Floating Containers – Assistants for Navy SEALs

As shipping containers are getting more and more applications from skate parks to swimming pools, it is  becoming very obvious that we haven’t seen everything that these steel crates can do. Now they developing a different kind of shipping container system for military and maritime industry.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing a solution that helps organizations providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief support over broad coastal areas.  DARPA’s idea is to use standardized ISO shipping containers that form a platform for emergency helicopters to land. The floating shipping container system also offers accommodation facilities for its crew.

The solution will be designed to offer assistance to navy forces by freeing military ships to carry out other military missions. Tactically Expandable Maritime Platform (TEMP) consists of core-support modules that offer all the life support needed by the crew and delivery vehicles. The delivery vehicles, Captive Air Amphibious Transporters (CAAT), utilize air-filled pontoons that make the containers float. The crew will receive its supplies via unmanned air-delivery system.

The system has been simulated at the GRASP Lab of the university of Pennsylvania where scientists have demonstrated how the containers utilize GPS to easily assemble a floating platform. It would be interesting to know if the system could be controlled by artificial intelligence distributed with every container. Such system could be implemented with flocking algorithms that makes the  containers organize independently just like a flock of birds. Bringing this technology into play could be the next innovational step towards rescuing human lives.

As already mentioned, this ambitious project uses ordinary standardized shipping containers. We in Shanghai Metal Corporation provide those containers worldwide. Please visit our website for more information or send us an inquiry. Remember to check our social media sites Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Inhabitat, Makezine, DARPA, Wikipedia on Flocking, Flocking Algorithms on Jouni Smed’s lecture slides, Navy Live

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Have You Played These Cool Games?

When you need a good getaway from your busy and hectic daily life, stepping in to a game arcade can be an excellent choice. There are some weird, funny and cool games out there that can let you relieve stress, at least for a short session. Here are some of them.

The 1995 classic Jackie Chan: Fists of Fire (ジャッキー・チェン FISTS OF FIRE 成龍伝説)is a Mortal Kombat style beat-em-up game in which the player has to win a series of fights with  AI controlled character. The player choose his avatar from various options, including three versions of Jackie Chan.

In Hatoful Boyfriend: A School of Hope and White Wings (はーとふる彼氏〜希望の学園と白い翼) the player plays as a female bird that tries to find a suitable boyfriend from a school of birds. The game is a basic dating simulator with a difference that it uses doves, pigeons etc. birds as protagonists making the game one of the weirdest in its genre.

For multiplaying purposes, aka the games to play with your friends or colleagues, air hockey games are a must. The Japanese game company Sega has developed a futuristic air hockey simulator that displays moving digital images on the hockey table. Despite the localization in English, Heat Up Hockey can only be found in Japan.

If you are really sick of your supervisor bossing you around, you might want to play Sonic Blast Heroes. It is a punching simulator in which the player literally punches everything on his way. The game comes with a boxing glove and a pad that rises out the cabinet to let you know that it is punching time. By playing it you also do physical exercise and develop your physique.

Some game machine structures are made of Galvanized Steel Coil. In Shanghai Metal Corporation we also offer Multicolored Prepainted Galvanized Steel Coil that is excellent for building game and vending machines. To know more about our products, please visit our website. Please also follow on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. You can also try our new mobile application by scanning the QR code below.

 

 

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Sources: Toplessrobot.com, Cracked.com, Wikipedia

Pictures: Youtube