Author: ksallaberry

 According to the St. Louis Dispatch article, Auto Industry makes strides toward improving fuel economy, auto industries have been working on producing more “fuel-efficient models” With the concern of leaving less of a carbon footprint, car manufacturers have worked long and hard to alter their tactics while avoiding the whole idea that small-cars are the only option for an improved fuel economy.

“Under the new federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, the auto industry has agreed to produce fleets of vehicles that average 35.5 miles a gallon by 2016 and 54.5 miles a gallon by 2025” Considering the average is around 25 mpg, that’s pretty incredible to hear. And with Obama’s initiative to clean up this planet, his National Clean Car Program is believed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by quite a bit. This will lower the dependency on oil, which will then save us all the gas money we’re currently spending AND diminish the crazy demand for oil and all that comes with it.

According to The NY Times article, U.S. Sets Much Higher Fuel Efficiency Standards, “Americans would reduce their oil consumption by 12 billion barrels over the course of the program” That’s a whole lot of oil. Although this sounds fantastic, there is a concern (mostly expressed by Mitt Romney) that while saving money on gas, (keep in mind that the average fuel savings of one American would result in more than $8,000 by 2025) you wouldn’t be really saving much, considering the upfront cost (expensive). Ok Mitt, I see your point, for once.

But you have to remember that once oil prices had (dramatically) risen in the 80s-90s, this  “pushed many drivers to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles”. So either circumstance is not really going to save much money, except for the fact that we’d be saving the earth. Yeah, that might be the deciding factor for me.

During last classes brain storming, we didn’t have a main focus, so we all just kind of searched around online browsing different experiments to perform that would demonstrate comparable measured trials. I came across a few interesting ideas in my searches, a solar cooker, solar heater, and last but not least, homemade graphite lightbulb.

Here’s a screenshot of the Sci Guys video demonstrating the experiment (and not to mention the original video that grabbed each of our interest) 

After getting this idea approved, we scrambled to find out the materials necessary and how we would go about this performing this experiment. Since this is all powered on a line of batteries connected by electric tape, connecting the two end batteries to the graphite, we decided to perform three separate experiments, sort of. We decided to start out with 6 batteries, then move up to 8 (which is the required amount) and then add on till we have about 12 batteries  connected, hoping that we will successfully portray the different strength in the light that will happen when changing the amount of batteries used (messing with the source of power, essentially).

We’re excited to move forward with this experiment.

When I visited the Museum of Science, I took the time to explore what ever caught my eye, really. At this point, my group had not one clue what our experiment would entail, test, or demonstrate. That was our mission, to explore and find certain exhibits and try and brainstorm ideas from there. I took some photos of our trip:

Here’s a photo of Carter and Will trying to balance the center piece and finally getting it ( I think they’re getting it, who knows)

 

For whatever reason, the photos refuse to rotate to their proper view, but these offer a peak at the time we spent at MOS, discovering how things work. For example, seen above, Will messes with the ‘Turning Wind into Electricity’ and learns more about the process. Here’s a photo, seen below, of Will and our friend Carter trying to understand how they could possibly create balance using an odd number of weights. After finally giving up, a child about ten or so solved the riddle immediately. Showed us right up

Overall, the MOS was really interesting. There were a lot of cool exhibits and even a wildly colorful an electric show (pun intended) Shown below.

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.

Hydrofracking, otherwise known as hydraulic fracturing, has been a concerning matter for many. “A technique in which large amounts of water, combined with smaller amounts of chemicals and sand, are pumped under high pressure into a drilled gas well” (energywilkes). And although harsh sounding, the energy sources that are readily accessible to us today would no longer be so, well, accessible. Things such as oil shale, tight oil and coal seam gas. Since this is the case, we haven’t had to import oil nearly as much nor have we had to be dependent on other countries for such an incredibly important good-oil. Hydrofracking also provides for good paying jobs. According to greengarageblog.org, Hydrofracking brought stable employment for several states such as, Colorado, Wyoming and North Dakota. This then lead to a domino effect of all good things to follow; that being the rise in living standards, an uprise in local businesses and the ability to provide wages that will keep families afloat.

On the other hand, Hydrofracking like anything else has it’s downfalls. First off, it’s just unsafe. Yes, hydrofracking is mostly the use of water and sand, but there are other chemicals that enter this process, which then may lead to contamination in local water supply. These chemicals that are use in Hydrofracking leak into the ground-water used that local residences may use as drinking water, which is quite terrifying.

Hydrofracking also produces both silicon and methane as well and comes with high risks of oil spills.

So while taking all of this into consideration, it’s clear to see that Hydrofracking needs constant looking over; and if it’s properly performed and watched over, the method doesn’t seem too harmful. As a matter of fact, it seems quite practical, with it’s potential societal advantages and economic benefits. But it’s also comes with an endless warning label. Is there too much at stake?

Via (http://vjel.vermontlaw.edu/topten/cracking-down-on-fracking/)