The Caterpillar 797 is a series of off-highway, ultra class, two-axle, mechanical powertrain haul trucks developed and manufactured in the United States by Caterpillar Inc. specifically for high production mining and heavy-duty construction applications world-wide. In production since 1998, the 797 series represents Caterpillar’s largest, highest capacity haul trucks.

Scientists have discovered how to produce strings of extremely tiny diamonds. The super-strong material could help build a 12.5-mile high elevator into space. By Patrick J. Kiger.

Whenever Justin Sandlin goes to Africa and South America he always makes sure to pack a ridiculous amount of batteries. People always ask him for them because batteries which you purchase in country are horrible. This blending of an ancient technology with a new technology is a game changer, and as a mechanical engineer, I find it to be super exciting.

Bill reveals the engineering inside a toy music box. He describes how the comb is mass manufactured, details the spring, gears and governor that drive the box, and shares some history of early music boxes.

Two years after the Tesla CEO crowdsourced the idea for the Hyperloop, his dream of a ‘fifth mode’ of transportation is quickly and quietly becoming a reality, but what’s his endgame? By Alexander Chee.

A small laptop-sized device is being developed at JPL to look for amino acids and fatty acids, with potential applications in space. By Elizabeth Landau.

Shortly after 11 a.m. on December 1, 1990, 132 feet below the English Channel, workers drill an opening the size of a car through a wall of rock. This was no ordinary hole–it connected the two ends of an underwater tunnel linking Great Britain with the European mainland for the first time in more than 8,000 years.

The rest of the world has a lot to learn from the design of the U.K. wall plug.

Digging into or otherwise dissolving (with hot sulfuric acid) ancient microchips.

Bill details the key engineering principles underlying plastic injection molding. He describes its history and, then, reveals the intricate details of the process. He shows viewers where to found, on any injection-molding product, the markings created by injection molding. He closes with a description of the one of the finest examples of the injection molding: the Lego brick.

From the earliest civilisations right up to the start of the Industrial Revolution, humans used sheer muscle power, organisation skills and ingenious mechanics to lift weights that would be impossible to handle by most power cranes in operation today. The most powerful hand crane in history multiplied the force of its operator 632 times.

Bill reveals the engineering design of a NERF blaster, including how it shoots only one dart at a time using a novel air restriction mechanism.

How Massimo Banzi's Arduino microcontroller enabled thousands of people to build everything from toys to drones.

In goes a truckload of bricks, out comes a road! Part printer, part pasta press, these remarkable machines spit out a perfectly uniform sheets of bricks to make walkways up to 20 feet wide. Several companies operate such machines, including Tiger Stone, RoadPrinter, and RPS. As construction workers insert bricks into the machine’s forward compartment, the machine automatically processes the bricks and spits the assembled road from its rear, leaving a meticulously crafted path in its wake.

For more than 150 years, elevators have gone in two directions: up and down. In the future, you might ride them sideways. ThyssenKrupp AG this week will show the public for the first time a 10 meter (32 feet) functioning model that uses giant magnets to move cars in multiple directions. The technology, called magnetic levitation, is borrowed from high-speed trains and doesn’t rely on cables.

In this TechKnow episode, Phil Torres visits the Toyota Technical Center in California to take a spin in Toyota's brand new hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCV) and to learn about the future of these alternative fuel vehicle cars. Correspondent Shini Somara visits Ann Arbor, Michigan to explore vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication for safer driving. Also Kosta Grammatis takes a ride in a in a driverless car.

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapses due to high winds. Fortunately, only a dog was killed. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge was built in Washington during the 1930s and opened to traffic on July 1, 1940. It spanned the Puget Sound from Gig Harbor to Tacoma, which is 40 miles south of Seattle. The channel is about a mile wide where the bridge crossed the sound.

New materials and new designs could help astronauts withstand longer periods of time in space and deal with the hazards of exploring other planets. By David Andrew Green and Matteo Stoppa.

The Legacy Machine Perpetual is a wristwatch that includes a perpetual calendar with a reinvented movement that's more compact and reliable than conventional designs.