Outdoor Survival Challenge

Today we went on the Arabia Mountain Trail. The trail led to a narrow path which had a lot of sticks and branches. As my group partner and I started to build our shelter we noticed that most of the branches were wet, had ants, and even had fungi growing from them. This stopped our building process significantly, but we managed to find suitable sticks and branches to build our shelter. Even though our shelter was made with only three branches, it was still the best in my opinion because, it was the only shelter I saw that didn't have branches that we broken of from trees by the students.

Midterm Study Guide Screencast

Concepts of Engineering Midterm Study Guide

Questions

1.       Advantages of Pneumatics over Hydraulics

·         Pneumatic powered equipment is more suitable, particularly in industries where the factory units are plumbed for compressed air.

·         Hydraulics means use of pressurized fluids to execute a mechanical task.

·         Commonly seen hydraulics based equipment types are hydraulic presses, hydraulic hoppers, hydraulic cylinders, and hydraulic rams.

·         In order to affect mechanical motion, pneumatics employs compression of gases, based on the working principles of fluid dynamics in the concept of pressure.

·         Any equipment employing pneumatics uses an interconnecting set of components: a pneumatic circuit consisting of active components such as gas compressor, transition lines, air tanks, hoses, open atmosphere, and passive components.

2.       Chapter 18 

·         Resistance means to oppose forward movement.

·         Jet airplanes, fireworks, and recoil guns apply to the concepts of Newton’s third law.

·         Newton’s third law says every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This explains why thrusters will propel the spacecraft into outer space by pushing hot gases out a very high velocity. According to Newton's third law, the spacecraft will experience an equal and opposite force, propelling it upward into space. Also, acceleration of the games times their mass equals the acceleration of the rocket times its mass.

3.       Chapter 19 

·         The main difference between the two types of engines is in the way that they ignite the gas-air mixture. Gasoline engines take in a mixture of gas and air, compress it, and then ignite it with a spark plug. Diesel engines take in just air, compress it, and then inject fuel into the compressed air. The air is compressed enough to raise its temperature sufficiently so that the injected fuel will ignite it.

·         Diesel engines are more powerful, and therefore are used to power trains, cargo ships, and other heavy vehicles. Diesel engine exhaust contains more soot and other particulate pollutants than gasoline engines.

·         Volume, temperature, and pressure are related by the equation "Pressure (P) is proportional to the temperature (T) of the gas, divided by the volume (V) of the chamber.”

·         To determine the force with which the piston pushes the air during the second step of the diesel cycle, you would need to determine the pressure in the chamber and the surface area of the piston. P=F/A, therefore F= A x P. Y

·         Hybrid vehicles have both gas engines, and electric motors and batteries, so they can use both energy sources, either one at a time or together. Hybrid vehicles capture energy from braking to generate electricity and charge the batteries. Solar - powered vehicles use photovoltaic (solar) cells; hydrogen-powered vehicles are reenergized with hydrogen gas, or are powered by fuel cells.

4.       Inside the Teenage Brain 

·         Some say these sleep debts can have a powerful effect on a teen's ability to learn and retain new material -- especially abstract concepts like physics, math, and calculus.

·         Even though the public perception is about building bigger and better brains, what the research shows is that it's the relationships, it's the connections, and it’s the people in children's lives who make the biggest difference."

·         Sleep affects memory and learning of the teenage brain.

5.        Chapter 20 

·         According to an article in a financial journal, a certain company earned 3.85 million dollars last year. Based on this report of the company's yearly earnings, a person reading the article estimates that the company earned an average of approximately 30 thousand dollars per month. One way to solve this problem is to divide 3.85 million dollars by 12 months. Write 3.85 million as 3,850,000. Since the number of dollars will be divided by 12 and the question is asking for an estimate, use compatible numbers to estimate 3,850,000 as 3,600,000, which divides evenly by 12: 3,600,000 dollars divided by 12 months equals 300,000 dollars per month. Hence, 30 thousand dollars per month is too low by a factor of 10.

·         In a Stirling engine, the working gas never leaves the engine. A combustion engine is an open pneumatic system - air and fuel vapor enter the chamber on every cycle, are burnt, then are forced out into the open air.

·         Edmodo is a social networking website and learning management system for teachers, students, and parents. It is marketed as the Facebook for schools.

·         Because the working fluid remains inside the engine, the Stirling engine is considered a closed system. Only energy crosses the system boundary.

·         The engine for the wheelchair had to be quiet and had to deliver a lot of power. Because the Stirling engine is an external combustion engine, there are no explosions inside of the combustion chamber. Therefore, the engine is very quiet.

New Years Resolutions Paragraph

For my new years resolution I plan on getting better grades by completing more of my assignments this year than I did last year. I also plan on earning at least 3 scholarships before the end of this year. Another resolution I have is going to a summer camp where I can learn more about computer software. In addition to that I also want to find five colleges that offer computer software engineering as one of their courses. Finally, I want to get better at playing basketball this year.

Vocabulary Words and Definitions

Technology: the study of the designed world. Used to solve practical problems and extend human capabilities. Developments in technology are evolutionary, and are often the result of a series of refinements to an idea or basic invention.




Impacts of Technology: are divided into four categories: social (the impact on people), political (the impact on policy and laws), cultural (the impact on human achievement), and economic (the impact on the economy).





Paleolithic Age: the Old Stone Age, occurred between 500,000 BC and 10,000 BC and is marked by improvements to diet and security allowing the population to grow.





Mesolithic Age: the Middle Stone Age, occurred between 10,000 BC and 4,000 BC and is marked by the domestication of animals and agriculture.






Neolithic Age: the New Stone Age, occurred between 4,000 BC and 2,300 BC and is marked by specialization, division of labor, and the use of math and documentation of concepts.






Bronze Age: the architectural period that includes combining copper and tin to produce bronze; occurred between 2,300 BC and 700 BC.



Iron Age: the architectural period marked by the use of iron and steel; occurred between 700 BC and 450 AD.





Middle Ages: the architectural period after the Roman Empire; divided into Early Middle Ages, High Middle Ages, and Late Middle Ages; occurred between 450 AD and 1,400 AD and marked by the development of tools of war.





Renaissance: the architectural period marked by the revival of classical influence and the sharing of ideas; occurred between 1,400 AD and 1,750 AD.





Industrial Age: the architectural period marked by the first use of complex machinery, factories and urbanization, occurring between 1,750 AD and 1,950 AD.

Star Method Interview

The assignment is to answer a question using the STAR format.  The STAR format is explained in the following video:



Interviewer's Question: 

Tell me about how you worked effectively under pressure. How do you handle a challenge?

My Answer: 
 
Audio and voice recording >>

Balloon Vehicle Project

On September 5th 2014 We completed the Balloon Vehicle Project. My team of four students designed a vehicle to fly up a string. We used the materials below:

• 2 paper clips
• •2 rubber bands
• •1 balloon
• •12" of masking tape
• •1 popsicle stick
• •1 Clothes Pin to use as the passenger

The objective was to design our vehicle to go from point A to point B as diagrammed below

We were unsuccessful at getting our vehicle to work. I will post a picture of the vehicle later.