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In the last class, we chose to watch a movie called ”Pandora’s promise” that Suffolk University bought recently. It is a documentary film that is explaining the use of nuclear energy with the aid of some scientists and environmentalists.

I found the movie educational because I was oblivious about the benefits that nuclear energy can bring to us. Before watching the movie, I thought that it is the most dangerous source of energy, however, it seems to be the opposite: it is safe and produces an immense amount of energy.

The movie started with the environmental expert who showed the tremendous disasters that nuclear power presented in the past such as Fukushima in Japan. Also, the film mentioned the inhabitants’ fear toward radiations. As we saw in the movie, the scientist utilized a radiation detection device to measure radiation in several places. The degrees of radiation in some places were gigantic which made the citizens scared.

In order to refute these erroneous beliefs, the movie used the example of Chernobyl. After the evacuation of its citizens in 1986 because of the disaster, people came back to their initial homes and lived for many years. The movie, interviewed one of the citizens in Chernobyl who confirmed the stability, safety and healthiness of his town. More than that, he confirmed that none of the citizens was hurt by the radiation of the calamity.

Although few accidents happened in the past such as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, it is possible to produce clean, undamaged and cost-effective energy using nuclear power plants that can be efficient and productive. The film promoted nuclear energy as the best power that can achieve the public’s demand nowadays. Therefore, the movie showed that nuclear energy is safer than the other sources of power (wind and solar) that are unhealthy, unsafe and disadvantageous.

As far as I’m concerned, I found the movie controversial. The movie made the audiences think more and critically about nuclear energy and made them change their unsupported beliefs against the true green energy. The film left behind many unanswered questions and hefty unexplored scientific evidence.

Two weeks ago, we had a new exciting experiment. The activity stated Newton second law of motion. In order to achieve this observation we needed some useful materials such as pulley, robot, Lego Mindstorm and a ruler. By connecting the pulley and the motor by a thin rope, we could lift various masses. The picture below clearly illustrates what I have just mentioned.

We utilized all these “ingredients” to measure diverse materials: speed (RPM), battery discharge, mass(Kg), power(%), time(S), acceleration(RPM/S), g(m/S^2), height(m), mgh(j)and power used(W). The diversity of units made the experiment interesting.

	Speed(RPM)		battery discharge		Mass(kg)		power(%)		time(s)		acceleration(RPM/s)		g (m/s^2)		height(m)		mgh(j)		Power used(W)
0	86.052632	0	111	0	0.2	0	75	0	1.9	0	45.290859		9.8		0.33		0.6468		0.340421053
0	89.346161	0	97	0	0.16	0	75	0	1.871	0	47.753159		9.8		0.33		0.51744		0.27655799
0	92.006901	0	56	0	0.12	0	75	0	1.739	0	52.907936		9.8		0.33		0.38808		0.223162737
0	96.17613	0	56	0	0.08	0	75	0	1.726	0	55.721976		9.8		0.33		0.25872		0.149895713
0	111.265005	0	84	0	0.2	0	95	0	1.444	0	77.053327		9.8		0.33		0.6468		0.447922438
0	57.112996	0	55	0	0.2	0	55	0	2.711	0	21.067133		9.8		0.33		0.6468		0.238583549
0	84.980923	0	83	0	0.2	0	75	0	1.922	0	44.21484		9.8		0.33		0.6468		0.336524454

As a first step in the experiment, my classmate and I kept the power constant and change the mass. We observed that the acceleration kept going down as we increased the amount of mass. On the other hand, when we kept the mass constant, and we increased the power level in each trial, we discovered that the acceleration was going up. Then, the professor asked us to illustrate our results in an excel sheet, where all the information were gathered.

The intention of the professor in this part of the experiment was to highlight the Newton second law (Force=Mass*acceleration), which states that the higher the force (power) the greater the object’s acceleration will be and the greater the mass the lower the acceleration will be.

The second part of the experiment was to illuminate the conservation of energy by finding the potential energy, which is represented as the following EP=mgh. We did not need to calculate each time the EP because excel made the task easy for us and counted each trial. As a third task, Muntassir and I examined the relationship between the battery discharge and the mass. As a result, we found out that the higher the mass, the higher the battery discharge.

Finally, we desired to illustrate the link between the power used, which is equal to mgh/t. Again, the excel sheet could count the power used for each trial. The graph demonstrated that the higher the power level the higher the power used would be.

I liked the experiment because of its diversity. We had to analyse the relationship between different components in order to get new results and a new conclusions.

 

The global production of motor vehicles made a tremendous progress in its sector and made an immense expansion in the last five years Due to the technology improvements. While researching for this project, I desired to identify which country produced the most vehicles around the world. The result was china with 19,271,808 in 2012, which exceeds the United States by almost 10,000,000 units. Economically speaking, as the amount of cars increases around the globe, the demand and the consumption for gas rises. Because of the economic crisis, the gas prices moved up and infected the automobile industry, which gave the incentive to the carmakers to come up with new inventions and formulations that waste less gas such as improving gas mileage and inventing hybrid cars. “And the auto companies have gotten a lot better at building popular small cars that are fuel efficient — thanks to gas-electric hybrids and advances in battery technology — and consumers are responding”.

US carmakers rejected the idea to set up new rules and increase the gas prices again. Instead, they looked for a better idea.” The proposal introduced by the president calls for a 5 percent annual increase in fuel economy for cars from 2017 to 2025.”They are now putting plenty efforts to increase fuel economy and they proposed new technologies in order to achieve their goal by 2025.” U.S. automakers have until 2025 to raise the fuel economy on their cars and trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon—double the current standard—or face government fines.”Some of the ways that carmakers are trying to utilise are: producing more efficient engines that consume less gasoline and inventing new low-priced hybrid and electric cars.While some of the researchers are trying in developing engines and creating new hybrid cars, others are seeking to enhance different components of the automobile that waste energy such as mufflers, air filters and radiators.There are also some helpful suggestions and habits that cars holders’ need to follow, in order to get better gas mileage such as replacing the spark plug wires before wearing out and keeping the correct air pressure in the tires.

The main reason to increase gas mileage is the manufacture of hybrid cars and electric vehicles. Nowadays, carmakers companies are recruiting more engineers and technicians for the design and production of new technologies, which had a large impact in the society and the employment rate.

 

 

Work Cited :

“Automotive Industry.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 June 2013. Web. 09 Oct. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry>.

“Carmakers Back Strict New Rules for Gas Mileage.” Carmakers Back Strict New Rules for Gas Mileage. BILL VLASIC, 28 July 2011. Web. 9 Oct. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/business/carmakers-back-strict-new-rules-for-gas-mileage.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>.

“Better Gas Mileage, Thanks to the Pentagon.” Better Gas Mileage, Thanks to the Pentagon. Jeff Green, 17 May 2012. Web. 9 Oct. 2013. <http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-17/better-gas-mileage-thanks-to-the-pentagon>.

 

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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