Month: May 2016

Topic

 Our experiment is going to be on solar heating. We will be using three different color cups filled with equal amounts of water. They will be placed under some type of heat whether the actual sun or lamps provided by the professor. We will be determining the different temperatures off of what the NXT robot shows, and make the conclusion that the darkest cup absorbs the most heat.

 

Purpose: To gain understanding and to prove whether darker colors attract and absorb more heat than lighter colors. Additionally, to present an experiment that will allow young students to have insight into energy conservation and sustainability topics.

Most people learn from early on that dark colors absorb more light than light colors. However, is there a difference in the way certain “in-between” colors such as red or pink absorb light?

Background: The purpose of this experiment to to better understand solar power in relation to sustainability. By completing this experiment, the student will have a better grasp of the processes of solar panels within water heating.  This is to tune into a more sustainable way of life and increase awareness of the impact that our everyday practices can have.

In many buildings, solar heating panels have been engineered and implemented. Students will not have much control over whether a building they attend school in has solar panels, so the experiment focuses specifically on heat absorption based on different colors. When a color absorbs light, it turns the light into thermal energy. The more light a color absorbs, the more thermal energy it produces. Black fabric absorbs all colors of light and is therefore warmer than white fabric which reflects all colors.

Here’s some more information about the science behind light absorbtion: http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=1464

One Quora user in this post (https://www.quora.com/Why-do-black-objects-absorb-more-heat-energy-than-white-or-colored-objects) explained light absorbtion like this,

“…black absorbs the most heat. Objects that are white, on the other hand, reflect all wavelengths of light and that’s why they appear white to us, therefore absorb the least heat.”

Here’s a video of a similar experiment:

Another video explaining why Black absorbs the most heat:

Materials
3 Lego Mindstorm Robots

3 NXT thermometer

Light Sources

LabView (Vi is in our email)

3 Different Cups

 

Procedure:

1. Place three cups (of different colors) with equal amounts of water in the holders.
2. Place a thermometer into each cup of water, connected to the NXT device.
3. Measure the temperature of each cup of water before placing it under the heat lamps or in the sun
4. Place the cups under heat lamps or under the sun (if available)
5. Leave the thermometer in each cup of water for 15 minutes
6. Every 3 minutes, record the temperature of each cup of water. In total you should have 6 measurements (0 minutes, 3 minutes, 6 minutes, 9 minutes, 12 minutes, 15 minutes)

Here are pictures of the experiment:

  

Data:

	0 Minutes	3 Minutes	6 Minutes	9 Minutes	12 Minutes	15 Minutes
Clear	72.2	72.8	73.1	73.5	73.7	74.2
Pink	72.0	72.2	72.2	72.2	72.4	72.6
Black	73.9	74.0	74.2	74.2	74.4	74.4

*Measured in degrees (Fahrenheit)

Here are our results. We did not take a measurement of the initial temperature of the water and had to make some adjustments so that the thermometers did not touch the bottom of the beakers.

Analysis:

1. How would you describe the relationship you found between heat absorbed and color of the cup?

We were able to conclude that pink absorbed the least light energy, clear absorbed slightly more light energy, and as we hypothesized, black absorbed the most energy. Although we thought that pink would have absorbed more color than the clear, we were proved wrong as the clear rose 2 degrees in temperature versus the pink cups’s 0.6 degree rise in temperature.

Some limiting factors that may have influences the results of experiment was that the equipment used to heat the water was not very modern or precise. This meant that each glass of water barely had any heat, resulting in a very low amount of change in temperature for all cups. 

2.What did this experiment teach you about sustainability and energy conservation?

This experiment helped us understand the importance of colors when discussing sustainability, especially in relation to the energy we use for heating and cooling. It really reinforced the reasons why homes in cooler climates are built and colored differently than homes in warmer climates. In Greece, many houses are painted white because it reflects the year round light and perpetual summer conditions. While in the deep woods of Canada, log homes are dark brown and wooden – aimed at keeping in the precious heat they have during brutal winters. Even during the summer time, wearing black is not sustainable because you would have more demand for air conditioning since the sun combined with your attire would cause your body temperature to rise.

There were some limitations such as the slightly outdated equipment we had to use and the very low amount of temperature increase. But it would be very interesting for this to be recreated by other people with sun, different heating apparatuses, other liquids and a larger array of colors!

My team consisted of Sofia, Alexis, and Kara. After working in a previous experiment on the usage of solar panels to power NXTs, we knew that we wanted to do something related to solar energy and its relationship to sustainability. First we thought of using the NXT solar panels, but decided not to use them because they were a bit complicated and we did not want to meddle with Labview too much as we wanted the majority of the experiment to be spent doing the project rather than recording information, inputting it into excel, and creating graphs. Though they are useful tools, we wanted to simplify our process and procedure as much as possible. After googling science projects related to solar energy, we found one project that stuck out to us. It involved placing different colored cups filled with liquid under the sun, measuring the temperature of the liquid in each cup over time, and comparing the differences. It seemed to be an interesting project and gathering the tools needed to perform it would be simple.

We then strategized what our plan of action and divided up the tasks amongst ourselves to make the process of designing and running our experiment as easy as possible. It was great that the whole team contributed ideas and provided their honest opinions about the direction they’d like the project to take. Without honest input, contribution and thoughtfulness, the experiment would be much more complicated and time-consuming to run. We are hoping that the experiment will increase understanding of sustainability as something as simple as color can have a great impact on the amount of energy that is absorbed.

Mars 10 years ago was a dream for mankind, traveling to Mars has been used in Sci-fi movies because it was so far away from reality it was perfect for TV, however by 2027 we hope to have a permanent human colony thanks to the Mars One project. A trip to mars according to the Mars One project will take approximately 7 months, a bit longer than what current astronauts stay on the ISS. The benefits of traveling to mars are astonishing, it will undoubtedly allow us to accelerate our scientific research and once again improve our presence in the solar system. Mars is also quite similar to Earth, which would allow us to learn about our home planets history and future.

NASA has a long term program called Orion in which they believe spaceflight to mars is anticipated by about 3035, 8 years after what Mars One have claimed. After the Orion project shorter flights up-to 4 person capsules will be involved, with experiments to protect from deep space radiation which is one of the bigger health hazards of long-term space travel. The amount of energy needed to transfer between planetary orbits between Earth and Mars is lowest at fixed intervals by the Synodic period. This period is every 26 months, so missions are planned to coincide with this 26 month pattern. The energy needed in these low-energy windows also varies on a 15 year cycle, with the lowest amount of energy needed being nearly half as much of the peaks.

Despite needing 26 months between setting the missions in motion, a round trip to Mars and would take 400-450 days according to Werner von Braun’s book, “Popular Science”. The downside to this kind of mission is the higher energy requirements. A faster Mars mission has been estimated at 250 days with on-board staging. The cost of sending humans to mars is estimated to be roughly 500 billion dollars, although those costs are likely to rise. Currently the largest limiting factor for space travel to mars isn’t the technology, it’s the fact that there isn’t enough funding for travel to mars. Despite funding being the biggest challenge, there are several key physical challenges as well.

Health threats from high-energy cosmic rays will produce a great radiation risk, the calculated radiation dose for a round-trip is 0.66 sieverts, the limit for a NASA astronaut is 1 sievert for their entire career. On top of that there is the chance of visual impairment due to prolonged exposure to weightlessness. The psychological effects of living as a hermit, with complete isolation from earth can be devastating to most humans. There is also smaller problems of the lack of medical facilities and failure of equipment which makes the entire mission not feasible.

The European Space Agency also has long term goals to send out humans but has not yet built the manned spacecraft required for this, however it has sent robotic probes and plans to launch an unmanned ExoMars in the coming years. Japan has attempted to send a robotic mission to Mars, however it failed to achieve Mars orbit. One technical hurdle of traveling to mars is the shallow atmosphere which will pose difficulty with re-entry and a heat shield would need to be used, further increasing the size.

Whilst traveling to Mars is becoming a reality for many scientists worldwide, we are still too far away to know how successful these projected timelines will be, and how much the total cost of a mission would be in the future. The Mars One astronauts are just like you or me, regular people who are going on a one-way trip for science, without any guarantee that what they do will survive for future generations. Travel to Mars is happening.

The Boston Museum of Science is world-famous for its engaging exhibits and informative displays. Their lightning exhibit alone has drawn thousands and thousands of visitors (like me). What makes it so special is that they built and operate the largest Faraday cage in the world there.

A Faraday cage is an insulated (metal) cage that lets someone experience a lightning storm up close. In theory. In practice, cars for example, are built to protect the people within them from possible hits of lightning. The car itself can and will most likely be totalled, however the passengers take minimal to no damage from an otherwise deadly voltage.

Purpose-built faraday cages are completely safe and used in physics experiments as well as, in the Boston Science Museum, to show the beauty that is hidden in the destructive force of electricity. These fake lightning storms are generated by a so-called Van der Graaff generator. This is a spark generator that creates lightning like surges of electricity.

The whole thing is air-insulated to contain the phenomenon within. It is part of the normal museum building and can be visited via a special show, in which visitors get to first-hand experience this. As for the machine itself, it looks like a metal ball on a long stick when shut off. In fact, most of us have already seen one.

They were very popular in the 90s and 2000s as Plasma globes. Those little, often USB powered, looked like empty plastic balls with a metal ball in the middle. Kids all over the world loved them as they would generate purple sparks of electricity that would dance on the inside of the plastic (or glass) container. When touched by human fingers, the electricity would move there.

These plasma balls aren’t quite the same thing, however as a comparison they work well as the process is the same-comparably large amounts of electricity are discharged as little purple bolts. In clear skies (which are somewhat rare during lightning storms) the bolts will also appear somewhat lilac or purple, or white. On very rare occasions it can even appear as blue. This depends on a variety of factors such as location, time of day, and strength of electricity. The bolts in plasma balls are always purple however.

I don’t know a single child in my school that didn’t have-or wanted-one of these. On a much (much, much) larger scale, the Boston Museum of Science’s Van der Graaff does the same thing-except during the show, the visitors are IN the ball, and not touching it from the outside. In fact, the chamber at the centre is where the electric bolts end, due to the Faraday cage. Tesla coils are also used to generate up to 2 million volts.

In comparison, a natural stroke of lightning has much less-less than half at maximum strength and a fraction of it for the average lightning storm. Unprotected, this is still more than enough to kill a human hit by it (though there are the occasional survivors). In comparison to this very dangerous phenomenon, the museum show is completely safe.

It is, also, an amazing spectacle. A guide explains what’s happening during the show which takes place several times a day. In addition to the general lightning show, there are also features for children, such as the static-generator responsible for a plethora of funny pictures. The static electricity generated will make the hair of the person touching it stand on end-very popular with young boys, not so popular with teenage girls surprised by the effect.