Abstract: A head unit device for controlling motion of an object includes a chamber filled with a shear thickening fluid (STF) and a piston. The piston is housed within the chamber and exerts pressure against the STF from a force applied to the piston from the object. The STF is configured to have a decreasing viscosity in response to a first range of shear rates and an increasing viscosity in response to a second range of shear rates. The piston includes at least one piston bypass between opposite sides of the piston that controls flow of the STF between the opposite sides of the piston to selectively react with a shear threshold effect of the first range of shear rates or the second range of shear rates.

Abstract: A lawn umbrella expansion device in which an enlarged canopy is provided with a centrally disposed pole cap to engage the tip of an umbrella pole and thereafter be unfurled and stabilized with canopy poles to provide a greatly increased containment area.

Abstract: An illustrative embodiment of the invention provides an isolation flexure assembly for the control moment gyroscope of a spacecraft attitude control system for attenuation of vibratory disturbances therein, due to rotor static and dynamic unbalance and spin bearing radial forces. The isolation flexure assembly isolates the rotor, the main generator of the vibratory disturbances, from the spacecraft permitting ultraprecise pointing or precision torquing of the spacecraft.