Kapton v0.5

Have you ever wondered why a lot of space probes look like someone plated them with gold?

No, it's not because NASA's rich (I wish)--nay, that's not even gold! That yellow reflective material is called Kapton, and NASA uses it to insulate its probes.

Kapton was developed by DuPont for use in the Apollo missions back in the sixties. It's a shiny sheet of synthetic plastic that can reflect heat really well without releasing gases*--all while enduring temperature swings of 673 K. As such, NASA applies the film to the outside of space probes, telescopes, and structures to protect them from the extremely harsh and radiating vacuum of space.

After freezing my balls off for the last few weeks, I decided to make my own Kapton to insulate my bedroom window.

I wanted to keep heat in while absorbing the little I received from the sun in the mornings. Ergo, I decided to make a two layer plastic film that would reflect my room's heat in and absorb the sun's heat from the outside while the air layer between the two sides provided the actual insulation.

To that end, I duct taped white trash paper to black trash paper and created my what I like to call, Kapton "Tiles."

I began by taping one tile to the corner of my window's room. Then I created and added more tiles until they covered the entire window.

My thought as I realized 1 tile wasn't going to cut it

Until finally...

But the next day I took it all down. The AC vent behind the light blasted air into my "kapton insulation" and the constantly wrinkling plastic made too much noise. However, more than insulating the temperature, my kapton insulated light the best. I doubt one photon in the visible light spectrum leaked through the plastic to hit my eyes--my room was pitch black.

*Fun Fact: Outgassing, or the releasing of trapped gas molecules, is what gives cars that "new car smell." As a recently assembled car sits in a car lot for weeks on end, gas molecules that had attached to various parts of the car during assembly begin to escape into the air--hence the smell. While this may not seem like a problem on earth, it's a very big problem in space, where terrestrial gases can contaminate tests or harm astronauts who live in a closed environment.

A Productive Break...

Hello everybody! 

I am very happy to say that my winter break has begun! I definitely need it. However, I plan on completing some tasks I've been putting off for quite a while. They include:

• Insulating the window in my bedroom. We live in a very old house; as such, our house has poor insulation--especially the windows. I want to insulate them with garbage bags!
• Researching how to organize a TEDx. I love listening to stories, and TEDTalks are pretty much nerdgasmic stories of being human, Maybe I can organize one at Cy Creek...
• Acquiring parts for a new and improved Arc Reactor (I want to wear this on the outside of my shirt).

I plan on blogging about my adventures starting tomorrow, so see you then!

Happy Birthday Frank Sinatra!

Yes, we all know today is 12/12/12--we can read calendars, but apparently some people cannot. Excuse me while I rant, but I am just tired of the whole "oh today's a big astrological planetary alignment day that leads up to the Mayan end of days where we all eat cream pie."

No. Just no.

There's nothing to stop me from proclaiming tomorrow as 1/1/1 of the Faridian Calendar, or yesterday as 25/25/25 of the Faridian the Elder Calendar--it's just a matter of finagling the starting day of my calendar. If I started my calendar yesterday, then today would have been 1/1/1. If I started it my calendar on Friday October 18, 1985, then today would have been 25/25/25. Nothing magical about it!

Second, WHO CARES IF THE NUMBERS ALL LINE UP!?!?!?!?
Today was also the anniversary of Guglielmo Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio signal, but nooooo. Nobody celebrates that achievement (or the fact that Marconi achieved that test with 17 of Nikola Tesla's patents). Instead, everybody is all excited about a bunch of twelves. 

Whoop-di-fudging-do.

And as the title states, today is Frank Sinatra's birthday, so may I suggest winding down your day with this?

/endrant.

Arc Reactor: Part II

I've said this before, and, unfortunately, I must say it again: I'm really bad at keeping up with this blog.

I'm not going to promise anything my two dear readers, but I shall do my best to  will regularly update this blog now that I've written the majority of my college applications. Now, onward to Part II!

Project STARK: EYES ONLY

Fortunately, I never got a chance to talk to my Physics teacher about the circuitry, so I had to sit down and think about it for myself. Initially, I could not even figure out whether we designed the reactor in series or parallel (more on that later), but then I remembered lighting up the reactor while some lights didn't work. That immediately eliminated a series connection.

I then wanted to make a schematic of the reactor, aka an circuit diagram, but the parallel-ness of the circuit confused me, so I just drew a version of the reactor in paint--and everything hit me!

*The remaining electrons get recharged 

I then felt comfortably enough to move onto a professional circuit diagram, so I did!

Now isn't that neater? Now for a quick explanation.

Electricity is the flow of electrons. We use electricity to power things by utilizing the charge, or electromagnetic energy, each of those electrons carry. In a circuit, electrons flow from the positive terminal of a voltage source (usually a battery) to the negative terminal. Along the way, resistors, which are things that use electricity, take the electrons energy and do work--like an LED using the electron's energy to light up. Inside the voltage source, the depleted electrons literally get recharged with energy for another trip around the circuit until the battery itself runs out of energy.

Series Circuit: note the decreasing voltage and constant current

Now there are two ways of designing a circuit, series or parallel. In a series circuit, all the resistors, batteries, and switches are lined up one after another in series. This design allows for a constant flow of electrons, or current, throughout the circuit. In exchange, the resistors on the circuit have to work with less and less electromagnetic energy since the previous resistor used up some voltage. Unfortunately, a series configuration's simplicity is also its weakness, for a failure in one device results in an incomplete circuit--bringing the entire circuit down.

Parallel Circuit

A parallel circuit is the opposite. In a parallel configuration, like my Arc Reactor, electricity flows with an equal voltage to all resistors since they're parallel. However, splitting up the current to each of those resistors naturally weakens the current, so each resistor has to work with less electrons flowing through it at any given time. Furthermore, because each parallel path completes the circuit, a failure in one device won't bring down the entire circuit (hence, our use of the parallel design). However, this design also consumes more power, since the resistors on the circuit are drawing voltage from the source all at the same time.

So there you have it. I don't know the electrical specifications of the LEDs I used, else I would have added some math to this, but I hope y'all like it!

It's Thermodynamics and it's annoying me!

15 minutes ago, I was sitting behind my desk trying to write a research paper on Hamlet when I realized my feet felt really cold, so I went to my room and got a pair of socks.

Ahhh, relief.

5 minutes later, I sense my feet are sweating. Okay, I can deal with that, so I take off my socks.

Ahhh, relief.

5 minutes later, I feel my feet are once again icy cold. Well, shoot. C'mon feet, make up your mind! I put my socks on once more, but this time, I use science!

I realized that my feet sweated with my socks on because they were simply too hot, but sweating wasn't cooling them very well because my socks are so thick. However once I too off my socks, the sweating really kicked in and transferred thermal energy from my feet into the air--thereby cooling my feet to an uncomfortable temperature. Ergo, I dried allowed my feet to air dry in the living room (one of the few places our home's heater works) before putting my socks on once more.

Alas, now everything is just right.

PS: My Arc reactor part II is coming up, I promise! My physics and I teacher were busy for the last two weeks, so we couldn't coordinate a time for circuitry analysis. I should get the post published by Friday.

Arc Reactor: Part 1

I have come to deliver this unto mine people, that the Arc Reactor is complete!

Required supplies:
2 LED flashlights (these are really cheap at the dollar store)
A circuit board ($4 at RadioShack, though you can definitely get them cheaper at a dedicated electronics store)
Soldering iron, solder, and flux (I got a mixed solder/flux)
Wires
Time
Expert solderer (my physics teacher)

Instructions:
1. Remove LEDs from flashlights by unscrewing the circle circuit board out of lamps, and using a soldering iron to melt away the solder on the LEDs. If you hold the board upside down, then the LEDs just fall off.

2. Solder the LEDs onto the new circuit board. If I remember correctly, we wired them parallel. I will write about the wiring and circuit in part 2.

3. Use the (cannibalized) flashlight's battery pack to test connections

4. Wrap on a circular piece of plastic with some of the leftover wire. I painted a pin holder black to use as the center piece of the reactor.

5. Wear the Reactor proudly!

Note: I cannot give assistance on how to wear the reactor. My recommendation is to acquire some strips of velcro and use those. I, through trial and error, wound up using my teacher's alligator pin wires as overalls to hang the reactor on my neck. We pinned one wire to each side of the reactor then we taped the other end of the wires together--voila! Velco is probably much easier...

21st Century Polymathy? 21 Polymathy...Now, that's a name I haven't heard in a long time...A long time.

My two readers,

I'm sorry. I haven't touched this blog in almost a month--a month! Google Analytics tells me y'all have been periodically checking this blog over the last 3 weeks, but I've let you down each time. School has really taken its toll on my free time, and some personal issues have really hampered my efforts to keep up with my blog. However, I am happy to announce that I am commencing operations on Project Stark. 

Project Stark: EYES ONLY

Every year, during the week before my high school's Homecoming Dance, my school tries to rally everyone with school spirit by encouraging students to wear different spirit clothes on different days*. For example, this Thursday, the school says students should dress up as "nerds." This is what the student body usually dresses up as:

Since when did all nerds follow Steve Urkel's fashion wisdom?!?!?

No. Just no. I'm tired of this!

A real nerd doesn't look like some 1950s anachronism; nay, a real nerd looks like this:

Tell me that mustache isn't sexy

A real nerd is often a sexy beast who has rather fine taste--like NDT.

Ergo, I'm tired of seeing my classmates bring down an otherwise stellarly-fashionable group of people. That is why I plan on building a light-up Arc Reactor, attaching it to my chest, and dressing up as Tony Stark for nerd day. Most importantly, I'll blog my progress right here! Wish me luck.