Field trip to PAN Star research center

In the last class period we visited the astrology center near our school and it was incredibly interesting. I enjoyed looking at all the lenses that they were building and hope to get an internship there looking for meteorites in the night sky. When we began our field trip I thought that it was going to be about stars constellations and just a long talk and a power point presentation about the night sky however it became a lot more interesting. We were allowed to visit the labs and see how they were built which was interesting.

 

One of the three things that I took away from the field trip is the true dangers and the possible damage of a meteorite strike on the earth. I didn't know that most of the damage caused by a meteorite that has crashed on earth is actually caused by the shock wave that occurs after the meteorite hit the earth.

 

The second take away that I received from the field trip is that at a work shop everything for the high powered telescope is created by hand and it is individualized. I saw the mechanic at the work shop working on a modified L-bracket and it was a very tiny piece.

 

Another take away that I received from the last field trip was that nasa uses about a million dollars on an individual camera. The camera had gold in the lenses which makes it cost so much. I had no idea that it costs so much money to send up a camera into outer space.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

TED talks

In the last few classes for STEM we have been working on watching TED talks and I have really enjoyed the very informational Ted talks rather than the emotional ones. The TED talks that we watched was called batteries from dirt, plastic to paper, how do solar cells work, and James Hanson on climate change. I liked all of them however James Hansons TED talk was a little bit boring in my opinion because it was constant talking and it was a big information dump. Unlike the talk about solar cells which was short concise and to the point.

 

My favorite and most impactful TED talk was the one that talked about solar cells. Even though this was a very short video it got me intrigued in this topic. I began to think and wonder if we were to convert all of our energy into solar cells that could be a good solution to the issue of climate change. Even thought this topic intrigued me I couldn't help but wonder how much it would cost to make this world powered by solar energy. In a single solar panel there are many scientific principles and I really enjoyed watching this video. This video impacted me the most because now I believe that the solution to climate change will be solar power.

 

I was impacted by the solar cells talk because it gave me hope that there is a solution that is possible and that we have the ability now to solve this problem. I am now wondering why we aren't already trying to solve this problem now.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Climate Change

Recently in class we have been working on climate change and we saw a movie that was created by the ciera club about climate change and how drilling for oil is affecting community's and people who live in those areas. I was inspired by the residents who are living in the area where they have been drilling for oil and what they have to do in order to get attention. I don't think that it's fair that the oil companies are allowed to take away people's livelihood After watching the video I began to think and thought that the movie did a good job at going after people's emotions however I would have of liked it more if they talked a little bit more about the science of climate change and possible solutions for oil companies.

Two things that I learned about climate change is that they are freely taking others land and using it for oil. The second thing I learned was how India fought agents oil and won.

PIP

My first idea for a personal interest project is to build a skateboard with a chargeable solar powered mortar. I would really like to do this project and you can incorporate a lot of math with the speed and battery storage. Setting up the solar panel also takes engineering.

My second idea for the personal interest project would be creating a test to see what types of energy so are able to create electricity better by comparing solar energy and wind energy.

My third idea for a personal interest project would be trying to create a way to create an iPad solar power charger.

 

Posted with Blogsy