Commercial Drones Aquarium Fish Runway Cleaners Shuttlecocks
A commercial drone is a small, unmanned aircraft with an onboard camera it can capture a bird's-eye view of the ground, collecting up-to-the-minute data useful for many types of applications. They're used to plan infrastructure projects, overseeing natural resources, or manage farmland. Spanning about five feet and a half in diameter, this commercial drone is known as an octocopter it has eight rotors, which enable it to maneuver in the air like a helicopter. The drone's components are made of carbon fiber, a highly stiff, strong, and durable material carbon fiber is also lightweight, a critical factor in aviation. Computer-guided milling machine cuts the parts. A technician manually sands their edges smooth. This component is half of one of the drone's legs. The mill also cuts out the top and bottom frames for the drone's body. Technicians then assemble the two halves of each leg. Some of the drone's components are produced by a 3-d printer, the printer builds each part layer by layer out of a thin stream of plastic. This is one of the drone's eight arm receptacles. A technician bores the hole where the arm will be fitted. The hole must be precise to ensure a secure fit. After verifying its diameter with digital calipers, the technician installs the back part of the receptacle and the lever that clamps the inserted arm firmly in place. He attaches an electronic speed controller to one end. Then, he screws the receptacle to the bottom frame of the drone's body. The wires coming out the other end of the controller connect to an electrical power harness and to the autopilot. The autopilot is the onboard computer that runs the drone. He installs the seven remaining receptacles, then the power harness. It has eight connectors, one for each electronic speed controller. Next, he attaches the top frame, then the payload mount that holds the camera and hard drive. He links the payload mount to this servomotor, which is guided by the autopilot. The drone's body is protected by a cover. Workers mount a sheet of plastic on a vacuum former machine. They start up the machine's heating element and position the plastic just beneath it. This gradually heats the plastic to a malleable state. Once the plastic is soft, they position a wooden mold on the machine, activate the suction, then drop the sheet onto the mold. The vacuum draws the plastic tightly against it. They let the vacuum-formed plastic to cool and harden, then carefully trim off the excess they cut out a rough opening for the payload mount through that opening, they secure the cover to the computer-guided milling machine, which finalizes the shape to precise specifications. Once the cover is finished, they install it on the top frame. They attach the four legs to the bottom frame. Then, they install the camera on to the payload mount. The mount pivots to angle the camera at the ground. They insert and clamp the arms into the receptacles. Each arm is a carbon fiber tube with a plastic rotor that's driven by a small motor underneath. Upon inserting an arm, its motor makes contact with its electronic speed controller. They also install the autopilot, the autopilot executes the programmed flight path and operates the camera, the servomotor that moves the payload, and the electronic speed controllers. The drone operator can communicate wirelessly with the autopilot using a remote control. But it's more common to program the gps coordinates of the drone's route prior to takeoff. Aquariums have been around for hundreds of years. Even now, having a body of water in a glass box seems like magic. The most common aquarium fish is the goldfish, domesticated in china more than 1,000 years ago. Goldfish are a type of carp native to asia. They tend to be silver or gray in color. But ancient chinese breeders took advantage of orange and yellow mutations to breed a gold-colored fish. Like all fish, aquarium goldfish start life as eggs. To start the breeding process, a worker separates the males from the females. Telling the girls from the boys can be difficult. But if she finds eggs, there's no question. It must be female. The eggs fall to the bottom. This facility harvests around 1,000 eggs a day. Adding oxygen helps the eggs mature. A week later, the eggs hatch. The hatchlings are called fry. By the second week, they're little fish. Not all of them are the typical orange color even after centuries of breeding, many of them are still silver and gray. As the fry increase in size, workers must transfer them from buckets to larger holding tanks. This facility sells fish at different stages of growth. Here, a worker selects a particular size to sell. Once the selection process is complete, she transfers the selected fish to a bag for transportation. She adds air so the fish will have enough oxygen during transport. A worker tosses dry food into a series of ponds. Each pond is roughly 100 square feet and holds about 500 fish. The food provides the nutrients needed for growth. A worker checks the fish tanks for signs of illness, such as parasites or fungus. He carefully portions out and adds a liquid known as methylene blue. It's an anti-fungal treatment. These 1-year-old fish are a different type of carp known as koi. Koi were first bred in japan for their color and pattern variations. A worker isolates a quantity of koi with a specially designed shallow net. This allows her to select the right-sized fish to bag for sale. The bagged fish await transport to the market. It's time to prepare the bags of goldfish for shipping. A worker empties a batch of them into a netting suspended in water. A team of workers sort through the goldfish. They select the fish that meet the size criteria and use spoons to transfer them to a bucket. To prepare fish for shipment, workers dip them in a green solution. They then rinse them in clear water before bagging them again. The green solution contains a specially calibrated medication that helps reduce stress during transport. Next, a worker adds air to the bag, ensuring the fish have plenty of oxygen while en route. The fish have been double bagged for protection. A second worker squeezes out some of the oxygen so the bag won't take up too much room, then seals the top of both layers. A packer carefully loads four bags into a styrofoam box. The box provides a rigid casing to protect the fish while insulating them against temperature fluctuations during transport. This facility also sells whole aquariums already populated with fish. A worker inspects a row of aquariums, assessing the size and quality of the fish while checking for any signs of disease. The facility sells 50,000 fish a week, or to two million every year. When a plane lands, the tires burn rubber that melts into the pavement. This can make the runway slick when wet. Special cleaning machines ensure that the runway is always clean and clear for takeoff and landing. They blast off the rubber streaks, then suction the rubber bits into tanks. A runway-cleaning machine is a serious power washer. It pressurizes hot water to at least 20 times the force of the average power washer. The spray heads are designed specifically for blasting away aircraft tire rubber that's melted into airstrip pavement. They ensure airports are a safe place to land. Making one starts with the hydraulic motors that spin the sprayers. A technician inserts a shaft that will hold the spray bar into a motor unit. He installs sealing cylinders to prevent hydraulic oils from leaking. He tops the assembly with a metal plate. The plate serves as a base for thrust bearings, which he installs next. Ceiling caps complete the thrust bearing assembly. A computerized test system now measures the motor's torque and the flow of hydraulic fluids. The system also simulates the force of the highly pressurized water to confirm that the thrust bearings will keep the motor stable. A powerful water-jet tool carves through steel to produce the components for the arm that holds the runway cleaner's spray heads. A worker then fits the steel plates together. He welds the seams to create permanent bonds. And this completes the stray arm's structure. After the arm has been sandblasted and painted, they hoist it to the front of the runway-cleaning truck. They attach it with large, zinc-coated steel bolts. A worker then mounts hydraulic motors to a long, wheeled bracket. He removed the sealing caps before this installation to make it easier. Once the motors have been secured to the bracket, he replaces the caps. He attaches the wheeled bracket to the spray arm and installs metal shrouds for the sprayers. They have fringes of nylon bristles to contain the spray. He fastens rotating sealers to the hole in the center of each shroud to keep out dirt and water. He screws the spray bars to the shafts that extend from the motors. The nozzles are made of sapphire, a tough mineral that can withstand the force of the pressurized spray. The next worker runs vacuum hoses to the shrouds and connects them using cam and groove couplings. The sprayer assemblies are now complete. The team lowers a large gearbox between the frame rails of the truck. They bolt it to the rails. This gearbox will transfer power from the truck engine to a high-pressure pump and the vacuum. The pump and vacuum systems have been assembled into one big module. A technician tests the belt and pulley that will connect to the gearbox. It's in good, working order, so they cover the system with steel casing for safety reasons. This module is ready to be assembled to the runway cleaner truck. It weighs 2 1/2 tons, so a crane does the heavy lifting. Workers then build a tank that's as tall as they are. This tank will contain the rubber bits vacuumed off the runway, along with the water used in the cleaning process. Once it's been painted, they assemble it to the chassis next to the clean water tanks. Moving inside the truck cab, a worker installs controls for the runway cleaner's operation. One console has a joystick for manipulating the position of the spray heads. Other switches are for the operation of the water pump and vacuum. Runway cleaners can also be used to erase painted lines when landing strips need to be reconfigured. Just adjust the nozzle size and forward speed, and, like the rubber streaks, the lines disappear. People have been playing games with shuttlecocks for millennia. In the mid-19th century, the british created the game badminton, in which players hit a shuttlecock back and forth over a net. Made of feathers and cork, the shuttlecock predates badminton by thousands of years. Many people are familiar with the plastic shuttlecocks used for badminton games in backyards everywhere. But serious players use the original feathered shuttlecock. This facility uses duck feathers to build their shuttlecocks. Workers start by aligning them with the feather side up and storing them in cups in preparation for the next phase of production. Having the feathers aligned makes it easier for a worker to feed them, one by one, into a specialized sorting machine. This device has 26 different sensors that measure each feather. The feathers must be a specific size and have a precise angle. The machine sorts feathers of the same size and angle into different bins. Sometimes, the sensors are unable to measure certain feathers, those feathers fall into a separate bin. A worker uses a special chart to measure them by hand. The tips of these shuttlecocks are made of cork and synthetic foam covered with white leather. It's time to start assembling the shuttlecocks. Each shuttlecock has 16 feathers, which must all be precisely the same length. The punching machine begins the assembly process. It starts by punching 16 holes in the perimeter of the shuttlecock tip. The worker feeding the feathers into the device must keep pace with the machine. A worker uses flat-nose pliers to adjust the angle of each feather. She then places the shuttlecocks inside a miniature wind tunnel to see if they're properly balanced. On some shuttlecocks, each feather might have a slightly different angle to maximize balance. Once the angle of the feathers has been adjusted, they're transferred to a machine that applies a bead of glue around the interior perimeter of the shuttlecock tip. This secures the feathers in place. To further stabilize the feathers, workers place them in a specialized sewing machine that binds them securely together with two rows of thread. The threads stitch each feather to the next. This process strengthens the shuttlecocks, helping them maintain their shape even when they're getting slammed back and forth over a net. When the machine has finished stitching a shuttlecock, a worker ties off the thread to keep it from unraveling and cuts off the excess. Finally, she evens out the thread rows. With the threads in place, the shuttlecocks must undergo a final tuning. A worker once again adjusts the feathers to ensure proper balance. A machine applies glue to the threads on the shuttlecock, locking them in place to give them the necessary rigidity. The thread is made to quickly absorb glue. A worker applies a green strip, which indicates a slow-speed shuttlecock. Medium-speed shuttlecocks get a blue strip. Fast ones are red. It's time for quality-control testing. A machine equipped with a racket-like arm fires the shuttlecocks to a waiting worker. Shuttlecocks can travel at speeds as high as 300 feet a second. That's twice as fast as a pitcher can throw a baseball. Once the shuttlecocks have passed the quality-control test, a worker inserts 12 at a time into long cardboard tubes similar to those used to hold tennis balls. With its 16 feathers, it's no wonder the shuttlecock is also known as a birdie. These high-quality products are ready to fly.