No one expects college kids to beat NASA to the punch. On Saturday, students at University of California San Diego launched a rocket with a completely 3D-printed engine. Students for the Exploration and Development of Space claims to be the first university group to do this. Watch it fly!

The International Space Station is set to start testing its first expandable habitat. Tomorrow, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) will swell to its full size, beginning a two-year stint at the ISS. During this time, astronauts will measure how well BEAM holds up against space debris, radiation and temperature swings. Lightweight expandable habitats, made from aluminum and fabric, might provide a home for astronauts on future deep space missions.

The hydraulic press wars are heating up, and the best video this week (so far) is entertaining and educational.

Geology is the science of stones, of their shapes and formations and locations and changes over time. Human history, too, is a study, in part, of stones: ones shaped by humans, piled high by humans, flung at high velocities by humans at other humans. There is history in rocks and rocks in history.

A few months ago, in the expo-hall of the Austin Convention Center, I laid my left hand flat on a sheet of sterile paper and let a very tall, friendly man insert an RFID chip into the space between my thumb and index finger. “Oh, you've got thick skin,” he said, pressing the needle a little harder. I made a half-hearted joke about being a woman on the internet, and the whole thing was over.

The robot looked at the woods and saw a home. Cameras scanned the trees and algorithms plotted the shape of the wood, finding the center lines and individual strength. Mechanical brains tessellated the shape into a working form, and the robot knew what it must build.