LAST POST

We are definitely on the final stretch of this course. Summer is around the corner. The classes are ending...what a pity! As my last post, I'm going to talk about electricity, the topic we have been working on the last weeks on technology classes.

Before going deeper on the topic, I think it is necessary to clarify what electricity is. Basically, it is the flow of electrons. Yes, electrons. The smaller part of an atom that are distributed in orbits, separated from the nucleus. 

We can get electrical energy from many different processes. We can classify them into renewable and non-renweable. We all know which the non-renewable are, mostly petrol derivates, so let's focus on the RENEWABLE.

-SOLAR ENERGY: Consists of taking profit of the energy that the sun creates by using solar panels (like the ones in the image below). They take the sunlight and transforms it into electricity, among others types of energy. It is one of the most famous ways and everyday is more used. Nowadays, there are big expansions of land covered with this type of machines that serve entire towns. 

-WIND ENERGY: The air moves the turbines of a windmill. From this movement we obtain electrical energy thanks to a convertidor located on the inside. As solar panels, some countries have implanted the, in their daily life.

-GEOTHERMAL ENERGY: Uses the heat released from the earth's crust to produce electricity.

-TIDAL ENERGY: Similar to the wind energy but using the force of the waves instead of the air.

-HYDRAULIC ENERGY: Uses the energy of free-falling water like waterfalls.

-BIOMASS ENERGY: Comes from organic matter that can be used as combustible.

Recently, some innovation have appeared in order to produce or save energy. Some examples are windows generate 50 times more energy than solar panels? The answer is yes! This concept hinges on liquid coatings for glass and plastic with tiny solar cells within which group together as arrays. The organic layer is applied from the inside, to protect it from the weather. Also, there is something called fuel cells technologies, related with the transport. It uses gases as oxygen and hidrogen to move vehicles.

At home, we can save energy in a lot of ways. First, by buying electrodomestics A++. They are a little bit more expensive than the other ones, but they will save money. Also, we can buy bulbs of low consume. In relation with tips, when you are washing your teeth, don't keep the water on, close it. Try to don not take baths, instead, take a shower.

This term, we did a solar oven in the workshop. Mine is very simple, but functional. It consists of a black pizza box with aluminium foil on its insides. It has some kind of window on top in order to let the light pass through. It captures very well the heat, and it works. I have to puntualize that this has been the first time i have finished at time. Very proud!!!

Now, at last but not least, i want to talk about the subject. It is not a secret that technology is not my favourite subject at all, but i consider that we work it form the point of view that i would like the most. My favourite part has been the pat of the exercices (more mathematic part), and the worst thing for me has been the skratch. I'm not in the programing way definetively. The workshop is quite funny, and it is not as hard as work on the computer. Next year i would not continue doing technology, but from this two years of knowledge i have gotten positive things that i will not forget!!!

Now it's time to relax, even more. Goodbye, see you next year!

links of the images:
https://grist.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/shutterstock_113950426.jpg?w=330&h=219

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54d04425e4b0424c03ac0a17/t/54d04a13e4b0ec35c200e109/1423035203408/windmil-wallpaper-animated.jpg?format=1500w

https://islayenergytrust.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/hs-array.jpg

https://student-energy.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/637/Hydro.jpg

sources:

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/blog/five-green-innovations-we-are-excited-about

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy

TRY ENGINEERING

Hello once again! After this week of relax, now it's time to work again, so, I'm back with a new entry. I hope you like it!
In order to increase our knowledge about technology and its uses, a few weeks ago, two future engineers from the university came to our high school to introduce us in their worlds.

During the two hours we shared, we had to do a project with specific material, in a specific time and achieving an specific objective too; we had to build up a windmill which uses the rotational movement for lifting a tea bag. These are some examples and how it worked, as you can see we are authentic engineers!!! (At the end there is a video, which is located there because of aesthetic reasons):

BUT, what does it mean to be an engineer?
I was thinking of writing down a definition from a dictionary, but i'll simplify it. From my point of view, an engineer could be described as a creator. Someone who creates something using technology in order to solve problems or improve our quality of life.                                                                                                
During the project, we had to work in groups. I prefer to work alone, always, but as my group was composed by friends, it didn't matter at all. The experience has been very positive. Apart from achieving our goal, we spend a great time and we worked surprisingly well. Everyone participated and and provide their own ideas and different doubts. The final object was an improved mix from all the ideas we gave, and I'm very proud! Obviously, we had some insignificant problems as for example the fact that the air of the hairdryer wasn't hard enough to make the blades turn. But by modifying the direction of the plastic spoons, the problem was solved. And that was all.

We can consider we worked as engineers, keeping in mind that we developed an structure that adhere to the standards: we used the material that was provided (all recycled material) and we finished before the timeline was over, but the most important fact is that we detected the problem and solved it. I felt relaxed because we were very fast and i knew that we would had time to improve our final version. I have to add that this challenge wasn't very difficult, otherwise the result would have been worst. I'm definitely not working as an engineer in the future, considering that for building something first you have to do a written project that determines how you have to work without giving you any margin in case you want to change something. I like those projects that give you more freedom to do whatever you want.

Personally, I really enjoyed this experience! It was quite funny and a good option to replace some classes. We learnt a lot of things and I hope it is not the last time we do things like this!!


The video:

RESOURCES:

http://www.uib.cat/

http://www.iesarta.cat/component/content/article/2-uncategorised/2-recull-fotografic

CLEAN UP PLASTICS FROM THE OCEAN

I'm back! After a few weeks of total disconnection, now is time to return to work.
Before Christmas holidays, in technology classes we saw a video about a boy with an idea to rid clean up our oceans of plastic, which curiously is the new unit.

Unless you have been living in a cave for almost your entire life, you probably know the plastics' constant polemical. In short, they are an endless nightmare for those animals that habit the sea. It is sufficient knowing that scientists calculate that approximately 150 tons of plastic are invading our seas and oceans, representing the 70% of their actual pollution.

BUT, WHY IS THIS PROBLEM SO ALARMING?

Moreover, plastics are not biodegradable. In easy words, they do not disappear by themselves in a relatively short period of time, as for example, oranges do. Their degradation can last hundreds of years!! For example, those plastic rings of a 6 pack of drinks' cans take 450 years.

In addition, some animals confuse them with food and eat them. This can cause very dangerous problems, and in the majority of cases, death. There are a lot of images very hard to see.

But it seems that someone has the solution: Boyan Slat. Maybe his name isn't familiar to you, but he is like a modern superhero. He is going to save thousands of animals and, perhaps, the humanity. Do you want to know him?

We can define Boyan Slat as an inventor of the XXI century. He is a dutch 22 year old young man with a revolutionary mind. He was only a teenager when the first ideas came to him, while he was swimming underwater looking for fish in Grece. But he realised that there were more plastic stuff than anything else. This was an inflection point in his life, and he decided to change this situation by creating this:

WHAT IS THIS?

This is the result of his idea. He thought that it might be possible that the oceans' water could clean up themselves (with a bit of help). How? By installing giant floating barrers and wait for the tides to drag the rubish. Once the rubbish is all concentrated, they move towards a plataform located in a strategic place that collects them. It is expected that in 10 years, this sistem will collect the half of the plastics in the pacific ocean, which will be reused.

Obviously, this doesn't cause any tipe of damage to the aquatic animals! 

(In the official web page, linked below, there is a more complete and technical description)

Explained in this way sounds very easy, but it isn't. He has been perfectionating the project for a couple of years, together with a group of 100 scientists and engineers that nowadays work in the same project.

He first designed a (compared to the other) small device for examining the quality of plastics, and used it in the Mediterranean Sea. Then, he recreate the sea at a swimming pool and check if his project was progressing. Finally, before carrying out definitively his invention, he wanted to test it in the North Sea.

The cost of erasing the human traces is about 300 million dolars, almost 33 times less than others sugestions. At the beggining, when this project was just an idea, he raised the money by publishing his plans throughout a web page. People bet on him and they contribute economically. Definetively, is a very good option for those potential inventors.

I had never heard of Boyan until the day we saw the video in class. Personally, I think he is an admirable person! With only 22 years, he has founded the Oceans' Clean Up and won a lot of awards because of his task. I have to say that at the beginning I was not very enthusiast about this topic; it looked very boring. But, as I was investigating, I realised that it was more interesting than I though, and I have really enjoyed doing this entry. He can be an inspiration for a lot of people, proving that sometimes the most hare-brained ideas are the best ones! Who was going to tell that a giant barrer was the solution to the humans' neglect?

Personally, a good idea is to directly do not throw the rubbish at the sea. But considering that the world's whole population is not going to do that, another solution can be to create a kind of extra-strong magnet that attracts plastics. How? I don't really know, I guess by modificating the structure of the molecules of the elements that form a magnet. And the rest is the same, the magnet will take all the objects collected to a platform and after this, they will be reused. Or another option will be to create another material by combining different substances previously modificated in a lab according to the necessities, that substitutes the use of plastic. Obviously, it has to be biodegradable and easy to digest in the case an animal eats it, as well as it has to be able to adapt to a determinate shape. In this way, no more turtles (and more animals, but mostly turtles) will drown.

Thank you for reading!

RESOURCES USED:

http://elblogverde.com/que-es-biodegradable/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/02/01/can-the-largest-cleanup-in-history-save-the-ocean/?utm_term=.b6bb7d0424bf

https://youtu.be/hmPHBhYaCR4?list=LLSLIyDr50WeSZWmVlSFxr9Q

https://www.theoceancleanup.com/

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-ocean-clean-up-kid?utm_source=motherboardyoutube