“He starts off with a $10 piece of aluminum that took maybe an hour or two to make”
Shows nanometer-accurate flexure made from cheap aluminum, remarkably sensitive.
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Part 10 [1] of his prototypes series also features incredibly impressive precision. He starts off with a $10 piece of aluminum that took maybe an hour or two to make, and is completely accurate down to nanometers. I worked in a nanotech lab with an electron microscope, and the idea that you could make a mechanical device that could accurately move a few pixels on my screen blew my mind. I thought I was hot shit with all my electrons and magnets... nope. Dan's flexure is so sensitive that radiative heat from his hand moves the end stage 100x more than mechanical input. You could move it by shining a laser pointer at it. Insane. The final part [2] is also very neat, and starts with a really remarkable demonstration of stiffness. [1]: this video [2]: link