Daniel Miranian
Journal 3-4
3/9/08
I. I found out that wire gauge is a way to measure the diameter of a wire. The smaller the gauge number is, the larger the diameter of the wire. For example the smallest number for a gauge is no. 0000, which is a wire that is .46 inches in diameter. On the other hand the largest number for a gauge is no. 36 which corresponds to a wire that is .0005 inches in diameter. The system for labeling the wire diameters is called the American wire gauge (AWG).
II. This past week in class we started by looking at the amount of energy our homes consumed. We did a cool survey online in class that estimated the amount of energy you spend on heating and cooling your home each year. It also gave a break down on how much energy different appliances use. I found out that my home uses a lot less energy than similar homes. One reason for this is we keep the thermostat very low in the winter time and very high in the summer. To cool our home in the summer, we typically put box fans in the windows to circulate air flow at night when it is cooler. This way we do not always have to the A.C. on. We also had more time to work on our Rube Goldberg projects.
III. For next week I would like to find out how much energy we use to heat our water each year.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Rude Goldberg
Daniel Miranian
Journal 3-3
2/2/08
I. I found out that that normal incandescent light bulbs only have an overall luminous efficiency of about 0.7%-5.1%. On the other compact fluorescent bulbs have an overall luminous efficiency of about 6.6%-15.2%. Finally, LEDs (light emitting diodes) have an overall luminous efficiency of approximately 13%-22%. I found out that a LED uses a semiconductor that gives off incoherent narrow spectrum light. LEDs usually have a small light source area that has extra optics added to the chip that shapes its radiation pattern. Finally, you can achieve different colors of light depending on the type of semiconductor used. You can even produce ultraviolet and infrared light with LEDs.
II. This past week in class we started planning for our Rude Goldberg lab. My group came up with some very interesting steps. It will be tricky to get some of the steps to actually work. However, I am excited to see our final presentation. We also worked on a lot of worksheets that were on energy. On Friday we took a quiz on the energy diagrams we have been learning about and Hook’s law. I thought this was a fairly easy quiz. Finally we watched some Japanese videos that had some very elaborate but bizarre Rude Goldberg machines. I thought it was interesting that they built machines like that just for a television show. However, it was very cool to watch and it gave our group some ideas for our machine.
III. For next week in class I would like to find out more about how wire gauge is determined and measured.
Journal 3-3
2/2/08
I. I found out that that normal incandescent light bulbs only have an overall luminous efficiency of about 0.7%-5.1%. On the other compact fluorescent bulbs have an overall luminous efficiency of about 6.6%-15.2%. Finally, LEDs (light emitting diodes) have an overall luminous efficiency of approximately 13%-22%. I found out that a LED uses a semiconductor that gives off incoherent narrow spectrum light. LEDs usually have a small light source area that has extra optics added to the chip that shapes its radiation pattern. Finally, you can achieve different colors of light depending on the type of semiconductor used. You can even produce ultraviolet and infrared light with LEDs.
II. This past week in class we started planning for our Rude Goldberg lab. My group came up with some very interesting steps. It will be tricky to get some of the steps to actually work. However, I am excited to see our final presentation. We also worked on a lot of worksheets that were on energy. On Friday we took a quiz on the energy diagrams we have been learning about and Hook’s law. I thought this was a fairly easy quiz. Finally we watched some Japanese videos that had some very elaborate but bizarre Rude Goldberg machines. I thought it was interesting that they built machines like that just for a television show. However, it was very cool to watch and it gave our group some ideas for our machine.
III. For next week in class I would like to find out more about how wire gauge is determined and measured.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)