I wonder if robots could be made to work better at cryogenic temperature, so superconductors could be used. The figure of merit would be much higher if resistance was zero. Or maybe this is another reason to want room temperature superconductors.
Robotbeat•1h ago
Even copper has vastly lower resistance when cryogenically cooled. It's not a bad idea for some applications, and water cooling is already a good way to increase power density.
hinkley•15m ago
I learned recently that the inductive heating coils used for metallurgy (smithing) are copper tubing with coolant flushing through them. The copper tries to heat up along with the bar you’re heating in the coil. Both from resistance and from radiative heating.
hinkley•24m ago
Aaed Musa blew my mind about 18 months ago with his capstan drive video:
Eight months ago he built a quadrupedal robot that could step sideways using three of them per leg. I’m not going to link that, you’ll have to find it from his YouTube page because you should look around.
pfdietz•1h ago
Robotbeat•1h ago
hinkley•15m ago