A couple weeks ago we went to MIT’s nuclear reactor.  Only about half the class went and we managed to get there with little problems.  Once we got off the train, the street we had to turn on did not have a street name so it was confusing, but we managed to make it there on time.  Here is what the nuclear reactor looks like–>

Once we got there, we had to sign in and we received a metal tube in which you looked into it and saw a reading of numbers.  We never used this in the time we were there so I am not sure what the point of it was.  We then went into a room and put our hands and feet up against a machine that told us if we had picked up any harmless materials.  We all made it through with no problems and continued to the next portion of the trip.  Before we went into the nuclear reactor, the instructor showed us the control room.  There was a MIT student in there taking down data and making sure everything is running correctly.

We then moved through a couple of heavy duty doors and finally got into the nuclear reactor.  The instructor showed us a lot of things that they do in the nuclear reactor, unfortunately, he explained things too fast and gave us too much information to remember everything he was saying.  What I do remember is that the nuclear reactor can manage up to three in-core experiments at one time.  This allows the reactor to carry up to 100 g fissile material.  Another thing I remember is something they call “NESSE” I believe?  It might be spelt differently but it is a large barrel that contains what they need to run their experiments.  One last important thing I remember is that the Fission Converter Beam (FCB) located in the reactor itself, is the highest intensity epithermal neutron beam in the world.  I thought this was astonishing because this beam is so interesting and I did not even get to see it.

Once we were done in the reactor, we had to put our hands and feet up to the chemical reader one last time to see if we picked up and hazardous materials in the nuclear reactor.  All of us passed and proceeded to the beginning to gather our belongings we had to leave in an office.  We also gave back the metal tubes that we received and did not use and signed out.  I enjoyed going to the nuclear reactor and thought it was a very useful way to show us what is done there.  I wish we could have seen more things or done more hands on activities, but overall impressed with the trip.

Our group started the brainstorming part of the final experiment by looking at the websites that were given to us for ideas.  Each of us went through the websites and did not really find anything that caught our attention.  We then went on to explore other sights online to try to find an experiment that best fits our interests as a group.

We each found an experiment that we liked but had to find one that we all agreed on.  We combined ideas and came up with an experiment about potential and kinetic energy.  The main idea of the experiment is to roll different size marbles down a ramp into a milk carton.  The reason for the different size marbles is to see if the different size marbles will cause the milk carton to move different distances.

This experiment seemed simple to teach a class and collect data from that everyone can understand.  We ran into some problems looking for experiments however because they either required a lot of materials, not fitting the project, or too hard to put together.  I believe the experiment we chose is the best after our brainstorming.  It aloud us to put all of our ideas on the table and figure out which one we all liked.  Looking forward to the next time working on the project!

In the generator lab, we had to measure the voltage output of the generator.  The generator was connected to the NXT which was connected to the computer.  This aloud the NXT to read our calculations and put them on an excel sheet on the computer for us.  The point of the lab was to shake the generator 4 different times and find the average voltage for each shake attempt, each in a 30 second period.

We first started off by not shaking the generator at all which gave us an average voltage of .38.  This gave us an average voltage for the experiment without making any changes to the generator.  After we calculated the voltage for the generator with no shakes, we went on to do 4 more runs but each time shaking the generator a different amount of times.  We ended up shaking the generator a number of 44, 64, 78, and 122 times.  The average voltage for each was 32.07, 75.85, 76.19, and 221.09 corresponding in order to the numbers the previous sentence.

We noticed that there was a pattern which makes me believe we did the lab correct.  The more times we shook the generator, the higher the average velocity was.  Even after our calculations, we ran the generator a few more times and noticed the same pattern.  Lastly, the lab showed me a thing about velocity.  I had an idea that we would notice a pattern like we did, but not as significantly as our results showed.  Another lesson learned from an entertaining exercise.

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