Month: March 2016

Tom Vales showed us a sterling engine, which he informed us was invented in 1860 by Robert Sterling as a substitute for steam engines. They were used as part of generators for power failure circuits. They are pretty consistent in efficiency, but if the water gets too low, the heat from the fire box causes the steam to what’s Vales referred to as a “flash boil” which then increases it dramatically in temp and pressure.

Vales also talked to us about Peltier junctions, which aren’t too successful, with an efficiency rate of only 20%. They were used in submarines to power fans, which were to be totally silent in submarines.

Vales showed us a steam engine that ran on just a candle which was quite interesting.

Here are a few of the inventions Vales brought to class and spoke to us about:

American’s have feared the very idea of vaccinations for some time now, causing vaccinations to be a controversial topic for this country. When American’s were going through the Polio outbreak in ’52, one of the worst this countries ever seen, citizens simply refused to

If you’re unsure of what Polio is capable of, prepare yourself: it begins with an innocent stream of symptoms, seeming more so like a pesky cold. But come time for the virus to reach the bloodstream and spread, well that’s when things become a real danger. You begin to feel shooting pains that dart throughout your insides, muscle spasms, and finally, paralysis sets in. And for those who were particularly lucky, the virus hit the nervous system, inviting death inside for some tea.

During this plague, 58,000 people had fallen victim to the devious virus, many were bedridden for the rest of their lives. But American’s seem to have forgotten about this epidemic, considering the attitude most American’s have towards a medicine that could save themselves and their kids from the disastrous fate of Polio is (oddly enough) negative. “While creating the polio vaccine, Jonas Salk had to deal with critics like Walter Winchell, who warned, “It may be a killer” (TIMES).

As of right now, the world is closer than ever to wiping out the virus completely, but what value does this really hold with the recent boycotting of vaccinations? Will this bring us another 1952?

Forbes published an article titled, “Anti-Vaccine Movement Causes Worst Measles Epidemic In 20 Years”. This article, unfortunately, was not published in the 50’s, but in February of 2015. Measles is spreading and rapidly, because of those who boycott the vaccination, therefore leaving these individuals exposed to measles and ready to share the virus with the rest of us. Scientists have been warned time and time again about those who are ant-vaccination when developing these cures. And what’s the most tragic part about this all? Well, in 2000, America was (proudly) measles-free because of the vaccinations that were being given to prevent the measles from outbreaking, just as they are doing today. Most Anti-vaccination people are just sharing false and misleading information, and if not, well, then they are the ones believing it.

The week we experimented with filters and a solar sensor, we recorded our data and plotted our results through a bar graph and scatter plot.

For this experiment we did a test without light, then tested various distances of light. We then chose one of those distances (that being 2 cm) and then tested all three filters and shined the light 2 cm from the solar sensor. Our results may be seen in the photo above.

Here is a photo of using performing our tests, this was a filterless test. The filters we used are also seen in this photo: red, blue, and green and the solar sensor in which the flashlight is shining on. The solar sensor is connected to the computer which then records the results onto an excel sheet.

 

 

Nasa recently announced more steps for their plan for Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM). According to Nasa’s site, this mission will take place during the 2020’s and, “will test a number of new capabilities needed for future human expeditions to deep space, including Mars” Nasa’s mission won’t take us directly to Mars though, as it will provide as a demonstration, which will then eventually send astronauts to Mars. But ARM does support getting our astronauts closer to the exploration of Mars, which will be pretty cool to see. On this mission, “a robotic spacecraft will capture a boulder from the surface of a near-Earth asteroid and move it into a stable orbit around the moon for exploration by astronauts…”

While NASA seems to be taking us further into the belly of the monster, there are some risks that come with the mission to Mars. According to mars-one.com, the ticket to Mars may be a one way. “It requires developing bigger rockets that need a larger landing systems and launch capability on Mars” We need technology we don’t have, like bigger rockets and better landing systems. According to Mars-one, this mission is (as of right now) scheduled for 2024.

NASA administrator, Charles Bolden, had envisioned himself to be the first one on Mars when he first began his training in the 80’s. Bolden says, ” we have a lot of work to do to get humans to Mars, but we’ll get there” Bolden goes on to say that we’re the closest we’ve ever been to setting foot on Mars, only four years away.

In class, we experimented with number of shakes and intensity vs acceleration. My partner and I had performed a few tests to compare data. We had done multiple attempts, varying in numbers of shakes- for example,

we had collected data of 10 shakes vs. 15 shakes vs. 20 shakes to see the difference in results.

Here are a few photos documenting our process:

 While this photo is a bit blurry, it shows our ending results in the form of a scatter plot chart.

This is the flashlight that acted as our ‘shake device’ or ‘shake generator’ and it’s connected to the robot which then connected to the computer in order to collect our data.

And finally, this is an excel spreadsheet of our recorded results in which we found, the more shakes performed, the higher number we’d receive in the results.

Pandora’s Promise is quite admirable, considering it strays from political influences that other environmental documentaries seem to gravitate towards. This film mainly supports the idea that nuclear power should be the most desirable of options for those who are concerned about the environment. The film addresses the fears that many American’s have about enforcing nuclear power, since well, all of the terrifying events that took place (Chernobyl, Hiroshima, Fukushima etc.) But this film suggests that perhaps our fears are a bit exaggerated. While I still fear the potential dangers of nuclear power, this film does have a point, and quite the persuasive one too. Most of the film follows scientists that have had a change in heart, and believe that the best option is nuclear power, because depending solely on wind and solar leaves us far too dependent. Wouldn’t it be great if we could though? But we can’t think wishful thoughts any longer; it’s blinding us. Despite the persuasive film on nuclear power, it’s still quite terrifying, at least for me. I just don’t think our Country is quite there yet either.