The MSI PRO MP243 is a slim-bezel monitor that delivers nearly everything you would want from a low-cost display. At the same time, it’s exactly what you would expect when you hear the words “budget monitor.”

It’s not going to impress you with flashy features, and it’s not going to win any performance awards. It’s not the very best business monitor we’ve ever tested. But what it does offer, however, is a sleek design, an easy setup, and enough of what most people need to make it a practical choice for everyday work in the office or home.

Four days into a Kickstarter run that ends September 26, FarseerTech’s RocXZoom has already pulled in about $249,628 from 344 backers against a $9,999 goal. Company copy calls it the world’s first robotic extreme zoom camera, and the hardware matches the slogan more closely than most crowdfunding pitches do.

FarseerTech’s senior team formerly worked on the R&D and mass production of DJI products such as the Inspire, Osmo Pocket, and the high-end Ronin 4D. As you’d expect, this experience is reflected in the camera’s design: a beautifully machined aluminum body, a motorized pan-and-tilt head, a built-in vision chip, and a long zoom, all packed into a 400-gram handheld unit rated for IP54 dust and splash resistance, which means it can withstand being dropped in the mud. A 5 inch OLED screen on the back provides a clear view of what you’re capturing. The battery life is advertized as up to four hours.

Sale

Insta360 X5 Essentials Bundle – Waterproof 8K 360° Action Camera, Leading Low Light, Invisible Selfie…

• 8K30fps 360° Video with Dual 1/1.28″ Sensors: Capture stunning detail with dual 1/1.28″ sensors shooting up to 8K30fps. Film epic adventures…
• Triple AI Chip Design, Better Low Light: Shoot confidently even in challenging lighting. X5’s triple AI chip design powers advanced noise reduction…
• Invisible Selfie Stick: Create impossible third-person views with no selfie stick in sight! Capture everything in 360°, then choose your angles later…

On paper, the camera has some impressive specs, including a 20x optical zoom and 50x hybrid zoom, which is equivalent to a 40mm to 2,000mm full frame lens range, albeit the latter is a bit misleading; more on that below. The aperture increases from f1.8 to f3.9 as the lens extends. Video resolution is up to 4K at 30fps, with 1080p accessible at both 30 and 60fps. Photos can be in either 4K or 1080p resolution. Stabilization is achieved by a mixture of electrical image stabilization within the camera and, on higher-end kits, a gimbal. The 2,000mm figure attracts a lot of attention, but it’s worth taking a closer look: the camera has a far more realistic reach of roughly 40mm to 1kmm, with the rest being digital zoom and processing. The software they’ve developed will determine how well that works in the long run.

Then there’s subject tracking, which employs a computer vision system to detect subjects and automatically pan and zoom the camera to keep them in view. It is based on a model that has been trained on a large number of bird photos, with additional assistance from a Siamese network to identify individuals. FarseerTech claims it can identify over 300 distinct animal species, track people or custom targets, react in 0.01 seconds, and keep up with subjects moving at up to 45 mph. So far, we’ve seen some demo film featuring a fake bird on a remote control car, which is a good real-world test but far from the subjects they claim it can handle.

The camera has a small but powerful 1/2.5 inch sensor hidden behind that impressive-sounding lens. That allows them to pack a lot of zoom into a small body, but it also means sacrificing some image quality, especially in low light, dynamic range, and fine texture. Anyone who has used a competent compact or mirrorless camera with a good telephoto lens understands what I’m talking about.

FarseerTech is marketing this camera based on ease and automation rather than pure image quality. That’s supported by the pricing: their Kickstarter campaign is substantially more competitive than the retail price, with the Super Early Bird for the standalone camera costing only $449, followed by $499 and $549 on later tiers, for an MSRP of $799. The Pro Kit costs somewhat more: Super Early Bird is $849, followed by $949 and $1,049, with a retail price of $2,099. They hope to begin shipping this device by November 2026, but they showed out the hardware during CES 2026, so we at least have an idea of how it functions.
[Source]

• AI data center construction is now a hot-button topic in the US
• President Trump wants constituents to embrace data centers or risk falling behind
• Trump does not address energy, resource, or other growing concerns

The growth and expansion of generative AI is unprecedented, surpassed only, perhaps, by the rapid expansion and impact of the data centers that support it. While anti-data center sentiment is on the rise, US President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social social media platform on Monday to urge people to support rapid data center growth, warning those who oppose that “the only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is that they want to end up being backwards and poor.”

Before we dive into the rest of Trump’s post, it’s worth stepping back to look at data center construction growth and the more recent and somewhat remarkable backlash.

I had been leery of prepared meal delivery services. They gave me flashbacks to those delivery diet plans sold on late night television in the 1990s. And so Tempo Meals, a spin-off prepared meal brand from meal kit service Home Chef, came as a pleasant surprise even after testing dozens of meal kits.

Tempo meals look like TV dinners, but they’ve never been frozen, thanks to advances in packaging technology. The beef barbacoa and sous-vide chicken I tried actually retained moisture and tenderness. Green beans were still vibrantly green, with a little bit of snap. They’re cooked in a commissary kitchen, and shipped to your doorstep in special packaging that prevents spoilage without using a bunch of preservatives. Heat-and-eat meals won’t ever be quite as good as freshly cooked meals, but especially when I reheated them in an air fryer they got closer than expected.

Tempo is especially known for high-protein and GLP-1 plans created in consultation with dietitians, helping prevent people from losing muscle mass when on calorie-restricted diets or just in midlife. Meals are $11 to $13 a serving at regular price, but Tempo Meals discount codes are available. For now, with a Tempo Meals promo code, you can get up to 60% off your first box of Tempo, with discounts throughout the first month.

Score 30% Off Your First Month of Four Boxes

Like a lot of meal delivery services, Tempo Meals wants you to try them out in hopes you enjoy the service and decide you can’t live without it. And so Home Chef offers a Tempo Meals coupon code for new customers. Depending on the Tempo promo code, this may be a straight discount of 30% off for the first four weeks. Or it may be 50% or 60% off the first box, and then discounts off the next month of boxes. Right now, you can also sign up for a lifetime free breakfast item. For previous customers who for whatever reason paused their Tempo subscription, there are Tempo Meals promo codes for existing customers that show up in your inbox. These may automatically be applied when you visit the Tempo website.

Activate the Heroes Discount to Get 50% Off Now and 10% Off for a Lifetime

Most Tempo Meals promo codes are good for deals during the introductory week only. But the Tempo Meals heroes discount applies for life for military personnel, first responders, teachers, doctors, nurses, and other hospital employees. To get the heroes discount from Tempo, you’ll need to verify your identity with the ID.Me system. After this, you get a permanent discount—pretty much the best discounts available if you plan on using Tempo long-term for a high-protein meal program.

Secure Instant Savings by Applying Your Tempo Meals Coupon

Often, Home Chef offers multiple Tempo Meals coupons at the same time. These can usually be activated on the site by clicking on the right pop-up. After you enter your area code and email address to verify that Tempo serves your area, you’ll be asked a couple questions about your meal preferences, before selecting how many meals you want each week—anywhere from six to 20 meals. At checkout, make sure the right Tempo Meals discount code has been applied to your order. This may include free shipping for the first week, and an extra item such as free breakfast.

I’ve written quite a lot about 8K TV over the years, which seems so strange for a format that’s never really taken off.

Maybe it really is the hope that kills you. The amount of effort TV brands put into showcasing an 8K future, only to slowly retreat from it and pursue other lines of picture quality. And while no one seems to have officially put the stake into 8K TV’s chest, the silence around the technology has approached deafening levels.

8K popped into my mind recently as I was going through our best buys and updating the best 8K TV page. The past few years have seen the options dwindle, and each time I look at it, it’s not to add something but likely to remove a no longer available TV and to spruce up the copy so that it reflects 8K’s current status of a technology that was a thing rather than is a thing.

With RGB tellies occupying the mind space of TV brands, I can’t help but wonder where TVs go next.

The search for the next shiny thing

Advertisement

I’ve written much about how 8K arrived too soon trying to do too much without the content in place. Some out there on the Internet forums would still believe that 8K is just over the horizon, but if studios and the such wanted to make content available, they’d have done so years ago. There is an apathy rather than excitement around 8K that’s consumed it whole. Samsung was the format’s biggest cheerleader but even it has gone quiet recently.

TV brands have been searching for an answer to the next frontier in TV technology, but so far it’s been a busted flush. It started with 3D in the 2010s, a technology that no one quite seemed to figure out how to make it work for the home. This kicked off a series of ‘shiny’ new things that the industry would investigate, toil and make hard work of, and then leave it to list while pursuing other ‘shiny’ things.

QLED started of as a premium technology for TVs priced at £2000+ and now you can get it in a TV that costs £350. You’ll see in marketing for QLED TVs that they’re brighter and more colourful than standard TVs (or something to that effect), but the problem with this is that QLED is now the standard, and there’s been no progress in the technology for years at budget price brackets.

We then had a dabble with MicroLED, but quite correctly that proved prohibitive in terms of cost and who the intended market was for. MicroLED is more B2B – at best it’s custom install for the millionaires and billionaires out there. The dream of MicroLED being able to make it into 55-inch sizes was just that – a dream.

Advertisement

Advertisement

We’ve had fancy looking OLED TVs – LG bringing out its rollable OLED-R, but designs like this came and went leaving less a crater and more a scoop of unturned soil. Then we Mini-LED (Quantum Dot Mini LED) but that’s experience a similar trajectory as QLED. A panel technology that started life as the reserve of those who could afford riches has now reached affordable status. Samsung’s M80H is an entry-level Mini LED for £699. A few years ago and that would have cost £2000.

RGB Mini LED seemed like it could be the cure-all, but now that we’re past the launches, RGB doesn’t feel like it’s an earth-shattering development. That’s not to say that RGB TVs aren’t good – some are better than others, of course – but it’s already suffering from a lack of excitement and enthusiasm. At the end of the day, it is an LCD TV, and has the same strengths and drawbacks.

Let’s not forget OLED, which seems to be the one TV technology that’s resisting taking a dive and becoming affordable. But it suffers from a lack of competition – Sony dabble in it, Hisense and TCL disavow it, Panasonic has struggled to assert itself, and no other TV brand will touch it because of the dominance of both LG and Samsung in the sector.

Where next?

It feels as if the TV industry has slowly exhausted its options, and at the same time, customers do not seem much enthused.

Advertisement

We remain in a cost of living crisis but something has changed in the conversation around TVs. Teens and young adults care more about their phones, younger kids grow up holding tablets, and these are the coming and upcoming generations that TV brands want to ensnare.

Advertisement

But TVs don’t form the epicentre of home life any more – the move to streaming has released any bonds and attachment to the big screen in the living room. For the first time in its history, the IPA TouchPoints data survey revealed that for adults in the UK (aged 15+) mobile phone time overtook TV watching for the first time. When I was growing up, the TV was the window to the outside world, the only way to see massive events if you weren’t there. That’s not the case any more.

It’s not so much that the TV itself has changed – it still does the same it did sixty years ago – but everything around it has. What does the future look like for TVs? I’m not too sure but it can’t be more of the same. That’s partly the reason it is where it is now.

As far as the Asus’ appearance goes, the side bezels are a bit large, and the top and bottom bezels aren’t the same size, which I find visually off-putting. Nicely, though, the amount of adjustability is impressive. This stand can swivel, tilt, rotate into portrait mode, and the height can shift 5 inches. The stand has some very basic built-in cable management, with down-firing ports that help keep cords organized. Also, the flat base doesn’t require much space on my desk.

Each of the two back USB-C ports has a specific purpose. One is USB-C 3.2 with DP Alt Mode, which provides 96 watts of power delivery for your laptop. The other is a USB-C 3.2 port for the KVM switch, enabling you to connect two PCs to the monitor and switch between them seamlessly. Fortunately, Asus clearly labels each port, so you know which to use for your intended purpose. The monitor also comes with two USB-A ports for accessories, a headphone jack, HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 1.4, and a DisplayPort Out for daisy-chaining monitors together. This is a solid array of port selection that gives you just about everything you need to use the ProArt PA279cdv as a workstation.

Photograph: Luke Larsen

Photograph: Luke Larsen

Meanwhile, the controls for the onscreen display and menu are on the right side of the front panel. I tend to prefer just a single joystick for simplicity’s sake, but like the other Asus ProArt monitors, this one gives you five control buttons, plus a power button, in addition to a joystick. Once you know how to use it, though, the buttons give you quick access to switching inputs or changing brightness.

There are quite a lot of features to dig through in the menu, including a number of color modes and detailed picture-quality tweaks. There’s also a Display Widget app to handle all these settings, available in Windows 11 or macOS.

The monitor includes speakers, but they sound pretty bad, which is unfortunate for a monitor designed at least partially for entertainment purposes. Keep this in mind if you plan to watch a movie on the monitor, since you’ll only want to use the speakers for basic notifications. By contrast, the Dell 32 Plus QD-OLED has a really nice set of speakers.

OLED, Oh My!

Brightness—both measured in standard dynamic range (SDR) and HDR content—is the key feature of an OLED monitor, as it determines how good at HDR the device in question truly is. OLED displays can switch off individual pixels, a capability that provides the absolute blacks this class of display is known for. But if the pixels aren’t bright enough, the display still won’t produce a strong HDR performance.

Using an HDR test pattern, I was able to record 1,038 nits in a 1 percent window and 917 nits in a 4 percent window. These strong results deliver a greater sense of visual fidelity when watching movies or playing games than what you’d get with dimmer displays. Compared to the current ultimate HDR monitor, the Apple Studio Display XDR (7/10, WIRED Recommends), though, these results aren’t stunning. On the Apple monitor, I got to 1,905 nits of brightness in a 25 percent window. Even so, comparing these two monitors is hardly fair, given that the Apple costs more than $3,000 and should provide a premium quality to match. I’m providing these results to demonstrate the broad HDR landscape in monitors.

Have you ever received the dreadful notification that your go-to email address was exposed during a data breach? Me, too — but one browser touting itself as an alternative to Google Chrome just might have the solution.

Brave announced last Thursday that it has launched a new “email aliases” feature for its browser, allowing you to create several managed dummy email addresses that contain no personal information and will forward all relevant mail to your main email account.

There are multiple problems with sharing your email during a website sign-up. Aside from the obvious threat of bad actors trying to scrape your sensitive information during a data leak or the nuisance of your main account being targeted by repeated phishing scams, your email address can be used to track you across the web.

According to Brave, “ad tech companies like Google, Meta and LinkedIn publicly promote how businesses can upload email addresses to match customers against their own user profiles.” These companies have been known to trade information to find out what you buy and where you buy it, and continue to accumulate information about you. Brave writes that its email aliases were built to “plug this privacy hole.”

How to use Brave’s email aliases feature

The new email aliases feature isn’t automatically turned on, even if you’re already using Brave’s browser. There are a few easy steps you can follow to sign up for a free Brave account, start generating your five free dummy addresses and find your forwarded mail.

1. Navigate to the Brave login page (located at brave://settings/email-aliases) during your Brave desktop browsing session.
2. Sign up and verify your main email address.
3. While using the Brave browser, right-click on any website’s email address field in order to create and use a new email alias.
4. To manage email aliases, navigate to the “autofill & passwords” page located within the Brave browser settings.
5. All email alias mail will be forwarded to the email address used to sign up for the Brave account. Check the spam folder frequently to ensure no mail falls through the cracks.

But wait, doesn’t that mean Brave has my main email address?

Yes, you need to use your main email address to sign up for Brave (the company needs that address to forward you your mail). But having your main email in one place is better than having it spread all over the internet, caught up in hacks and potentially sold to data brokers.

Brave has also made several security assurances that make it seem less likely that your sensitive information is in jeopardy when using the email aliases service.

According to Brave’s blog post, all data associated with the alias emails is encrypted at rest, meaning it’s cryptographically scrambled up for the little time it remains on the company’s servers.

“Brave doesn’t read the contents of emails sent to an alias,” the post reads. “We only process emails to perform standard spam and virus filtering (we need to do this to maintain our status as a reputable email provider). Once an email is delivered, it is deleted from our servers within seconds.”

Brave also promises that any notes you might add to your email aliases are stored locally on your computer, and not on Brave servers. If you use Brave’s online syncing service, the company promises those notes “will be encrypted end-to-end between devices on the same sync chain.”

The new feature is available for free, but you’re currently limited to five aliases. For most people, this will be more than enough to prevent dropping your main email address anywhere on the web — but Brave plans to add more email alias features to its Premium plan in the future.

Representatives for Brave and Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tyler is a writer for CNET covering laptops and video games. He’s previously covered mobile devices, home energy products and broadband. He came to CNET straight out of college, where he graduated from Seton Hall with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. When Tyler’s not asking questions or doing research for his next assignment, you can find him in his home state of New Jersey, kicking back with a bagel and watching an action flick or playing a new video game.

You can reach him at tgraham@cnet.com.

See full bio

Advertisement

For many high school students, summer vacation is a time to unplug. For Ruchira Shree, a rising sophomore at West Windsor–Plainsboro High School South, in New Jersey, the break allows her to ramp up her extracurricular pursuits.

Much of her time is spent assisting with IEEE Princeton Central Jersey Section activities. She got involved with the PCJS because of her mother, IEEE Senior Member Shubha Bommalingaiahnapallya, who is the section’s vice chair. Bommalingaiahnapallya is a principal engineer at Intel.

“I started going to the IEEE meetings when I was little,” Shree says. “I used to go with my mom and just sit in the back of the room.”

This summer she says she’s focusing on improving her mathematics skills by attending the Program in Algorithmic and Combinatorial Thinking summer course on math and computer science. She wants to qualify for the American Invitational Mathematics Examination, an event for the top American Mathematics Competitions scorers. She earned a place on the AMC 8 honor roll—a recognition awarded to the top 1 percent of participants in the national competition—when she was in seventh grade.

Shree’s IEEE involvement and her advanced math skills caught the attention of an internship recruiter for the Alliance for Indigenous Math Circles, a group dedicated to expanding STEM opportunities for Native American students. The AIMC organizes and sponsors weeklong overnight camps. Interns assist with activities and teach some of the sessions. Shree met a recruiter at one of the section’s events, and she interned at one of the camps last year.

The IEEE-math camp connection

Shree’s involvement with the PCJS evolved naturally as she got older, she says, along the way preparing name badges and tackling similar assignments. She met Francis O’Connell, an IEEE life senior member and founder of FXO, in Plainsboro, N.J. O’Connell is the treasurer of the IEEE Integrated STEM in Education Conference (ISEC).

He has been a mentor to Shree for the past two years, he says.

At last year’s ISEC, she assisted at the registration desk and met Harini Frederickson, an AIMC intern recruiter for New Jersey.

Frederickson invited Shree, along with nine other students, to volunteer at an upcoming camp being held in Santa Fe, N.M.

“Ruchira is a real go-getter,” Frederickson says. “When she has an idea, she follows through and doesn’t get easily discouraged.”

The AIMC was created to address an important need, says math teacher Donna Fernandez, codirector of the organization. U.S. Indigenous students have the lowest rate of pursuing STEM studies across all demographics, according to the U.S. National Science Foundation. Systemic barriers such as a lack of role models in STEM fields, socioeconomic inequities, and Eurocentric teaching frameworks are some of the reasons, Rechel Shrisunder and Dwight Figueiredo wrote in a chapter of Minorities: New Challenges and Horizons, a book edited by John R. Hermann.

Indigenous people have a long tradition of mathematics, Fernandez says. She cites the Navajo code talkers from World War II as examples. The Navajo, along with 14 other Indigenous tribes, used their native languages to code and transmit critical messages for the U.S. military during the war.

There was a student at camp whose grandfather was a code talker, Shree says.

Navajo people also use math to build hogans: conical dwellings that require precise calculations to construct. Native communities have used math when building the structures for centuries, Fernandez says.

Fernandez believes typical classroom math curricula overlook the importance of mathematics in Indigenous cultures. Combining STEM activities with cultural elements helps Indigenous students better understand their ancestors’ role as mathematicians, she says.

That, in turn, helps the students see themselves in those careers, she adds.

The AIMC was built upon a program already in place: the Navajo Nation Math Circles, founded in 2012 by three university professors. Their goal was to provide the Navajo Nation’s students with tools to overcome barriers to STEM education.

To expand the math circle program, the AIMC was added to reach Indigenous students in the Four Corners area of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah.

Since 2017, the organization has run two camps every year at the Navajo Preparatory School in Farmington, N.M. In 2025 one camp was moved to the Santa Fe Indian School.

During each weeklong event, students and interns work in math circles. It’s a cooperative way to solve problems creatively, organizers say. Students collaborate on STEM-focused projects and learn from Indigenous STEM professionals. Interns also get the opportunity to experience an off-site cultural event.

The camps are free for students, thanks to sponsorships and donations. Teachers and interns cover their own travel expenses. Shree secured a US $1,500 sponsorship grant through the PCJS.

Building relationships through STEM activities

Relationships are an influential part of the week, Fernandez says: “One of the best things we see at the camp is that students return the following year and ask, ‘Is so-and-so intern coming back this year?’ They remember the relationships they developed, especially the cultural exchanges they had.

“Those exchanges go both ways, benefiting the interns too.”

Students spend mornings at camp working in math circles, then gather for a wrangle, during which each team defends its math circle answer and challenges other teams’ solutions. Shree and the other interns are on hand to answer questions and observe the teams as they work through the math circle problems.

“Math problems typically have very binary answers,” she says. “But in math circles, you focus more on talking through your answers to open-ended questions and learning from each other.”

Students spend afternoons working on projects. In one, the students used household items to create a replica of the Batmobile, Shree says. The car was required to be self-propelled without an engine. Balloons were a popular alternative.

Another activity focused on the Indigenous tradition of basket weaving. Students learned the cultural meaning behind traditional designs while understanding how geometry concepts influenced the finished product.

These Native American middle school students work on solving a mathematical pattern-matching game, one of the activities held at the summer camp.Ruchira Shree

Role models inspire students

“Because there’s a lack of Indigenous STEM role models, many Native American students don’t see themselves in mathematics or science,” Shree says.

To bridge that gap, Fernandez ensures Indigenous role models are part of the camp. Some of the people who spoke with students during Shree’s internship were Jessica Benally, a Ph.D. student in the learning sciences and human development program at the University of California, Berkeley, and engineers from the New Mexico Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement program, which supports underrepresented preuniversity students.

“I believe the students were very inspired,” Shree says, “because they could see how they themselves could pursue STEM careers. They had people to look up to in the field who had come from backgrounds just like theirs.”

Interns in action

The interns’ primary responsibility was leading a two-hour, after-dinner Radio Weaves session. They taught students about a popular communication technology that doesn’t require the Internet or cell towers.

Ham radio, also known as amateur radio, is a communication method that uses designated frequencies. In the United States, anyone can listen to amateur radio transmissions; to legally transmit on the frequencies, though, a user needs a Federal Communications Commission license. The Radio Weaves project is designed to prepare students to pass the FCC technician license exam.

To make that happen, the interns customized Gimkit, a learning game, loading it with radio-specific content that mirrored topics that could appear on the test.

Each intern worked with two or three students to complete the Gimkit materials.

Frederickson, who was on hand for the camp, says the aim was to send students home with something tangible that demonstrated their STEM accomplishments.

Nearly all the students passed the exam on the first try, she says, and she worked with those who didn’t to retake the test.

All the students ultimately received their license, she says.

Inspiration comes in several forms

The interns took an afternoon off to attend a Pueblo Feast Day, a celebration filled with music and dance that culminated in visits with nearby families, with whom they shared dinner.

“The tradition is very generous and community-based,” Shree says. “It represents that every home in the village will welcome any guest to have a meal.”

The feast was the highlight of Shree’s week, she says: “I got to really experience Native American culture firsthand.”

The students inspired her, she says.

“Seeing the joy on their faces when they passed the technician exam or when they got a math problem correct showed me how much joy they find in learning,” she says. “It made me realize that I want to help provide more opportunities for them to learn and challenge themselves.”

“Because there’s a lack of Indigenous STEM role models, many Native American students don’t see themselves in mathematics or science.” —Ruchira Shree

That realization spurred her idea for a new initiative. After she returned home, she founded Rukie Cookie to create “safe, inclusive, and inspiring spaces where youths explore STEAM [and] build curiosity, strategic thinking, and innovation—empowering them to become confident leaders and active contributors to a more just and equitable society,” according to the project’s website.

Baking is one of Shree’s hobbies, and she sees it as a way to fulfill a financial need she observed at camp.

“I noticed that at lunch breaks, they [camp students] used to play chess on the side, but they couldn’t actually participate in tournaments because that requires a U.S. Chess Federation (USCF) membership fee, which they couldn’t afford,” she says. Shree bakes cookies and sells them at PCJS events. Proceeds go toward youth chess classes and USCF memberships for children in underrepresented communities.

She has raised enough money to sponsor six USCF memberships, five of whom are camp attendees, she says.

“I hope that the students I have gotten a membership for will continue growing their passion for chess,” she says, “but also that it will encourage them to challenge themselves with difficult problems.”

What’s next?

Shree planned to attend an AIMC camp this year, she says, but it was canceled due to resourcing issues. She says she intends to return next year with goals of adding a formal chess component to the schedule and continuing to help more students overcome financial hurdles to join the USCF.

She’s also writing a novel about Alzheimer’s disease and identity loss, and she’s conducting independent research on cognitive decline at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Watching her great-grandmother struggle with the condition sparked her interest in the subject, she says.

She is confident STEM will be part of her future, she says. Math and cognitive science are areas of interest she plans to study, but she’s still undecided about a major. Her interest in Alzheimer’s research and a desire to apply AI to health care will influence her decision, she says.

She adds that she plans to join IEEE once she’s eligible.

Badminton still needs two people, a net, and a pile of shuttlecocks that never last as long as the rally in your head. Travis Mitchell already played weekly. His kids had just gotten old enough to start learning. His wife once competed in women’s singles for Team USA and now runs a 15-court facility. A decade earlier he had already tried to build a launcher with a CR-10 printer and a cheap CNC router, then life got in the way. This time he wanted the machine itself to be more fun, so he bought a used Denso VS-050 industrial arm on eBay and spent about six months turning it into a court-side feeder.

Denso published a 3D model of the arm, which was quickly imported into Fusion, allowing the new wrist gear to be designed accurately around real geometry. On paper, the plan appeared easy enough. Two 400-watt AC servo motors were sufficient to spin a couple of launch wheels. The rest was handled by two pneumatic cylinders: one to grab and hold the shuttlecock, and the other to push it toward the spinning disks. It was all mounted on an aluminum frame fastened to the robot’s wrist. Those gripper fingers are made of stainless steel and came from their own SLM metal printer, which is a great touch. Meanwhile, the fiber and CO2 lasers had been busy cutting plates, foam, and brackets, and the aluminum parts had all been welded and sandblasted. A first attempt using a Raspberry Pi Pico failed due to insufficient I/O, therefore an Arduino Mega took over.

Sale

Bambu Lab A1 mini 3D Printer + LED Lamp Kit, Ready-to-Use for Beginners

• A1 mini + LED Lamp Kit for Creative Light Projects: Bring your ideas to life with the included LED Lamp Kit. Simply print compatible lamp models and…
• The Perfect 3D Printer for Beginners: A1 mini 3D Printer is designed to make 3D printing easy from day one with automatic calibration, simple setup…
• Experience the Bambu Lab Ecosystem: Access MakerWorld’s huge library of ready-to-print models, manage prints through the Bambu Handy app, and enjoy…

However, the arm developed into its own machine. A motorized carousel includes six tubes, each containing around 20 shuttlecocks, for a total of 120 shots before anyone needs to reload. The time-of-flight sensor determines whether a shuttle is actually seated in the current tube. If it’s empty, spin. If it’s full, simply wait for the arm. USB, RS-232, and Ethernet all proved to be dead ends when it came to communicating with the Denso, so Bluetooth and a bank of I/O pins were used as a fallback. The software allows you to save a variety of stances, grasp, aim, and fire, and then cycle through them repeatedly, up to 127 distinct programd positions in total. The entire setup runs on 240 volts. The base is essentially a motorized standing desk that you can lower to load the tubes and raise to clear the net by a mile. It is mounted on a moving cart with plywood shelves for the compressor and cables, and the wheels used have been converted from M8 to M12.

The wheels were the most difficult to get right. They must remain light, properly balanced, and not balloon out at speeds of up to 6,000 rpm while clutching the nylon skirt tightly enough to get the shuttle over the net. They attempted cutting EVA foam with a CO2 laser, but it only marked the shuttlecocks. Gum rubber stretched till it was almost worthless. Printed hubs sprayed with Flex Seal were also ineffective since they would not hold. Then they attempted utilizing complete silicone sheets, but they stretched too much when spun so rapidly. In the end, they chose a printed plastic hub with a narrow strip of silicone attached as the contact face. Still, the pneumatic pusher occasionally stopped short of fully cocking the shuttle, causing launches to deviate until that portion was revised and reprinted, and it eventually performed much better. The first tests were done in the workshop, followed by court tests, but only after they were able to get the entire cart through a gym door.

The ultimate result is a training partner that selects, aims, and fires rounds without the need for someone to stand on the other side and feed it. That means the kids can take turns while the parents can practice clears and drives on a consistent timetable. Of course, commercial feeders already exist, as does this one, which was made with a used six-axis arm, a home metal printer, and six months of spare evenings that happened to be hanging out in the same shop as a family that actually plays. Shuttlecocks and volleyball partners continue to be damaged and fatigued, but this cart is not.
[Source]