Saturday, May 31, 2008

Borax as a Fire-Retardant

Today i work on making paper fire proof. Reason being i need to make tubes to hold motor grains inside a the motor case. At the same time the tubes need to act as a insulator to protect the motor casing from over heating causing deformation.

The idea to used Borax, spun of Dog Barf, aka cellulose insulation. In rocket cellulose insulation is used as wadding to prevent the ejection charge from melting the parachute. Dog Barf is shredded paper and cellulose fibers coated in flame retardant material, boric acid.

From my understanding Borax is salt from boric acid, and has very much the same properties. I was surprised to find that Borax is not completely dissolvable into water. Since borax is used in laundry detergents/soaps i would think it dissolve easily. I brushed on and soaked the heavy weight paper in the water and borax slurry. I hung them to dry.

My first test showed improvement. But my second test did not show a significant improvement. More testing need to be done. One reason why my first test seemed to work, is because it might of been still wet. In my next test i will be working on away to increase the dissolvability, by either increasing the temperature of the solvent(H2O) or switch to a light acid.

Advertize on Google, Advierize on MSN Live

here is an old funny story i dugg up. I had this link saved as a draft for some time. It still amuses me even being 6 months old. So I'm going to share it.

http://blogs.msdn.com/webmaster/archive/2007/12/20/listing-google-ads-in-live-search-d-oh.aspx

Google Maps/Earth

Thursday, May 29, 2008

The disgrace in the Math system

Summer has started! And i have a laundry list of chores, task and projects that need to be completed. Don't forget school. Yea school, in the summer fun-- fun. But seriously I like school and learning. I don't know what i would do with out it. School gives my life some structure, and that is one reason why I think grade school should be year round, but that is another story. This week i have been very upset with my math class I'm taking. First i feel that I'm good at math. Math is one subject that seems to separate students. I don't know why this subject sticks out in the school system, but starting in 5th grade i have always placed in an accelerated or advanced math classes. This is fine by me, i like the learning and the challenge of problem solving. The problem spawned in my senior year, when i could not fit in A.P. Calculus in my schedule without losing my Java and Physics class, so i did not take a math my senior year. That was a huge mistake

Now i go to a school that has an open door policy, meaning they don't look at your transcripts, and any once is accepted that can afford it. My first semester i took statistics because it was assigned to me by an adverser who i never saw. That was my second mistake, not having a clear plan of what classes i need to take. I got smart and realized what program i should work to and what classes are needed. Math is critical in the program i picked, going all the way to calculus three. But i had to start on some what the bottom with College Algebra. For the most part i learned most of same material in high school algebra two, but it was a nice review, and i did pick up some new techniques.

Since i have a lot more math ahead of me, i took a summer class to catch up. Pre-calculus is next. Once again i took honors pre-calculus my junior year in high school. Being a summer class i though this would be accelerated, and will provide some challenge but i was dead wrong. The class uses the same book i had to use for college algebra, and looking at the syllabus we go over the same materiel besides two chapters. The class is suppose to be two hours long, but we spend 30 minutes do homework, and we have been leaving a half an hour early. So that is almost half of the class missing. Last week, the teacher almost through me off the edge when the class was let out 45 minutes early even though their were more sections to cover.


This upsets me greatly because this class was not cheap and I'm not getting the challenge i was hoping for. Worst yet the teacher is slow and not so smart. The class goes page by page, the teacher reads the text book for verbatim as if we we were preschool students at story time. What also up sets me, the class ends early every day. I understand if we cover all the material that needs to be covered for the day, but no. i feel that the teacher does not even know the material that well, since she is using all the examples in the book. She is not coming up with her own problem, and solve the problem step by step like how book has it.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Destination Vs. Journey

I feel as though I came about sentence that is worthy of becoming a quote today. "It is not the destination that matters but journey"I think it is original, but have not had the time to look it up yet. I don't think it is to hard to comprehend, but would like to indulge into it more, when i have more time tomorrow.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Experimental Rockets

Allot is being done in the lab. Ok it is more like the garage and  in cellar, but there has been some serious improvement in rocket design and technology. I'm talking about custom made rockets, with fiberglass and carbon fiber parts. Also had a successfully stack test with a experimental motor and nozzle. Although there was no gage to measure the thrust out put, I was quite happy with the performance. It was a short, put powerful burn causing the motor to sink half of an inch in already compacted sand.

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Saturday, May 24, 2008

Hand dryers != save the world

I was in restroom last week and notice bellow the button, there was plate promoting the use of electric hot air hand dryers. The main point is that it is better for the environment, then paper towels since there is no trash and it is saving trees. I totally disagree, paper is allot more environmentally friendly. My main point is that tress are renewable resources that can be farmed and grown. While the electricity that powered the hot air dryer most likely comes from a coal burning power plant. It is similar out look on using ethanol as fuel in cars. It not that it produces less toxins when burned, but growing corn and other sugar plant materials that can be easily converted to alcohol, is good for the environment, because they lower the C02 in the atmosphere as they grow. Just something to think about....

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Testing....

Seems like there might be a bug in my code. So I will be testing some things out.

hmm, embedded video screwed up the layout.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

A post a day keep the pay collectors at bay

Good news, summer is here and class are over for the most part. This gives me time to post yet again. So except a daily blog once again. With that said, I think I will be adding some adds on the page. I doubt this blog will make enough for me to retire on, but any extra income will be nice. With this decision, I also came up with a solution to thank those who read my blog daily. With the money that does come in from the adds I will share. Most likely by having a contest, or the one who responds to my posts the most. Also if I realize that the adds are not generating income, annoying, or advertising junk. I will then pull it and stop it.

I wanted to generate a nicer looking blog, so it would stand out and not appear so generic, But I cant come up with any thing. Suggestions will be nice.

I will leave you this video.