It was a great opportunity to have tom come and talk to our class. He showed us cool gadgets he has collected and made over the years that have to do with electricity. One neat thing that I have never seen before is the Stirling engine. I have never seen this before and thought it was really cool how it worked. It was powered by hot water and colder air. If there is a 7* degrees difference in temperature then it will work. This works if one side is hot and the other is cold. These are used to pump water. They are also very quiet motors. They are over 200 years old now which is really cool.
Stirling motor engine
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/MM-7_Stirling_Engine.jpg
Another thing he showed us that I have never seen in real life was a tesla coil. This was really neat and I want to make my own someday. I found it interesting that it could power a light bulb without even being plugged in. He said it was called wireless back in the day. When he put a spinner on top of it, it spun around when the electrons come off at the end. He showed us what Saint Elmo’s fire was. This is when the bolt is about to strike it glows.
Tesla coil
The violet ray was an example of medical equipment fraud. This supposedly could fix everything wrong with a person like cancer, colds, and headaches. It’s weird how the government didn’t have regulations back then. The violet rays does not actually do anything.
Violet ray
