Tom Vales Archer 332

These are just some notes I took while listening to Tom Vales’ Presentation.

Nikola Tesla; High voltage, solar; Sterling engine 1816; locomotives with steam engines- very dangerous; hot air engines- top piece cold bottom hot; medizino motor- 4 solar panels- magnetic field holding everything together; electrostatic motor; st elmo fire; xenon; tesla coil- violet ray- electrodes; Dr Zeus- terry blake; Eddy currents

I learned alot about the dangers of high voltage power while Tom Vales was talking in class. He talked alot about the Nikola Tesla and the inventions he created. He would talk about locomotive steam engines and how dangerous they were because the pressure from the steam if not released properly could create a huge explosion and could kill many people. He brought a tesla coil to class and showed off how it could power many items as florescent lightbulbs. He told us about how the violet ray from the tesla coil work and how they were the source of the power. The way they would light power the light is the violet rays would activate the electrodes in the lightbulb and the bulb would light up. I took videos of him working on the tesla coil but they were erased. His presentation was very interesting and you could tell that he loved his work. The way he talked about it showed how passionate he was.

These here are the results for the shake generator experiment. As you can tell in the graph, the faster and harder you shake the generator the more power it creates. The way this experiment worked was with a flashlight-looking shake generator being shook for about 30-35 secs with different speeds for each trial. First time we didn’t shake it at all then the next trials went up to 18, 40, 125, 240 shakes. In the graph itself we compared the sum of squares of voltages that the generator gave off. We used Labview to get the number of how much power each shake gave off. This experiment was interesting because you got to see how much power was generated through just shaking an object.

P.S. Sorry the picture is hard to see I tried my best to fix it but it did not want to come out properly.

The way my group was brainstorming is that we were trying to come up with a project that would relate to sustainability the most. At first, it was difficult. We would look online for different ideas and see what was out there at the time for projects about solar power, hydroelectric power and anything else we could find. We want to have one cool project to present to the class. Alas, we came up with the idea of using light bulbs as a heat source and see which wattage came up with the most heat. We found an example of the project online and went off of that as our base. We had to come up with other ways of doing the experiment so that we could get positive results so we just changed where the light bulbs would be hitting the thermometer and how far away it was. After that, it was smooth sailing, with the help of Professor Shatz of course.

Families in Hawaii are cautious now about the devastation their islands are going through. They are caring more about what goes into their food and what is used to harvest it. G.M.O.s or Genitically modified organisms are destroying a unity amongst the islanders. When it has been said that G.M.O.s are the cause for “… cancer in rats, a rise in childhood allergies, out of control superweeds, genetic contamination, overuse of pesticides and the disappearance of butterflies and bees,” it is sad that to this day about “67% of the year, crops are sprayed almost daily”(Youtube). This is destroying their futures. Mr. Ilagan was right in the way he researched and he had the help he needed from everyone involved with the ban, including the Founder who proposed the ban, Margaret Wille. This is a public health risk and people need to know. All these companies care about is their profit. Hawaii wants a future for their kids and they want to see change before it is too late. These G.M.O.s are causing way too much damage too the landscape of Hawaii. The papayas are called “rainbow” because they are genetically modified. “Genetically modified papayas, the only commercially grown G.M.O. fruit in the USA, account for three-fourths of the 30 million pounds harvested annually…” People are going to become sick from eating all of these fruits. It is understandable for some ranchers and farmers to protest against the ban, and they should have the right to choose being able to use it on their crops in order to feed their cattle. But there are also some incidences where G.M.O.s are said to have made farmers kill themselves. This is not said to be true but who really knows. I would love to go against G.M.O.s and spread the word of G.M.O.s and the harm that they could cause to one person. The people of Hawaii should be supported because they matter. Genetically modified foods should not have the power over someone’s life. We should follow what Margaret Wille said and “act before it’s too late.”

Works Cited

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/us/on-hawaii-a-lonely-quest-for-facts-about-gmos.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0

We did an experiment about solar energy and how different distances and spectrums of colors can effect the energy produced through a solar cell. We learned that obviously that the closer the distance of the solar power that more energy we are going to receive.

In these graphs above, you can see that the voltage received with the colors was less than without the filter. Also as stated before the second graph states that the farther away a source of energy is the less voltage the panel is going to give out.

Although this video is alittle exaggerated it could be somewhat what the first steps on Mars could feel like. It is said that by 2030,  manned missions to Mars is possible and affordable. There are just some changes that need to happen first. “A workshop group of more than 60 individuals representing more than 30 government, industry, academic and other organizations has found that a NASA-led manned mission to Mars is feasible if the space agency’s budget is restored to pre-sequestration levels.” There would also need to Private industry support in order for this to happen. Budget issues are the most important part in order for this to happen.

In 2004, the Bush administration started to say that by 2020 there would be a manned mission to Mars, but they need to raise a billion dollars more. Then the budget issues started to happen and things got pushed back. “Bush proposed spending $12 billion over the next five years on the effort. About $1 billion of that will come from an increase in NASA’s budget, while the other $11 billion would come from shifting funds from existing programs within NASA’s current $86 billion budget. The overall NASA budget would stay at about 1 percent of the federal budget, according to White House figures.” Raising NASA’s budget would help them accomplish much more that they wouldn’t have been able to before.

I think it is great that people are interested this much into actually traveling to space to a place noone has ever been to. The good thing about this trip is unlike the Apollo mission, the United States will welcome International participation to help out. This is a big step for the U.S.A.

Mars Initiative – Funding the First Human Mars Mission

http://www.space.com/24268-manned-mars-mission-nasa-feasibility.html

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/14/bush.space/

Going to see the Plasma reactor at MIT was very interesting. It was hard to focus on everything that was said during the presentation because I had no idea what was being talked about but once we entered the room where the reactor was, I was quickly intrigued. To know that an enormous amount of energy can be created from something so small was what caught my attention. I never knew what plasmas were until before this trip. I learned that plasmas are everywhere.

Going to MIT to see the Plasma reactor is a once in a lifetime experience and I am glad I went to see it.

Nowadays i think people are scared of using nuclear energy because of the negative affects it could have on them. The negative affects could be drastic for everyone. After the explosion in Tokyo, people were more informed about the negative affects of radiation reaching them in California because of the negative things that could happen in Tokyo.

Nuclear power has many positive benefits but the main one would be that it is one of the cleanest forms of energy for us to use. It is also one of the strongest energy sources we could use. There could be tremendous  repercussions if the radiation of the nuclear plants reached people but the positive effects are much greater.

I am between the fact of using nuclear energy. I cannot decide if it would be as beneficial as they say it is. If I were to be pro-nuclear energy, I would have to see that there could be smaller or no negative repercussions.

Lego Experiment

I do not remember much of the experiment. As a group, we built the car, made all the proper modifications, connected the cables to the motors and from the car to the computer.  After we did this we used the application on the computer to put in orders for the car to do. We would make it do circles and also go straight. That is all we did for when I was there.

The problem in this video bellow are the problems the corporations are having with falling oil prices. With the falling of oil prices it is helping people buy cheaper petroleum at the pumps and this is hurting the “fracking” companies. It hurts them because the drop in oil prices makes hydraulic fracturing less economically viable for companies in the U.S. invested in the whole process.

Hydraulic Fracturing is the action of pumping a fluid into a well in order to break up the rock that bears oil or gas to release the hydrocarbons trapped inside. The public has recently become aware of all of the negative affects that fracturing is doing to the Earth. There is a great movie about this and it is called, “Promised Land.”

This movie is all about a company called Global and their ventures into a town that is full of natural gas but the only challenge is that not everyone agrees with it. The challenge for the representative from Global is to try and get everyone to vote for the fracturing, telling each and everyone of them that they can be millionaires if they sign the contract and vote for them. This movie is actually a great one because you get to see the struggles from both sides of the pie. One side being the major corporation that is trying to create wells on the land and the side of a single environmentalist working on his own, trying to protect the people and the land from something he has already suffered through. I do recommend this movie to anyone who has an interest in this.

I am pretty sure this happens all the time, a piece of land that is rich in a natural resource that helps keep our oil prices down could be stripped away in order for people to make money. It is happening right now in the Midwest. These big corporations are just taking people out of their homes and making them move in order to tear apart the land for natural gas. Thanks to these low oil prices the corporations have slowed down significantly for now.

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/080814/how-fracking-affects-natural-gas-prices.asp

http://www.voanews.com/media/video/falling-gas-prices-hurt-nascent-illinois-hydraulic-fracturing-industry/2660302.html

Everyday there are companies who are always trying to come up with ways that a car can have more mileage per gallon. There are many people working out there who have brilliant ideas on how we can increase the gas mileage of a car but it is either too expensive of an idea or they give up on the idea. Right now, on average, cars run at about 24-26 MPGs. It keeps increasing as the years go on. There is a better fuel economy for new cars and trucks and with this situation people do not have to focus on getting smaller cars in order to save gas. Smaller cars are making somewhat of a comeback because people do not want to spend a lot of money on gas. There are also the hybrids that people are buying in order to save lots more money by using an electric car. Also cars are getting lighter. The bodies of the cars have become much lighter and therefore can travel farther per gallon. There are also sneaky ways that people can adjust their cars in order to save money, like making sure your tires at their best and cleaning the air filter. Cleaning the air filters are said to increase a vehicle’s gas mileage by 10%, and that is just because you’re keeping it clean.

It is thought that by 2025, gas mileage in cars will be at around 54.5. Doing this means that the cars will still be using gas because gas gives the best results in a car (depending on the car). The Obama Administration has been planning on ways in order to come up with this idea. One idea is the Start-Stop system. The way it works is when a car is on but stationary, lets say like in a traffic jam, the cars are always starting and stopping, so when the car is stationary the engine will cut out and when the driver needs to move again, the cars revs up the engine and lets the driver move with no problem.

There are many ideas out there for increasing the gas mileage of a car. People just need to be as patient as possible will all this new technology is being discovered in order to help our future.

http://arstechnica.com/features/2012/10/the-road-ahead-how-well-get-to-54-5-mpg-by-2025/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/13/cars-in-the-u-s-are-more-fuel-efficient-than-ever-heres-how-it-happened/

http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/22/cars-mpg-gas-forbeslife-cx_jm_0422cars.html