Monday, April 27, 2009
Wednesday April 22, 2009
Today was a relatively relaxed day in class. Since we haven't had a robot day, or even a robot half day, in a long while we dedicated the entire day to building robots. We didn't get to augment our toys with weapons yet but we did add some motors to the circuit. A mobile sentry is better than a fixed one right? We began by breaking up into individual tasks. The first task was to solder wires to the motor. The second task was reminiscent of our lego years in that one person must build the drivetrain. The final task was to attach the relay and transistor circuitry to the protoboard so the motors can be controlled in on/off (transistor) and forward/reverse (relay). Once all three tasks were completed they were to be joined together and tested for error. Not many groups got this far so it will be completed on monday after the test. The homework consisted of a practice test of problems from last years test, homework problems and freshly made problems. It was a relatively easy day to make up for the brutal one we shall have on monday. Good luck to everyone!
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
More magnets and electricity! Hey at least nothing was melted...
Hello everyone. This is my first ever blog post - that's right, first ever! I've never thought that my first ever blog post will be about physics but hey, you can't predict everything, right? I apoligize if the writing is bad/boring because afterall, I have never done a blog post until now!
So here it goes!
We started off first by getting the news that our last homework involved with chapter 28 instead of 27 only. Wait a minute, I thought that homework was on chapter 27 only. I guess that's why I did terrible on a couple questions (or maybe it was just me not realize that? Jeez...).
We then did experiements about Faraday's Law which involving wire loops and magnetic field. We found out that the more loops there are in the coil, the stronger the magnetic field of the coil is. Based on the results, we found out that the magnetic field of the coil is proportional to the current flowing through the wire and the number of loops there are in the coil.
We then learned about electromotive force, or emf. emf is from the potential difference generated magnetically. It's effected by the area, the number of loops, and rate which magnetic field changes (velocity) of the coil.
One thing that caught my interest at the end of the class was that Mason and Peter tried to demostrated something that reminded me about a phenomenon called Maglev, or magnetic levitation. This tech is used quite frequently in Japan's train system. Now, I don't know the exact detail of the system or the relationship between those two, so maybe professor Mason can explain a little bit about this? I know it's offtopic but I still find it rather interesting.
That's all folks! I hope you are still awake at this point after reading through all that! Celebration (?) is next monday so hopefully everyone is getting ready for it!
PS. Nerf offshore flow please. 100 degree weather in April is ridiculous 囧rz.
So here it goes!
We started off first by getting the news that our last homework involved with chapter 28 instead of 27 only. Wait a minute, I thought that homework was on chapter 27 only. I guess that's why I did terrible on a couple questions (or maybe it was just me not realize that? Jeez...).
We then did experiements about Faraday's Law which involving wire loops and magnetic field. We found out that the more loops there are in the coil, the stronger the magnetic field of the coil is. Based on the results, we found out that the magnetic field of the coil is proportional to the current flowing through the wire and the number of loops there are in the coil.
We then learned about electromotive force, or emf. emf is from the potential difference generated magnetically. It's effected by the area, the number of loops, and rate which magnetic field changes (velocity) of the coil.
One thing that caught my interest at the end of the class was that Mason and Peter tried to demostrated something that reminded me about a phenomenon called Maglev, or magnetic levitation. This tech is used quite frequently in Japan's train system. Now, I don't know the exact detail of the system or the relationship between those two, so maybe professor Mason can explain a little bit about this? I know it's offtopic but I still find it rather interesting.
That's all folks! I hope you are still awake at this point after reading through all that! Celebration (?) is next monday so hopefully everyone is getting ready for it!
PS. Nerf offshore flow please. 100 degree weather in April is ridiculous 囧rz.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Wednesday April 8th, 2009
Class is cancelled yet again. Sign in sheet is on the southernmost door. Early weekend!!!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Working with Transistor
In today’s lecture, we learned the new device named transistor which is act like an ON/OFF switch. The transistor can be made of either “N-P-N” or “P-N-P” form. It has three legs, a gate (connected to ground), a collector (high potential), and an emitter (low potential). When a small current flow into the gate as key opens the door, main current can get through from the collector to emitter, increasing as linear function. However, the main current will maintain same value if the gate current reaches some certain value. After learned the properties of transistor, we designed a circuit controlled by it. A LED and a fan were turned on/off in some time intervals determined by program. The advantage of using the transistor is: we can design a circuit with two power supplies, one for “brain” (run by a small battery) and one for body (mechanical part, run by large battery), to avoid wasting power.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
4/1 homework
anyone else notice that todays homework is due tonight at midnight? is this a type-O or do i need to stress myself out and do it tonight?
any thoughts?
any thoughts?
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