Geiger Counter Update

Apparently, the delay of my Geiger Counter has quickly flipped into a positive. To compensate the lateness of the Geiger Counter the ebay seller is sending a more expensive unit. Though he wasn't very specific on what model, I'm happy to wait for a higher quality device.

I am anxiously awaiting its arrival.

Visual C# Update

I ordered Head First Visual C# from my local bookstore today, so it should be ready for me to pick it up tomorrow. I look forward to doing some OOP (Object-Oriented Programming) for a change. In the meantime, I've been writing code in PYTHON, which I will do a formal post on very soon.



Picture credit: Amazon.com

Geiger Counter Delay

My Geiger counter should have arrived on Friday, however the ebay seller's "relative got sick".

Ah well, at least it will come some time (hopefully this week).

The Return of Visual C#

In my early days of computer programming, I contacted MIT's programmers. To my surprise, I got great feedback in information from very nice and sincere people. I owe my love of programming to MIT's John Maloney, Tamara Stern, Andres Monroy-Hernandez, and of course Mark Stafford at Extend Health.

I won't pretend to be a pro at programming at all, on the contrary, I'm still learning, and I've got a very long way to go. I've spent the past two years bouncing around from programming language to programming language, and I've finally decided to settle down once and for all at the first real language I started at, Visual C#. Though I can't program much hardware with it, it has proven its self worthy as I can create all sorts of applications with much less code to write than other languages like C++.

I have re-installed C# for my macbook, and I'm ordering a "Head First" book on C#. my Parallels Desktop has proven its value, something I never anticipated.

The Geiger Counter

This is just a quick update, as I have little time to do any formal experiments or projects. I have ordered a Geiger Counter, six dosimeter pens, and a dosimeter charger. I'm getting some fun projects and experiments in line for future posts.

This is a model of a Geiger Counter I made when I was on a plane flight a few months ago. Every time I see it I laugh at myself, and my lack of drawing skills, though then I was very new to radiation tools, its pretty much accurate, to my surprise.



Brennon W.

The Mathematics, Science, and Future of Flight: Exploring Flight Theory

“Can you write something about theory of flight and new navigation technology?”
This is what a BW Science Labs reader asked me a few days ago.
I am now very comfortable writing about flying as I have written many articles on the topic.
I first discovered the true basis of Flight Theory when I was 11. In Alaska, I asked a pilot to teach me to fly. It was a bolder statement than I first realized, but not at all impossible. It was then that I learned about weight (ok, when I was 11 I knew what weight was), lift, drag, and thrust.
Weight is the most obvious factor, the measure of the gravitational pull on an object, any fourth grader can tell you that. Because the plane stays on Earth during flight (excluding space ships, of course. “I’ll have to wait until I’m 16 to fly those,” I thought.) weight is a constant. It never fluctuates, though its Gs can of course. If you fly in an arc theWeightne point you will reach 0 Gs you will simulate zero gravity for a short period of time. NASA has a plane to train astronauts by taking them into a zero G environment for up to 40 seconds. NASA calls it the “Weightless Wonder” (cough*, cough* the Vomit Comet). Weight can be easily calculated using the basic equation w= mg, or Weight = Mass multiplied by the acceleration of gravity as a result of the pull between the Earth and the plane.
Lift is what keeps the plane up, and I find it more frustrating to explain. The Alaskan pilot Dan taught me that as you pull up, air particles are forced downward pushing the plane upward. This is in accordance with Newton’s third law that everything has “an equal [or proportionate] and opposite reaction”. I read another explanation years later, one a bit more confusing, but equally logical. The Bernoulli principle or effect as its called says that the shape of the wing splits the air into two parts. The air above the wing has less pressure than the air below it. Thus, the plane is pushed up not by air particles, but by a pressure difference. To this day there is still much debate over which explanation is correct.
Drag is the force that slows the plane down. Drag is also a fancy name for “air resistance” which a seventh grader can tell you about easily. The air in front of the plane resists the plane’s forward movement. Imagine running through a pit of floating bowling balls, the heavy spheres would get in your way, and you would have to push through them to continue. Though this metaphor is exaggerated quite a bit, the plane would feel similar resistance, just not on the same scale.
Finally we’re left with thrust, what moves the plane forward. Newton’s Second and Third Law are at work here. Propellers can pull the plane forward (or push if they’re on the back of the wings) by taking in air and pushing it backwards (once again, reverse the two for planes with propellers on the back).
In the title I promised to put a little something about the future of flight. In later posts, papers, and articles I will dive into depth of aerodynamics and how that will affect flight. By making plane airfoils and bodies more aerodynamic we can maximize efficiency in terms of speed and fuel consumption. I would like to see what future planes will look like. Unfortunately, I have to wait.

All data was checked for accuracy at:
http://web.mit.edu/16.00/www/aec/flight.html
and
http://www.livescience.com/technology/060828_how_planes_fly.html

Dissecting the Mini Solar Show

One of the most useful items I have ever gotten as a gift is my new digital microscope. I can take pictures and video, I can zoom in hundreds of times farther than the human eye, it has eight super-bright LEDs to illuminate the object being viewed.

Call me paranoid, but I'm always afraid that the LEDs will burn out, a thought I can't bear. Of course, I still turn them on when I'm showing off my microscope to friends, but when I'm doing my own work, I tend to turn on other lights to save the LEDs. One of my more powerful lights is attached to a mini solar show. When light hits the solar panel a motor turns a bunch of little airplanes. I decided to put it to use.



I took off the bottom cover with a common screwdriver to find its insides. Simpler than I imagined, the wires were neatly connected with plastic covers. Very convenient, its like I was expected to dissect it.



Making sure it was unplugged, I unscrewed the panel that covered the motor.



Under it sat the unsuspecting motor, ready to be taken apart.





I took off all the little metal prongs, which was actually tedious work because of how they were fastened.



I unscrewed the bulb so it wouldn't get damaged, and decided how to cleanly separate it from the rest of the body.



I whipped out my dremel tool, and put on some goggles and a simple respirator for protection. The cutting took no more than a couple seconds and I used a metal gripping tool to hold it so my fingers would be in no danger.



I cut through the short plastic tube I was left with. I now had a bulb that I could easily use with my microscope freely!



In addition, I now have a solar panel and a motor to use. This project was well worth it.







Coming soon: The Science, Mathematics, and Future of Flight: Exploring Flight Theory.