeeding admirably at its goals: raising nanotechnology's profile in a fun and exciting way, and providing proof of principal for more demanding future nanotechnology applications off the soccer field.

The Nanotech BC Blog: Everyday I Write the Book

I keep stumbling upon great nanotech blogs:

Nanotechnology Development Blog -- articulate and wide ranging. I've only read the first four or five posts, but they seem to have a nice balance between research and business. It's definitely on my daily reading list from now on.

Blog-Nano: Nanoscale Materials and Nanotechnology -- I hadn't even gotten through the Weekly Round-up post before I linked to it. In particular I'm grateful for the link to SFU's grand achievement in fine-print: the Worlds Smallest Book. Here's a picture, but make sure you have your glasses (or a scanning electron microscope) handy.

Finally, I can't finish the week without linking to something a bit more mind expanding. Nanowerk has a great article about nanotechnology and neural interfaces. Nanotech is starting to blur the line between human and machine, raising questions that we need to start considering.

The Nanotech BC Blog: Very Small Soccer

Under-20 is one thing; under a micron is something else. I've never been too interested in FIFA, but I'll be cheering for the Simon Fraser University team competing in the nanogram division of the 2007 RoboCup. Even the Vancouver Sun is following the game!

PhD Students Daniel Sameoto, See-Ho Tsang and Ian Foulds have developed a soccer team so small you need a scanning electron microscope to follow the action. Soccer might not be the first thing you think of when you hear "nanotechnology", but success on the playing field could be the first step to more significant applications in medicine, electronics and a wide range of other fields.

Go Canada!

The Nanotech BC Blog: The Power of a 100 Suns!

This is a few days old, but Phys.org has reported on the development of 40% efficient solar cells. That can't be anything but good news.

For anybody interested in solar power research in British Columbia, Mike Wolf is working at UBC on Energy Storing and Energy Harvesting and Karim Karim is at Simon Fraser Universtity concentrating on Mechanically Flexible Solar Cells using Thin Film Silicon Technology.