LabVIEW developer Brian Turner was on the Conan O'Brien TV show on May 2 to talk about NASA's 2008 Space Elevator Competition. Brian's team, the Kansas City Space Pirates, will be using LabVIEW and NI CompactRIO to compete for a $2M dollar grand prize.

Here is Brian's response on the appearance:

Space Pirate news 5-9-08
The Conan Show was a big hit. I managed not to choke and remained rather articulate through the 5 min interview. We did not however get to cover the competition, the team or the sponsors. They were on the list but I had no idea how fast time would fly. I felt that I was on for only 30 seconds. We clearly managed to inform thousands of viewers about the space elevator and raise awareness. I saw a big jump in web site visitors but only received 1 small donation. The show will be re-run at least once so even more may come of it. I will keep you posted.

You can go watch the video on the NBC site if you missed it. We mechanically steered an beam! It was just a laser pointer and only in 1 dimension. Still it is a small but significant step in our mission. We are planning to go to the ISDC (International Space Development Conference) in Washington DC at the end of this month. I plan on meeting with potential supporters there and hopefully securing the
funds needed for the rest of this year.

Here is a photo from NBC.com. Check out the Powered by LabVIEW hard hat!! LabVIEW really is everywhere.

Using a GPS receiver and a bike-mounted ultra-mobile PC running LabVIEW, the NI Cycling Team tracked rider progress live during a 150-mile bike ride from Houston to Austin, Texas. To make it more interesting they decided to give some prototype wireless devices (currently in development by NI R&D) a trial run by taking simple measurements on nearby riders. Check out the technical tutorial and images of the tracking in the NI Developer Zone Community.

Test engineers in industries ranging from aerospace and defense to consumer electronics are facing the challenge of testing increasingly complicated designs with shrinking timelines and budgets. Check out this YouTube video from NI Product Manager Kevin Bisking, which draws out the new test and measurement technologies that are capable of meeting complex design requirements without raising costs.

Check out this cool YouTube video from NI AE Evan Dozier. He found an old robotic arm with a broken controller and revamped it using NI hardware, LabVIEW and the Nintendo Wiimote. Evan uses special Bluetooth LabVIEW VIs to control the robot.

Visit the VI Roadshow video blog for more zany applications.