Month: September 2013

In the last class assignment, we had to build a Basic Two-motor NXT Car, which is a basic car that can be programmed from a computer. We had a box full of detached pieces, and my teammates and I had to follow the instructions given by the professor in order to link the different pieces and build the car.

Our second task was to measure the diameter of the wheel in order to find the circumference in meters.With the aid of a ruler, we found that our diameter was about 5.6 cm. The next step was to calculate our circumference, which is equal to Pi * diameter, and in our case, it was equal to 0.167m. We can conclude from our last experience that for every rotation the car travels a distance of 0.167m. Therefore, we connected the car to the computer in order to manipulate the car through a program called VI wheel_rotation_straight.vi. The program allowed us to move the robot with a specific power for a specific time. We also needed to measure the distance traveled by the car in each trial in order to compare it with the correct answer given by the program. By doing so, we were able to figure out the percentage of error that we made in each trial. The rule of the error is equal to |d1 – d2|*100/((d1+d2)/2).

Our trials are represented in the table below:

	Power	Time(s)	Distance Measured(m)	Distance on screen(m)	Error(%)
Trial 1	75	2	0.26	0.2673	2.77
Trial 2	50	2	0.18	0.1676	7.135
Trial 3	25	2	0.08	0.0738	8.0624
Trial 4	25	3	0.245	0.236	8.1967
Trial 5	50	2	0.36	0.3548	1.681
Trial 6	20	5	0.27	0.289	6.79
Trial 7	90	1	0.33	0.3191	3.39

As we can see in the table above, our measurements were not always accurate. In each trial we had some errors. The most “accurate” measurements were in trial number 5 where we had the least percentage of error.

Overall, I liked the robotics activity because I was asked for the first time to build a car in a class, which was a funny experience.

On Thursday, my classmates and I met in the Sawyer library, which is located on the 2^nd floor of 73 Tremont St. The library is devoted for all Suffolk students but especially for those who attend the college of arts and sciences and the sawyer business school. The library is open from 8am until midnight from Monday to Thursday. However, on Friday and Sunday the library is open between 8am and 8pm.On Sunday, it opens late in the morning at 11am and closes at 12pm.

The reference desk is on the 2^nd floor, which is definitely helpful for the students who are looking for resources in the library. The reference desk helps you find the exact location of the resources that you want to focus on. In the same floor, there are many computers and printers available for the students at anytime during the working hours. In addition, there is a circulation/reserve desk near the entrance accessible for any student who is looking for books or laptops. Afterwards, we went to the third floor, which is almost entirely devoted for quite studies and private rooms. Then, the librarian guided us to a lab where she explained the concept of accessing the impressive mass of resources stored in the online database, which is, in my opinion, the most important part of the tour. Students can access the database by entering the Suffolk home page website and then choose the library section. In order to seek for resources, Suffolk students have three options. They can search either by letters from A to Z or by category. They can also search by subject or by the author’s name. And finally they can search by the title of an article or a book. The database is a useful tool for every student attending Suffolk University and can help in various types of assignments. In addition, the librarian made an important remark concerning citations and quotations. She mentioned that every student must cite the article or book from where he/she took the information, otherwise the student risks to be plagiarising.

I advise every student to visit the Sawyer library, not only because of its nearby location, but also because of its massive amount of resources that are available in the database.

 

Hurricane sandy showed the strength of nature and we all remember what happened in New York and New Jersey last fall because of its damage. Some people were stuck in the airport and some went out of electricity. It was one of the most destructive storms in the United States history. 285 are the exact number of fatalities caused by sandy.Some people were wondering if it was one of the effects of global warming such as the rise of sea level and the melt of ice or just a simple tragedy that the United States passed through. So, the question that arises is: Did global warming contribute to the “super storm’s” havoc?

After the tragedy climatologists and researchers begun digging to know more about the cause of the storm and they found out that it was not mainly caused by global warming but it played an important role in making the hurricane worse. According to a new report from the department of energy:’’ climate change contributed to last year’s powerful Hurricane Sandy, which ravaged the Northeast’’.Many factors of global warming have participated in intensifying the storm’s destruction. Global warming increased the amount of moisture in the atmosphere, which impacted in the expansion of heavy precipitation. According to the center for climate and energy solutions: “Sandy carried an unusual amount of moisture, which increased the risk of very heavy precipitation within its path.” Also, the increase of sea level was a critical factor because each inch counted in the intensity of the storm. According to the website globalchange.gov: ”It is well-established that global warming has resulted in global sea-level rise”. Over the past 40 years, the rate of sea level raised four times faster than the normal average that it used to be before the effect of global warming. “This is particularly concerning for the northeastern U.S. coastline, where the rate of sea-level rise is four times faster than the global average.”

These extreme weather events such as hurricane sandy might be alarming us. We need to start thinking about reducing the risks of climate change by reducing the use of greenhouse gases to its normal level and the burnings in production procedures.

 

 Work cited:

• http://theweek.com/article/index/246799/energy-department-global-warming-made-hurricane-sandy-worse
• http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/07/f2/20130710-Energy-Sector-Vulnerabilities-Report.pdf
• http://www.c2es.org/science-impacts/extreme-weather/climate-change-hurricane-sandy
• http://www.globalchange.gov/what-we-do/assessment/previous-assessments/global-climate-change-impacts-in-the-us-2009
• http://www.nature.com/news/us-northeast-coast-is-hotspot-for-rising-sea-levels-1.10880

 

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