Ejaad-Nama 0x05: Kobayashi Maru

Ejaad-Nama (Urdu: Letters of Invention). A bi-weekly newsletter about Science, Electronics, Makers, DIY, and everything technical. We talk about lemons, acid battery and anything in between.

Kobayashi Maru. If you are a star trek geek like you don’t need any explanation. If you are not, let me explain using wikipedia:

The Kobayashi Maru is a training exercise in the fictional Star Trek universe designed to test the character of Starfleet Academy cadets in a no-win scenario.The test's name is occasionally used among Star Trek fans or those familiar with the series to describe a no-win scenario, a test of one's character or a solution that involves redefining the problem and managing an insurmountable scenario gracefully.

Captain James Kirk is the only person in the Star Trek universe to have beat the Kobayashi Maru exercise and he did it by reprogramming the whole simulator before starting the test. Here is Harvey Spector explaining it in his words:

Although Cpt. James Kirk cheated in the test, there was certain originality about his approach. I came across two projects in recent weeks, which reminded me of Kobayashi Maru. Additionally, some more clever 3d printed designs inspired by Leonardo da Vinci that I assembled yesterday.

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The guys at Hackaday have been covering this project by Neutrino-1. He managed to hack his Casio scientific calculator (exactly the one I had) to fit a small OLED screen, a wifi connection using ESP8266, and link to Google Firebase database. This allows him to fetch his cheat notes and even more be able to chat with his friend who has a similarly hacked calculator. If he does not know any answer, he can surely “count“ on his friend. Eh, I mean…calculator.

The most impressive part of the hack is how stealthily the operation of the cheat hack is executed.

The calculator has two hall effect sensors on the top which measure the magnetic field if a magnet is placed near them. By putting a small magnet on the end of the pen, he can operate by calculator by using the sensor values to scroll up/down buttons on a menu. The text messaging works by pushing and pulling the data from the Google Firebase database. If I was a teacher of his science class, I would have passed him just because Kobayashi Maru.

Unfortunately guys at CASIO did not like his ruse and filed a copyright infringement. The youtube video has been taken down but can be currently found in the internet archive. The Github project was taken down but has been reinstated as they did not see any copyright infringement like me.

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Mark Rober, a personal inspiration, has in my opinion come up with one of his best videos. His 21-minute details an obstacle course, a Kobayashi maru training, that squirrels must go through to get their nuts as their reward. It provides great insights on how squirrels experience each course and completely best it by changing the rules. I am thoroughly impressed by squirrels abilities and intelligence. The video combines nature, science, and human interaction in a way that was unique, warm, and insightful. Click on the video to check it out.

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Usually, I like to start newsletter with my projects and learnings. But recently, due to personal reasons, I have not been able to finish the queued projects and also missed out on the last newsletter. However, I am back at it and I am working to finish my new art and technology project for the next newsletter.

I came across a catapult design based on Leonardo Da Vincis design. Below is the leonardo’s original design along with 3d printed catapult that is surgically designed and well documented by Brian Brocken.

The throwing arm is attached to the main center shaft. A thread is wound through and around the center shaft and held to each end of the spring. As the throwing arm is moved into the position, the central circular spring is wound through the tension created by the threads pulling the two ends together. The two ends of the spring come together and held in that position by the lever and gear teeth.

I tried using it with a small pebble. I was surprised the amount of flex the central spring can sustain without breaking. My eyes were not able to follow the lever arm or the pebble when unleashing the arm. Only in slow-mo, I was able to see how fast the pebble actually went. While it renewed my appreciation for Da Vinci as a designer, I can see now how these catapults used in middle age times wars were so destructive.

Here is a slow-motion gif. (It takes some time to load in the email or you can check the video with cinematic sound here.)

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If you would like to send in your projects and hacks to be part of the newsletter, please do comment below, or email me: a.nadeem89@gmail.com.

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