Today was a day of hard work and
determination. In class, the radio
telescope group had free time to work on presentations while the rest of the
class performed the speed of light experiment.
I took the time to work on my groups Hersey Park presentation on the
ride “Sooper Dooper Looper”. I attempted
to access our data graphs on a program called Data Studio via my laptop, but
the file refused to load. I then attempted
to open the file on one of the computers in the lab, but that ended with the same
result. I had no way to access our data,
so I had to borrow the official Data Studio disk in order to download the
software directly instead of the website.
However, when I loaded the disk I was unable to download the software,
which made things even more stressful.
While all of this is going on, other groups were busy working away on
their presentation while I was stuck trying to just open the file. I eventually I ended up working on the
PowerPoint trying to find useful information and facts online. By the time that it was time to go downstairs
to the lecture hall I had only completed three slides; I was not amused.
 |
| Don't drop the liquid nitrogen. |
After lunch, my group went back
to Dr. Aguirre’s lab to continue working on the radio telescope. Today we were attempted to calibrate the
radio dish so that it would display accurate temperatures of different
objects. The easiest way to test
variations in temperature is to go from something very cold to something very
warm or vice versa. To do this we tested
the radio on liquid nitrogen and a lit light bulb. The nitrogen was reading around 77 Kelvin
with the bulb reading at about 300 Kelvin.
With this accurate temperature reading we concluded that the calibration
was complete, so we decided to have a little fun with the liquid nitrogen.
Once all of the equipment was
assembled and calibrated, we moved the entire rig outside in an attempt to
measure the sun. It took a while to get
the rig outside since it had a 50lb mounting rig, two desktop computers, and
the radio dish all on one cart, but after a few almost disastrous impacts with
the cracks in the sidewalk, we finally made it outside. To our dismay, the entire calibration of the
radio dish became lost after rebooting the computers once we set everything
up. Then to make matters worse, the
clouds rolled in and foiled our attempts once and for all. We then rolled the rig back into the lab and
attempted to perform the same test using a lit light bulb as a simulated sun. Unfortunately, the calibration was still off
and we couldn't yield an accurate measurement.
We plan on returning tomorrow to fix the shenanigans once and for
all. I’m starting to become annoyed with
technology failing me when I need it most.
After class, My RC group of about
ten other guys from my floor went miniature golfing with our RC Juan. Unsurprisingly I won the tournament with the
low score of 40. I was pleasantly surprised at how good some of my fellow floor-mates
were at putting and I actually had to try in order to win. It was a lot of fun; much more fun than
before when there were about thirty or so people all playing at once.
In the evening my friend and
fellow group member in the Hersey Park group came to my room to work on the
presentation. I had given him the Data
Studio disk hoping that it would work on his computer, but our professors found
a way to open the data using alternative software. With our data finally available, we were
capable of making progress on the PowerPoint. Finally technology was working for me and not against me. After a few hours of interpreting graphs and formatting them, we finally
called it a night. While I work with Dr.
Aguirre tomorrow morning, it will be up to the rest of my group to finish the
presentation without me. Hopefully we
can have it done by Thursday when it is due.
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