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Tom Vales Demos

Tome Vales demos, they were so cool. On Sep 28th, A professor came in instead of Prof. Shatz, and showed us 5 demos. The ‘Mendocino Motor’, the ‘Rocking Armature Motor’, the ‘Stirling Engine’, the ‘Wireless Transmission Energy’, and the ‘Violet Ray Machine’.

let’s talk about the first gadget Prof. Tom showed us, the Mendocino Motor. The Mendocino motor is powered by light, any kind of bright light. It was named the Mendocino motor because, the guy who made it was in Mendocino, California. It’s uses is a teaching tool. Solar cell is an electrical device that converts light energy into electricity, How it works is when the energy goes to the solar cell, it puts a current through the coil, and makes a magnetic field, which then, reacts with the field magnet and just keeps doing a 360 rotation forever. That was an awesome gadget.

Screenshot at Oct 05 16-29-11   ‘Mendocino Motor’

Now on to the 2nd demo, the Rocking Armature Motor. The one Prof. Tom showed us was a reproduction of 1800 motor. What it does is, when you flip a switch, a flywheel keeps spinning and spinning non-stop, and it’s super fast. The motor power for the flywheel comes from the rocking motor, hence the name, The Rocking Armature.

Screenshot at Oct 05 16-27-10   ‘Rocking Armature Motor’

Now this 3rd demo, the Stirling’s engine, my second favorite one. The name came from the inventor, The Reverend Dr. Robert Stirling. It was invented in 1816. It runs on the heat of one coffee cup filled with hot water. Steam engines was all what we had back in the day If you had a factory near a stream. Now, steam engines are very dangerous, it has alot of pressure in them and a lot of accidents could happen. So this is why Stirling invented this engine called Hot air engine. It has 2 pistons: one is called a displacer piston which is in the bottom, and the power piston which is in the front, these 2 pistons runs a flywheel by the steam of the hot water.

Screenshot at Oct 05 16-27-25   ‘Stirling Engine’

My favorite one, the Wireless Transmission Energy. Created by Nikola Tesla, and the developer of alternating current. The WTE is power by a tesla generator. A plastic barrel is surrounded by a copper wire, and on top of it, is a small tesla coil, which only puts out about 7 inches of spark. After it is turned on by a tesla generator, you can see a spark of electricity. When Professor Tom chose 2 of my classmates, he gave both of them a fluorescent tube light and said “Get closer to the Wireless Transmission Energy”. I was still trying to figure out what did he mean by that. But when the 2 classmates came closer to the Wireless Transmission Energy, the fluorescent tube light suddenly turned on, without even being in contact with anything. I was so surprised.

Screenshot at Oct 05 16-26-59   ‘Wireless Transmission Energy’

Violet Ray Machine also created by Tesla. Violet Ray is called like that because, it lights up a violet/purple colored glow. It’s treated like a medical appliance, used in the 20th century. Said to be able to cure diseases, from cancer to diarrhea. Cool project.

IMG_7069  ‘Violet Ray Machine’.

Obama versus Climate Change

Our climate is changing. Climate change, also referred to as ‘Global Warming’. It is a problem for everyone around the world. 97% of climate change scientists agree that man-made climate change is a fact. In 2014, 2 landmark reports spoke out the reality of the challenge we face the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and the NCA (National Climate Assessment) revealed that, if nothing is done, climate change could have the possibility to effect the people no matter where they are.

U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a statement to the media about energy on the Heil Family Farm, a wind farm, while in Haverhill, Iowa, August 14, 2012.   REUTERS/Larry Downing  (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS ELECTIONS BUSINESS ENERGY)

In August 2015, The President of the United States Obama takes the biggest most important step ever taken to combat climate change. The Clean Power Plan (CPP), which prepares the first ever carbon pollution standards for power plants. Power plants are the single biggest source of harmful carbon pollution that contributes to climate change. The CPP has reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 32% from 2005 levels by 2030. The Plan will protect the health of people (Prevent up to 3,600 premature deaths, Prevent 1,700 non-fatal heart attacks, Prevent 90,000 asthma attacks in children, Prevent 300,000 missed workdays and schooldays), boost our economy (Creating tens of thousands of jobs), and save the average American family (Nearly $85 a year on their energy bills in 2030). “Washington is starting to catch up with the vision of the rest of the country. ” Obama said Monday from the White House.

23climate-master675

Temperatures are rising across the US. The hottest year on the past years is 2014.  Extreme weather change is getting more abnormal. Weather and climate disasters in 2012 ‘alone’ has cost the people economy more than a shocking $100 billion. Health threats is also one of problems associated with extreme weather. Kids, elderly, and the poor are most weak to the climate heath effects: heat stress, air pollution, diseases carried by food, or water. The New York Times called the President’s climate proposal “the strongest action ever taken by an American president to tackle climate change.”

And finally, climate change is not just our problem, it’s everyone’s problem. The Clean Power Plan now effects everyone in a positive way, the change in our breathing outside is good, the kids, and elderly’s health is so much better. The Clean Power Plan is indeed a good thing.

 

References:-

  1. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/23/us/politics/senate-democrats-to-unveil-aggressive-climate-change-bill.html?_r=1
  2. http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/02/politics/obama-climate-change-plan/
  3. https://www.barackobama.com/climate-change/
  4. https://www.whitehouse.gov/climate-change

Robotics Activity

This is a Lab Review on what ‘we’ did in the class of SF-197 of the day Sep 16th  2015

First thing ‘me and my partner’ did was, used a car made out of lego we built last week and launched it on a program called ‘LabVIEW’ to test how it works.

We opened a document called VI (Virtual Instrument) ‘wheel_rotation_straight.vi’ on LabView, we learned how the VI works with my professor, measuring the distance the wheel travels, and the speed at which the lego car travels.

We measured the diameter of the wheel, and calculated the circumference of the wheel in meters with LabVIEW:

-The circumference of the wheel was 0.1696,

-The diameter is 0.127m.

*Having the power on 75, we measured the distance that the car traveled with a ruler, and we compared it with the distance that the LabVIEW gave us. We got almost a similar number:

-The result the LabView gave us was 0.262m.

-The result we measured was 0.274m.

The results we measured was higher than the results the LabView gave us. After that, we measured the wheel rotation in degree and number of turns.

We came up with:

-For each 537 degrees rotation, is a 1.544m wheel turn, the velocity/speed the wheel was going at 0.274mps.

We then tried figuring out the error between the distance measured and the distance LabView gave, this is the formula on how to do it:

Error % = (Distance Measured – Distance Labview)/Average(A)

Now how to solve that is simple by following this equation:

A = (Distance measured + Distance Labview)/2 = (0.274m+0.262m)/2 = 0.536m/2 = 0.268m

Error = (0.274-0.263)/0.268 = 0.012/0.268 = 4.477%

Next, we repeated that same process 2 more trials but with a different power.

*The Second trial had a power of 100:

-Distance measured was 0.364m, Distance the LabView gave us was 0.369m, for each 537 degrees rotation, is a 2.177 wheel turn, Velocity/Speed was going at 2.117mps.

*The Third trial had a a power of 125.

– Distance measured was 0.365m, Distance the LabView gave us was 0.359m, for each 537 degrees rotation, is a 2.114  wheel turn, Velocity/Speed was going at 2.114mps.

 

This is a simple table we have done to understand everything we did:

TableThank you for reading this and have a great day~