Point to Point

A leaner heat sink?

Responding to a request from a customer in the aerospace sector, metal-stamping supplier Evans Co. (evanstechnology.com) has built machinery for manufacturing formed sheet-metal heat sinks using 6061 0.005-in.-thick aluminum, a different process from typical extruded constructions. The company contends the sheet-metal process results in thinner sections and lighter weight in specified metals to produce heat sinks thin enough to conform to curved or irregular surfaces.

Is anyone behind the wheel?

If a car does the driving, will it ask for directions when it gets lost? Find out at Sebastian Thrun’s keynote, “Making Cars Drive Themselves” to open the 2nd annual RoboDevelopment Conference and Exposition (www.robodevelopment.com). The presentation by Thrun, director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, is offered as an introduction to the world of fully autonomous robotic cars.

Joining Thrun as keynote presenters are Maja J. Matari, founding director of the USC Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems and Co-Director of the USC Robotics Research Lab, as well as Jeanne Dietsch, robotics pioneer and CEO of from MobileRobots Inc. The event takes place Nov. 18 to 19, 2008 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.