Energy Experiment

Last week we sadly took apart out robot friend and came to class eagerly awaiting another project. After learning about force and potential vs kinetic energy and all that other fun stuff we brought the Lego’s back out! This time to use the brain and motor to lift weights via a pulley system.

We started with the beam with the pulley. The motor was attached to the bottom and a string ran from the wheel on the motor through the pulley. We got to test different power levels and weight combinations and graphing the results.

Using LabView and Excel combined we were able to run the pulley using the robot and record how much battery we used, mass it lifted, acceleration gained and even the potential energy we used!

Generic :This shows where all of our trial runs of the pulley got logged.  Using this info we then made graphs to analyze the data and determine correlations between functions.

The first 4 runs we did had a constant power level of 75% and we changed the masses from 50g, 100g, 150g, and 200g. This graph shows the correlation: Acceleration vs Mass. This graph shows as mass increases, the acceleration decreases.

The next 4 runs had a constant mass of 200kg. We then changed the power level accordingly, starting with 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%. This graph shows this correlations: Acceleration vs Power Level. This correlation, similar to the first one, was direct. As the Power Level increased, the acceleration increased as well.

Using the data from the 8 runs in total we determined the amount of battery discharge: Battery Discharge. The data of battery discharge was difficult to interpret, hopefully we will learn more about it next class.

Finally we discovered the relationship between power level and power usage. Power. The direct correlations of power level vs usage states that as the power level increases, the power usage naturally increases as well.

 

And that was it as far as experiments for this week. Till next time…

Lowering Gas Mileage: Beating the System

The one thing I was told in driving school was that driving is not a right, it is a privilege. And this statement was stressed over and over again. It makes sense too, just because you are old enough, does not mean you should be able to drive. First you need to learn how to actually drive and require the skills and mindset to become a safe driver, not only for yourself, but for others.

After having the skills and the mindset, you also need the funds. Funds are not just for the car itself, but for insurance (depending where you live, in good ole’ MA it is required), routine tune-ups, washes, and finally and most importantly: Gasoline. Maybe not most importantly, it only depends if you actually want the car to run or not…

Gas prices often fluctuate throughout the year, and every time they do, you know it, because EVERYONE complains about it.

Let’s face it, we all want better gas mileage, there’s no one in the world who would want to pay more than they have to. Here are some ways to improve your gas mileage: Pro tip.

It is a little comical, but it also offers some solid advice for driving economically.

One way automobile industries are increasing gas mileage is through the use of hybrid cars. One might ask, “What is a hybrid car?” Well, let me show you: Hybrid Cars.

Another way automobile industries are attempting to increase gas mileage is through electric cars. The best way to learn what these cars do is by watching this video: Enjoy!

Turning Challenges into Opportunities

When I first heard the words “Demand Response”, I honestly had no idea what I was going to be dealing with. To me, it sounded like something political, and that would be a whole other story. If I were to blog on politics it would literally be a blank page, I choose not to get involved, and that works for me. Anywho, back to Demand Response.

So according to Fred Thompson of  Inside Business, Demand Response is the ability to vary power consumption in response to immediate market conditions.  If you are anything like me, this statement is still a little confusing. But I decided to include it because some people may understand it. Thompson had also said the best way to generate energy is to conserve it.

 

Fred Thompson, although wise, required me to do a little more research on this matter. Back to YouTube.

This guy. I don’t know who he is, but he explained it in terms that I truly understood. The reason I don’t know who he is, is because this video is all black, except for the words typed on the screen, which emulate exactly what he is saying.
Three Major Points:

1. “Demand response refers to programs that pay large electricity users, such as commercial and industrial businesses for

their voluntary agreement to temporarily reduce their energy usage when the electric grid is stressed.”

2. “Demand response programs are designed to be both economically and environmentally responsible ways to respond to occasional and temporary peak demand periods.”

3. “This program offers financial incentives to businesses that volunteer and participate by temporarily reducing their electricity use when demand could exceed supply.”

Another major point about demand response is that it is the first step to achieving smart grids. When I heard that I asked, What is a smart grid? I used some prior knowledge and likened it to some sort or smart car, but for grids? So I looked it up, and I was kinda right, yay! Smart Grids. This video explains smart grids and how it can change electrical grids so they can work like the Internet. Pretty interesting if you ask me!

This Demand Response is suppose to solve all of our energy consumption and usage problems. But it is hard to not have any suspicion that it could actually harm our environment, rather than protect it.

Fun with Robotics!

Ever wonder what it would be like to create your very own robot? I have and I’m willing to bet that every kid (or adult) has had that dream at least once in their lives.  We all wanted our own personal robot, one to follow all of our commands.

On Tuesday Jan. 24th, I got a taste of what that was like. Okay, so we didn’t make a robot quite like the one above, but we did make robotic cars using Lego Mindstorm.

 

Building:

So basically we use the Lego Mindstorm kit and these directions : Directions for NXT to create our very own robotic car that we would eventually program.  After the grueling process of finding all the right pieces and following the directions, he was made. And he was awesome. Our next step was wiring him up. We places two phone wires into Port A and Port C (in the robot’s “brain”) connecting the ports to the wheels. This would assist in the programming.

 

Programming:

Next was the programming. In order to properly program we needed to use LabView, a program already loaded into our computers we were using that day. We also had instructions that told us exactly how to use the program: LabView Instructions.  This program allowed us to tell the car exactly what to do. After getting the hang of it, we made the car do silly things using functions such as lurch, snake, and swerve. My favorite was lurch. We even made the car go in circles.

With this program we can change the speed of the wheels, the direction of the wheels, even the sound we wanted it to play while moving. There was little we couldn’t do with this machine. It was fascinating. By changing one wheel to go forward and one to go in reverse, we made the car do jumpy circles.  In light of this we learned that if we made both wheels go forward and change one wheel to go faster than the other it will do more sufficient circling.

Another interesting thing I learned was that we could upload the program to the robot’s aforementioned “brain” and unplug him from the computer to let him roam wherever he desired (or wherever we told him to).

The last piece of programming we did was to have LabView figure out the distance the car moved. Using the cars dimensions we use this predetermined function to figure out the distance. All the info we needed was the diameter of the tire, the amount of time it moved, and the speed in which it moved.  The diameter was .17 m, the time 1 second and a power level of 50%. The program calculated that the car had moved 28.7 centimeters. When we measured the distance with a ruler we got 30 centimeters. We were only off by a little due to human error which gave us a percent error of 4.4%.

Final Thoughts:

All in all this was a fun project to work on, a little tricky at first, and I am in no sense a pro at it, but with practice and time there’s no telling what can be accomplished.

 

 

Fukushima Daiichi

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster was a terrible ordeal. This disaster happened in Japan on March 11, 2011. On this particular day Japan was hit with a 9.0 earthquake followed by a destructive tsunami. The nuclear reactor at Fukushima Daiichi was damaged in the natural disaster. When backup measures failed the power plant leaked radioactivity and people were evacuated from homes and businesses surrounding the power plant.

This video describes exactly what went wrong with the nuclear reactor:

What Went Wrong?

 

This disaster took a toll on everyone.  Countless people lost their homes and possessions, some even lost family and friends. This was a tragedy for everyone involved.