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In our Sustainability, Energy and Technology class we experimented with photovoltaic cells and phone flashlights. For our experiment we used the phone flashlight from a iPhone 5S. Our results may be slightly skewed because there was some light in the room not coming from the phone flashlight, if the experiment were to be redone it would be better to redo it in a room that was totally dark so we could have a more accurate reading. We did the first part of the experiment to see how much the distance away from the cell affected the results and then we used different color films to see if the color affected the amount of light that passed through. This is important to sustainability because solar power may be the next step towards a greener world.

With Not light On the Cell Average Voltage:0.0315

Average Voltage from 1 cm Away: 0.3741

Average Voltage from 10 cm Away: 0.1136

Average Voltage from 15 cm Away: 0.0624

These results were expected because as the phone light moved farther away from the cell the cell collected less voltage.

The phone was held 1 cm away from the cell when we used the different color films to see if the color of the film effected the results.

Green Filter Average Voltage- 0.268

Blue filter Average Voltage- 0.332

Red Filter Average Voltage- 0.191

These results were harder to expect, because it hard to judge to opacity and ability to pass light through it.

The Sustainability Energy and Technology class ventured to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology nuclear reactor. We had a presentation first about the ways in which MIT uses their nuclear reactor, we learned that the reactor is not used for energy but is instead used for science. The reactor can be used for MIT students for their experiments. The reactor is supervised by students, who watch the sensors. The students are trained intensively all summer and need to pass a serious exam that ensures they know the placement and function of all of the reactors safety features. The reactor is covered in three feet of concrete, and to enter you need to pass a series of airlock steel doors. When exiting the reactor you need to pass through a security desk, have a badge and even a retina scanner (which is real and not science fiction) to pass through. We were able to see some different sensors, and even watched the reaction of a Radioactive Red fiesta ware tea cup caused because of the radioactivity in the paint. The MIT trip was interesting and it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to be near a nuclear reactor. The only thing I did dislike was the lengthy lecture, if they are able to lessen the length of that lecture I believe it would be a worthwhile trip for all Suffolk Students.

In our group session we brain stormed different ideas for our group project. The group has tentatively decided that we will create a system using a force sensor and a punching bag to see how much energy behind that punch can generator electricity and how much electricity. We also decided on the Charlseton High School presentation because that was the time that worked best for the collective. We established a way to communicate with each other effectively as well.

In our Sustainability, Energy and Technology class we discussed Faraday’s law (changing magnetic fluxes coiled wires generate electricity). We ran an experiment to test Faraday’s law.

The following was the assignment:

“Equipment:

• One generator (magnet that moves back and forth inside a coil of wire)
• One voltage probe
• One NXT adaptor
• NXT
• Labview VI generator_lab.vi
• Excel sheet

Introduction:  Faraday’s Law states that changing magnetic fluxes through coiled wires generate electricity (currents and voltage).   The greater is the change in magnetic flux, the greater are the currents and voltages.  In this lab you will be shaking a tube which has a magnet that will travel back and forth through a coil of wires.  You will show that the faster you shake the tube, the greater will be the generated voltage.

Procedure: Your instructor will review the generator_lab.vi with you so that you will be able to understand how to use it to measure the voltage output of the generator. Your task is to correlate the number of shakes of the generator, in a thirty second time interval, with the voltages (or more precisely the sum of the square of the voltages) that the generator generates.” (Shatz)

Our outcomes for the experiment were as follows:

 

 

The experiment was important because without Faraday’s law and his study modern life would be completely different, Faraday’s law is the reason there are electric generators and electric motors.

Our results went as expected, the more the generator was shaken in the same time frame the higher the voltage readings were. One issue with the readings from the experiment is there was still minimal electrical current when there was no movement on the generator. This may have skewed the results slightly and gave us higher readings there were present. The independent value in this experiment was the amount of shakes in the thirty second time period and the dependent value was the average voltage reading given after the shakes.

Works Cited:

Shatz, Lisa. “Generator Lab.” Http://web.cas.suffolk.edu/. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2015.

 

 

The movie Pandora’s Promise is about nuclear energy and the environment. It was previously thought, by environmentalists, that nuclear energy was completely unsafe. Majority of environmental scientists have since changed their opinions on nuclear power. The movie follows a series of environmentalist while they discuss what changed their opinions on nuclear power.

Nuclear energy has a bad reputation due to a few different catastrophic events. The major problem that effected people’s opinions was Chernobyl, in the Ukraine. The entire city of Ivankiv Raion was evacuated in 1986, and for the most part remains abandoned to this day. There were only 28 deaths in the entire disaster, all due to radiation poisoning.

Another event that effected the reputation of nuclear power was Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. Three Mile Island was only a partial melt down of the nuclear reactor, but there was a small over-reaction in the reactors system that caused extra steam to be released. There were no deaths or injuries sustained at Three Mile Island, but the event was so heavily broadcast that it lead to serious restrictions on nuclear energy in the United States and also a fear of nuclear energy by the majority of the public. That caused a lot of nuclear plants to shut down, and stalled new plants to be built.

The third event that changed opinions on nuclear power was Fukushima nuclear disaster. That was the result of an tsunami in Japan, that occurred in 2011. The tsunami caused the plants to go into equipment failure, and radiation escaped the plant. The area where the plant was located is no longer inhabitable, because of the radiation. The plant was in a poorly planned location, because it was in a tectonically active area and when placing nuclear plants the most important part of the location should be stability.

People’s opinions on nuclear energy have been affected deeply by these events, but they do not truly reflect on the abilities of nuclear. Nuclear power results in considerably less waste than fossil fuels do. The biggest problem is the waste from nuclear has to be away from society for 100,000+ years, and there has not yet been a scientifically sound way to dispose of the waste.

The movie has an important lesson for everyone watching because it shows the evolution of environmental science, people went from thinking nuclear was unsafe to realizing it scientifically made sense because it causes less waste. It also gives reason for nuclear, and explains that there are so few problems with the safety and that people should ignore the media’s ideas because there are constant negative opinions on nuclear power that have no scientific backing.

Overall I would suggest the movie to any interested party, because it gives so many reasons to support nuclear power. It also presents the information in an interesting way that made the movie enjoyable to watch. The movie showcases environmental science, while disproving misconceptions.

Space exploration has been a long international battle. Space travel is driven by human curiosity, and that has brought science to Mars. Russia was the first country to have a rover land on Mars, and many countries have since landed there. NASA is now attempting to land a human piloted ship on Mars, but not attempts have been made at this current time.

The first rover to land on Mars was in 1971. “The Soviet space program scored a major success by putting the first spacecraft into Martian orbit and even touching a lander vehicle down on its surface. The Mars 3 orbiter returned some eight months of data that revealed much about the planet’s topography, atmosphere, weather, and geology. Though the mission’s lander was able to touch down on the surface, it returned data for only about 20 seconds before it went dark.” (National Geographic) At the time Russia landing Mars was troubling for the United States because we had entered into a “space race” with the Soviets due to Cold War.

Space exploration has gathered a lot of important about the potential for life on Mars, the planets climate and its atmosphere. Scientist assume that if there ever was life on Mars there would have had to have been long standing water on the planet. “While analyzing rocks and soils on Mars, the robotic geologist, equipped with a toolbox of scientific instruments, found hard spheres the size of peppercorns. Sometimes the spheres, nicknamed “blueberries,” were loosely scattered across the surface; other times, they were anchored within individual rock layers. After weeks of meticulous measurements, Opportunity demonstrated that the spheres consisted primarily of the mineral hematite. On Earth, hematite generally — though not always — forms in the presence of water.” (Mars.gov). This is a strong sign for life on the planet.

There are future plans to explore mars with a human manned mission, so scientists say that by 2030 there will be a human on Mars. “NASA’s path for the human exploration of Mars begins in low-Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station. Astronauts on the orbiting laboratory are helping us prove many of the technologies and communications systems needed for human missions to deep space, including Mars. The space station also advances our understanding of how the body changes in space and how to protect astronaut health.” (NASA). A manned mission would be helpful because while robots are exceptional at picking up certain things they do not excel at physical descriptions and are harder to maneuver and control. Humans have less of a chance of failing, because humans do not suffer from the same computer errors possible in robotic rovers.

Bibliography:

“Mars Exploration: Exploring the Red Planet.” Nationalgeographic.com. National Geographic, n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.

 

“NASA’s Journey to Mars.” NASA’s Journey to Mars. NASA, 1 Dec. 2014. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.

 

“Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Science.” Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Science. Mars.gov, n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.

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During the Lego Minstorm Experiment several factors were tested. The test results were as follows:

	Mass (KG)	Power Level Related to Force	Time (s)	Height (m)	Acceleration (RPM/s)	Acceleration due to Gravity	mass(gravity)height	Power
83	0.25	75	1.981	0.27	40.855908	9.8	0.6615	0.333922261
69	0.21	75	1.595	0.27	53.458594	9.8	0.55566	0.348376176
70	0.17	75	1.45	0.27	60.166468	9.8	0.44982	0.37236755
97	0.17	100	1.208	0.27	105.304226	9.8	0.44982	0.37236755
84	0.17	50	3.326	0.27	16.648171	9.8	0.44982	0.135243536

 

As clear through the link above, the results were as expected because when graphing the information it was presented linearly.

 

To gather this information we used a lego windstorm pulley, that had a rope with attached weights for different masses. With the pulley system the effects of differing weights and differing power levels were tested. As the load on the pulley got lighter the acceleration (RPM/s) increased, which is to be expected. When testing the different power levels the weights remained at a consistent 0.17 kg, and as expected again the acceleration increased with increasing power levels.

If the experiment was to be repeated, it would be beneficial to have an automatic stop on the pulley system, to limit the amount of human interference that occurs and potentially effects the system.

The Sawyer Library is a main hub of student life at Suffolk University, and it is used by commuters, residents, graduate and undergraduate students. The library is housed in the school owned 73 Tremont St building. Not only is there a physical library, but there is also an extensive online database, helpful for doing research projects. It is several stories, with each floor serving a different purpose.

The library provides students with silent places to study alone, or different rentable rooms for large groups to study together. It also has computer labs were classes can be taught if necessary. Students are allowed to rent laptops (both Mac and PC), flash drives and use school printing. The library also offers copies of all the school assigned textbooks that can be read and photocopied if need be.

The library is an important students resource, and can be utilized daily. It is typically open for 12 hours a day, and has a Help Desk that provides assistances to students and faculty via research librarians. It is also a great place to study or get some homework done, especially when you have loud roommates.

The tour was a great way of seeing all the library had to offer to students, including ways the research librarians can help us conduct research for future assignments.

Many industries effect the environment, but not many have as large an impact as the automobile industry. The auto-industry is constantly changing, and more “environmentally” friendly cars are being put onto the market yearly. There are even electric cars, that do not bur fossil fuels to run; they do have toxic batteries in them that are difficult to dispose of though. One thing can be said, and that is compared to thirty years ago we have improved the amount of waste we are producing with our vehicles for the most part.
In the United States there has been forced legislation regarding vehicle emissions in new cars being manufactured. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the law they helped pass congress, there is a tier program and tier two is to be about cars already on the road. “The Tier 2 Program sets the standards for tailpipe emissions for all passenger vehicles, including sport utility vehicles (SUVs, minivans, vans, and pick-up trucks, beginning in 2004. The Tier 2 Program also requires reduced levels of sulfur in gasoline. The Tier 3 Program is part of a comprehensive approach to reducing the impacts of motor vehicles on air quality and public health. The program considers the vehicle and its fuel as an integrated system, setting new vehicle emissions standards and lowering the sulfur content of gasoline beginning in 2017. The vehicle standards will reduce both tailpipe and evaporative emissions from passenger cars, light-duty trucks, medium-duty passenger vehicles, and some heavy-duty vehicles. The gasoline sulfur standard will enable more stringent vehicle emissions standards and will make emissions control systems more effective.” (EPA) While this not the result of the automobile industry it is the something that prevents the manufacturers from producing vehicles that over exude pollutants.
There has been a recent popularity in hybrid vehicles, because people believe them to be cost effective and emission-free. “Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and all-electric vehicles (EVs) running only on electricity have zero tailpipe emissions, but emissions may be produced by the source of electrical power, such as a power plant. In geographic areas that use relatively low-polluting energy sources for electricity generation, PHEVs and EVs typically have a well-to-wheel emissions advantage over similar conventional vehicles running on gasoline or diesel. In regions that depend heavily on conventional fossil fuels for electricity generation, PEVs may not demonstrate a well-to-wheel emissions benefit.” (Alternative Fuels Data Program) The issue with PHEVs and EVs is that they require large batteries that are toxic when they need to be disposed of.
Car producers are increasing the amount of millage per gallon to fit the demand of cost efficiency, due to the heightening costs of gasoline. This is beneficial to the environment because it means there will be less emissions per distance traveled. “The overall gains in fuel economy since 2007 have accelerated since the American automakers have recovered from the recession. General Motors and Chrysler both went bankrupt four years ago and needed government bailouts to stay in business. Since then, they have brought out some of their most fuel-efficient models, with G.M. introducing a series of small cars that achieved markedly better gas mileage than its older vehicles.” (NY Times) While higher efficiency is now driven by cost benefits, environmental protection and the lessening of emissions is something that may be invaluable in the eventual future.

“US Environmental Protection Agency.” EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2015.
“Emissions from Hybrid and Plug-In Electric Vehicles.” Alternative Fuels Data Center:. U.S. Department of Energy’s Clean Cities Program., 18 Sept. 2015. Web. 09 Oct. 2015.
Vlasic, Bill, and Jaclyn Trop. “Vehicle Fuel Efficiency Reaches a High, Nearing Goal for 2016.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 10 Sept. 2013. Web. 09 Oct. 2015.

Professor Tom Vales instructed our Sustainability, Energy and Technology seminar on different types of engines, a quack medical device and a tesla coil. Professor Vales is the lab coordinator in the engineering department at Suffolk University. He brought with him a rocking armature engine, a stirling engine, and a Mendocino motor, as well as ultraviolet comb that was once used as a medical cure-all. He gave demonstrations with his tesla coil, showing that without even making contact, the coil was powerful enough to lighten light bulbs or illuminate a neon tube.

The small rocking armature engine he brought to class is powered by magnetic field, the device created energy using the magnets and mechanical energy. The stirling engine was once used for refrigeration, it is a closed circuit system that allows a fluid through that expands and compresses based on the temperature of the fluid. The Mendocino motor is a magnetically levitated and solar powered motor, the motor has a turning column which is held up by several magnets, it is controlled by a resting point in the motor that holds the column, and the motor is powered by solar panels placed on the part of the motor that is in motion.

Professor Vales also brought his ultraviolet comb that was once thought to cure headaches. There was an ultraviolet movement in medicine, because it was thought that ultraviolet was a cure-all. It was then dispelled after research proved it did nothing to aid in pain relief, and now viewed as “quack medicine” a term that is used to referrer to old medicinal ideas disproved with modern science.

He also brought a small tesla coil that he had made himself. A tesla coil is used to generate electricity, and he gave a presentation by turning the coil on and allowing us first to see and hear the coil run; it was loud and there was visible electric current coming from the top of the coil. He then gave one student a typical industrial light bulb, very similar to the ones used throughout campus. The coil is so powerful that when the student held up the light bulb anywhere near the coil, it illuminated; the coil was so strong that there was not even a need for the student to make contact with it in order to get the bulb to turn on.