I finally uploaded a couple of pictures of Sparky here:
http://www.simreal.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=User:EdwinWise
Oooo, and in my online CS classes, the teacher said my work is among the best of any student who has taken this class so far. So that's good.
Only one more assignment!
Argh! This weekend was SLOW.
Working on the algorithms homework on Saturday took nine hours to start, then I had a sanity break to visit friends, and then two more hours after that to finish. Eleven hours! Didn't get to bed before 1am. It _killed_ that day, dead. Argh.
Sunday, seven hours in finances (moving my Quicken to the Mac, balancing, budgeting; then taxes)... which was NOT helped by having every online resource (E*Trade, Quicken's site) being bogged down by the tax season. Argh argh!
I'm dying for the school nonsense to be over. I'm lagging in CS445 (independent project) due to the slowness of CS330. In all fairness, though, the 330 class has been condensed into 3 assignments and a final, rather than the usual 4 or 5 assignments. And I got off light in HIS125 -- there was no final! Except, of course, for the 200 pages to read every weekend.
After these CS, I have two more classes and then I'm done; completion targeted for May. CS445 will overlap some; probably take 8 weeks instead of 4 (12 is allotted). Now if only the teacher of that class would answer his e-mail. He's been sick. It will certainly slow things down a bit if he doesn't get better.
Frustrated here.
I went to that party last night (EFF, steampunk, Make, etc) -- and had a great time! The entertainment was wonderful and creative and unusual; the costumes on many of the attendees were delightful (I _need_ a steampunk costume now); and many of my old friends from the Robot Group were there, plus new friends.
I got there just as they started at 7, and left just before they closed at midnight.
I hooked up with the editor of Make Magazine, and will hopefully do some articles for them. I also offered to present my Ruben's Tube at Dorkbot in April, so now I'll have to make Rev B for sure.
I've been suffering from my separation from geek community the last couple of years, mostly due to school commitments, but also due to ordinary old scheduling conflicts. I was wonderfully energized by being able to be geek-social last night.
I'm looking forward to Flipside, and getting hooked into more of the geek and creative communities in Austin, more than I can express!
A lot of thanks goes to Silona, who knows _everybody_.
Thanks, y'all.
Try this for a better entry point:
http://wednesdaynightdinner.org/whats_new.html
I have all of the pieces in hand to build 4 new ruben's tubes, so that's good. I'm going to hold off doing all the work until we can call a group work day, tentatively April 7. I _do_ want to get them built and working, though, for the next Dorkbot, which appears to be scheduled for April 12.
It looks like, once I get done with school, I'll be in a good position to hang out with other crazy and creative people! That will be good. On that front, I finished the history class and this weekend started two CS classes. Completed the assignment (first of three) on CS330, algorithm design, and successfully procrastinated starting the independent project for CS445.
Tonight I am skipping Taiji to go to a Steampunk party in benefit of EFF, via SxSW, sponsored by Make and so forth... umm... here it is:
http://wednesdaynightdinner.org/
Four more classes! Two months! Give or take. I'm dying to be done.
The Ruben's Tube Experiments are done for today -- and we developed a few good ideas for improvements on the next tube (or set of tubes; we are building four!)
Robin and Debbie made it over for a short time right at six tonight, and I ran the tube through its paces (not unlike the video I took of it later, see the link at the end of this post). While they were here, Michelle showed up too, but then they all left at 6:30, leaving me with a tub of square, organic marshmallows to roast in the flickering flames.
Michelle had the idea, to help counter the way high-frequencies blow out the flames nearest the speaker, to move the speaker out into an extension that would act as a buffer and diffuser of the sound waves. We later did a wee test, closing the holes near the speaker, to see if having a longer dead zone helped. It did seem to slow down the blowout a bit, but in the case of a steady-state tone, they still blew out. But for varied music, it might help a little bit.
Just about when they left, Randy showed up and we got down to poking the tube in ernest.
The first thing I did was record a video using the laptop's built in camera of the tube as it stood: small holes (1/16 or so) drilled every 1/2 inch on a 4" diameter 6' long ventilation tube. The speaker is mounted on an 8" adapter on the left side, and the gas inlet is on a 6" adapter on the right side.
The first tests involved using a signal generator to feed very low frequency waves into the tube ... 4 to 10 Hz, more or less. These pulses of sound provide very interesting "dancing fire" effects. Higher frequencies make a more frenzied flame, and tend to blow it out near the speaker.
Then we ran all kinds of music through it: Blue Man Group, who are heavy on percussion and base; some Enigma; some this, some that (I forget now what we used). Dance music is best, providing dramatic flame effects. Voices and a lot of wimpy instrumental don't do much at all.
We also drilled 5/32" holes every inch (expanding existing small holes), to test larger holes. These lowered the pressure in the tube a bit, giving a large more diffuse flame (I thought) but were also less inclined to blow out.
We used metal tape to block off holes on the edges, but this didn't change the behavior much. Randy used metal tape to block every other large hole and all the small holes, which hurt the tube's ability to relight itself and didn't help the blowout problem.
Ideas for the next tube include Michelle's buffer; Randy though that putting the gas pressure where the speaker was might help. On that one, I'll attach the gas hose on the extension where the speaker goes, and possible a second branch at the far end. This will put the gas pressure and speaker pressure on the same side, and might help. If I attach quick-releases on both sides, this can be configurable.
The hole pattern that we left with seems to be a good one; tiny holes every inch, and quarter inch holes between them.
All in all, a good experiment. Too bad Matt and Susan and Silona were busy, we missed them! But I'll show M&S the tube tomorrow morning, briefly, before Dim Sum. Yummmm.
See the video here: