Ten Thousand Hours

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Ben Washington

To All,

I hope you are all doing well and have had a Merry Christmas, or other holiday, and a Happy New Year. Recently, I have spent some time thinking about the difficulty of graduate school. Engineering graduate school is very hard. Then, I came across this article discussing how many students find the sciences exciting, but they change majors because, well, … its difficult.

NY Times article

This brings me to the piece of wisdom that is takes 10,000 hours of practice before you can get really good at something. Did you get that 10,000 hours! Continue reading →

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The Mars Science Lab

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Ben Washington

To all,

Before we begin, I am sorry for my extended absence, but here we are and we must continue. I don’t have work on the wind tunnel to report just yet, but I do have some discussion of interesting science. To begin, here is a quote from Robert Wilson speaking at a congressional committee defending the funding of a very expensive particle accelerator:

“It has only to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture. It has to do with: Are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things we really venerate in our country and are patriotic about. It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending.”

I believe this serves as an appropriate introduction to quite an expensive experiment. A little over a week ago, the Mars Science Laboratory launched for one of our neighboring planets…you guessed it, Mars. JPL provided a great animation (not actual video) of its travel, entry into the martian atmosphere, landing, and operation. I am so struck by the audacity of the mission! (Follow the Link)

Mars Rover animation

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Getting in the Wind Tunnel: Design

Posted on October 8, 2011 by Ben Washington

Dear Fellow Basement Scientists,

Ever wonder why textbooks are so long? Well, I figured it out! Its because there is a lot of information out there to learn and it takes quite a few pieces of paper to fit it all. Well, this blog post is a little longer, though not quite textbook length, because there is a lot of information required in applying that textbook knowledge to building our wind tunnel.

Its time for another day in the lab (basement). Lets review our situation: We built the tunnel, legs for the tunnel, and finished the bell mouth including the honeycomb. Before we go on to the fan and diffuser, we can’t forget the minor detail of accessing the inside of the wind tunnel once it’s built. We must have an opening so we can put our specimens into the wind tunnel. Otherwise we would have a very fancy and long fan. I was hoping for more than that.

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Time for an Interesting Photo: Tree consumes Fence

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Ben Washington

To all,

Its time to share another interesting photo. These interesting sights are often rare occurrences, because you must come across something interesting and have a camera with you. Also, you must be attentive enough of your surroundings to notice them. Well, I came across this sight, was very interested, and then returned with a camera.  Walking around the downtown of my city, I stumbled on a cluster of trees who had learned the art of sharing, and shared their same space with a fence. What great models of friendliness and amazing display of biology:

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Wind Tunnel Honeycomb

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Ben Washington

Dear Fellow Basement Scientists,

Here we are, placing the last finishing touches on the entrance to the wind tunnel. This is pretty exciting! We are discussing today what is known at the honeycomb. I very briefly mentioned this part of the project in Wind Tunnel Design Overview, but now we will discuss its purpose and construction.

So, if you remember, the purpose of the bell mouth entrance is to reduce all the whirly-twirly turbulence coming into the test section. Reducing this turbulence increases the accuracy and consistency of lift and drag measurements. Well, believe it or not, despite all our valiant efforts on the bell mouth, there is still turbulence in the flow. Bummer! Well, no worries because we can simply install a honeycomb to help us out (as a note, there is always some turbulence in this flow, we are just reducing it as much as possible). A honeycomb consists of lots of little tubes. These tubes kill turbulence because there can’t be big swirls in a little tube.  Here is a highly technical drawing laying out the details of this complicated phenomenon:

Honeycomb Detail

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Surface of the Bell Mouth

Posted on September 3, 2011 by Ben Washington

Dear Fellow Basement Scientists,

I am sorry, but of late I have been absent. This is due to what is commonly known as moving. It was a lot of work, but now we are back.

For those concerned, I did move the wind tunnel! It required care and thought of how to pack it, but it is here and in its new location.  With honesty in mind, I must admit that it is no longer in a basement. Hmm, what to do? Should I relocate to a living quarters with a basement? Should I stop investigating because I no longer have a basement to conduct it? No! I shall make do with what I have and continue in the spirit of basement science! Our name shall remain because the spirit endures. Just because our laboratory is now above ground does not change our goals or opportunities. Thanks be to God. Let’s begin again.

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Wind Tunnel Rib Cage

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Ben Washington

Dear Fellow Basement Scientists,

Wind Tunnel construction had taken a little break for our adventure into the world of interesting photos, but its time to meander back to our basements. Last time we planned the construction of the bell mouth so now we shall execute our plan. This part of the wind tunnel construction is a little more detailed oriented, which makes it more difficult, but the joy seeing it completed is even greater! There is unspeakable satisfaction when I behold on the table what I pictured in my mind.

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Follow up to an Interesting Photo: In Flight

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Ben Washington

To all,

Recently we discussed this interesting photo:

In the Shadow of a Plane

Thanks to all who commented on our previous post for the help in understanding what is generating the color rings, but I still wanted a little more understanding. I took the liberty to dig a little deeper, meaning reading beyond a wikipedia article, and I found that a NASA satellite imaged the same phenomenon: NASA photo. The NASA satellite photographed a glory just like this photo only the diameter was miles larger. I also found three other informative discussions: Here, here, and here(p145).  Thanks to all who commented on our previous post for the help in understanding what is generating the color rings, but I more understanding.

Lets try to nail this thing down.

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Time for an Interesting Photo: In-Flight

Posted on July 31, 2011 by Ben Washington

To all,

Here is an interesting photo I captured while in flight. I love looking out of the window during flights because you can see a lot of very interesting things, and this one I had not seen before. It it the shadow of the airplane on an adjacent cloud. This is neat in itself, but not very curious. The curious part is the ring of color bands like a rainbow surrounding the shadow. As a note to those concerned, my phone was on airplane mode, so no interference created here. You’ve got to obey those flight attendants!

In the Shadow of a Plane

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Enter the Bell Mouth

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Ben Washington

Dear Fellows of the Basement Science Research Consortium,

For those new to the field, it is an important lesson to learn that the longer and more complicated the organization name, the more prestigious and talented the group. Therefore, we are part of a very important research group!

Our next task is to build the bell mouth. An overview of this was explained here a little earlier. I was trying to think of a good way to construct this as I was wandering though Continue reading →

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