Out of commision

for couple of weeks, been seriously ill, had my teeth removed and it has just been overall crap. shervyn doing great on his peilter project and not sure what mohammads been doing. I have questions to think about: 1- We have to spray the water instead of having plain water going into the exhaust to achieve: A- To have a quicker time to heat up the water. B- Less energy used to heat up the water. C- Avoiding cooling the exhaust.( because of we use plain water to run through the exhaust, it will cool it down instead of harvesting the heat, but if we use small particles of water the exhaust temperature will not be effected) 2- In order to spray water we might use water injection system similar to fuel injection systems to break down the water into small particles to get super stream. 3- Thinking of way to restocking that excess pressurized water. We must have an open system so pressure won't build up in our system. 4- Thinking of ways to condense the stream into water. 5- How deliver super steam for cooking. 6- Think of maybe having a specially designed cooker. 7- Our pipes that used for cooking must be copper since the optimum element used for a quickest heat transfer. 8- We have to think of ways to prevent our pipes from being cooled down after they've been super streamed, so we could use some pipes which called Polima pipes that are an insulation pipes themselves.

Good and Bad 2012 Industry Project

Ups and Downs smiles and Frowns, that's all i have to say. If there was anything there would be a lot of negative stuff to say and a a lot of positive too i suppose. There was alot of things going on within the group that i didn't not like, in the end it showed. Good end to 2012 though, had a great year. Love, Chris

Completion

Assignment was finished on Monday and handed in, Done and dusted. We didn't get to catch up last week, i fell ill with bronchitis and the team decided to work from home. We caught up today and worked on our presentation, it has been a great success, there were points to clarify and discuss which now when brought to our attention we could fully understand what and where things went wrong, and i think that was a good part of our learning. Presentation tomorrow, will be turning up early and hopefully be the first to present our work.

"I" am in TEAM

I have done a lot of research into steam, however a lot of the steam research i made had to be compacted into a format which was about 2500 words, instead of the 8000 i had. It seems that i have learn about steam and many purposes it has not only for the one purpose that is in our project. I have heard our advisory is going through a bit of a hard time, so it is understandable what that means and i decided that i would just give some space rather than hunt him down with questions as he got back. also, was informed that my team members have a better work ethic on there own than collaborating as a group, if i knew it was going to be as such i probably would have pick other members to work with earlier as the whole year to present this topic was just a struggle, i didn't feel to confident working on my own, and would have preferred to work with a encouraging team that works in a study environment together rather than meetings once a week, maybe once in a month and all just to go over what they have done by themselves, there's no learning in that and opposed to working and studying together making the project happen. It was separated and confused by doing individual work, which was not the intention in the first place.

Almost finished

Had a meeting with the gang last week and reviewed our project, there is a lot of content, almost to much content, so we are considering restructuring the project so we can create a more simplified version which is still very explanatory. We will be seeing each other again tomorrow morning to revise.

Tech Project almost complete

With our team members working delightedly, we are almost complete. We will be catching up with Anura next week with the project as a whole group before we present it to the audience on the 7th of November. Still a lot to do in so little time.

Posting

Wrapping up a lot of assignments on other sides, have got to stick to the project we are going to be assessed on in about a month, so its time to start gelling our project together as a team and make it work. It is going well so far however.

Project improvements

I worked on copper pipes durability, ecological, sustainability and effects of steam within many different formats, i have reduced the amount of research so that it is compact and easy. We had a group discussion on heat exchange and other project stuff.

Presentation skills

Today we focus on our presentation skills, with a awesome tutor called Lynn John who is from Wales. He gave us some fantastic advice and information on presenting ourselves in front of an audience. He also told us great stories of Italy, of a famous architect of Florance in the 15th century, Filippo Brunelleschi and Brunelleschi's Dome. Lynn has travel to Florance many times, and considers us to take a trip there sometime because it is beautiful. He is also a great singer and loves to sing because he is welsh haha!. I enjoyed my day in this class because i was compelled. I also enjoyed it because we were interactive and i felt that i learned something. I am looking forward to the our next class on the 24th of October where we will be presenting our PechaKutcha to the class and presenting not just pechakutcha but ourselves. Chow!

Catching up

This week we are meeting tomorrow Wednesday 22/8/2012 for a meeting where we will go over last weeks session and bring forward to the table what we have achieved in the past week. Ideas of our past meeting will be researched so we can conduct further studies in our technology project. Will keep posted on how it goes.

Mis-communication

Seems that there was a communication error, as no one from my group informed me that there was a meeting for our project and much of a lousy text that didn't reach meet is not good enough. So i feel that i was left out of a vital part of our assignment, and was not included. Also i feel that i am demotivated with all the things that are going on at the present time, falling ill and having dental issues on top of all the extra stress that is unrequired. Thanks guys. Well done, not even a phone call.

Meet

Our group meet to discuss progress and things are getting hard with how the steam side of things is going to be achieved however the other parts of our topic are pretty easy.

Project update

Working on the project i have done a fair bit about copper pipes, insulation and heating properties, how to deliver steam to the cooker etc. Problems that occurred are that heating the steam wouldn't be effective enough and using superheated steam to heat the elements would require a high amount of energy from a another fuel source. Currently researching other ways of conducting steam into a heat efficient method. Meeting next week.

Thermal Dynamic

Research has been great learned a bit about varieties in steam and creating ideas for our pressure cooker. Our meeting consisted of the concept relation to thermal dynamics, there is a lot of information about this on the internet and calculations on heat transfer. At the moment we are more interested in looking into design, and have tried to come up with better ideas that work. Anura gave us the idea to work on a element that can be used for cooking externally rather than internally, which was a good idea because it could be potential for other uses, but at the moment it would be better to keep this simple.

New advisor, Group member & Presentations

Progress report.. It is interesting how radically things change, new advisory, more than 2 members in a group and now we have to present ourselves. Interesting how much has changed, with Anura reluctantly at first wanting to be an advisory with his scheduled being tight, i will try not to bother him. I cracked a joke in presentation that he thought i was being serious and thought he would throw me under a bus. But all is good, wouldn't ask for a better tutor than the man himself as he knows what hes talking about, and enjoyed his suspension class room top notch _b

Blogging at last..

Since technology project classes started, ill be honest i haven't really taken the time to blog. I don't preferably enjoy blogging, however it is a course requirement. :) So i will be keeping blogs of my progression of my current technology project at unitec. Previously over about 12 or so weeks i have missed updates, so from then to now in a short summary includes not having much direction in our project at all. Our group started with me and Shervyn Borges contemplating ideas which we could reinvent and innovate into something creative. We then got another group member Harbi (Mohammed Abdullah H Alharbi) from where his group split as Shepard left for Australia with his wife, who was a good friend of ours. So now we have a group of three, and split the work accordingly. Our project idea is a good one, we are able to pursue separate ideas that conveniently combine together to create a synergies project. We decided to create a water collection and purifier unit that we can use as super steam for cooking. The main particular idea is to use wasted heat energy into a resource without disrupting any of the vital temperatures that the vehicle needs to operate in. We are also utilizing the Peltier effect to conduct electricity through thermal exchange. We have a new supervisor as our old tutor also left from Australia which left us in the ditch for quiet some time, but we managed without one, and we now have a great tutor that supports our idea, and creative thinking processes. Our hour today with Anura Bakmeedeniya really helped us in terms of direction and has given our group a stronger work ethic and a greater sense of what we have to do. Our attitude has a positive light, even though negative aspects did surround our first half the year. Despite the past of "Light Pedaling" our group is now making a push to research in the interest of our project to create a interesting presentation last down the track. Chris.

Huh?

I am totally off track and the whole tutor student relationship, feel as if they do not care, just being honest.. I am totally unmotivated, shervyn and I are a bit disappointed and finding out tracks will be hard as we have no supervisor, and other tutors do not have time.

Hold up

So after we get into our assignment and motivated to do things our supervisor for our proejct decides he will be leaving in acouple of weeks, so for starters we get an idea that we initially thought, mmm is this really going to work? to what the hell are we doing? It is interesting though to see how this effects our progress and motivation. We went over a few more ideas that we came up with during the week too, so we have to use as much of our supervisor as possible while hes still here.

Group discussion

Me in shervyn in our group had a discussion on our findings some of which are interesting news we looked at ideas about steam and peilter plates and how we could incorporate these findings into our project, how it will work and effect our main outcomes. We are trying to utilize the waste energy into something useful so shervyns idea with the peilters are a great idea but i thought that it could be of some use for super-heating steam. My initial ideas was to take steam and use it in a pump system that could effectively heat a pressure cooker for cooking in-cabin. Our advisory is leaving, so this makes it hard for us to get someone to help us with the assignment and may be a great demotivater.

Brain storming

Meeting with lixin today and we were talking about our idea with him however it was a bit more difficult understanding and getting our heads around it, we sat in class drawing up concepts that could bring our minds to paper and we went by what we knew that we are good at which is being inventive however though it had no grounding basis for our idea to fall on, it was good bouncing back ideas to and forth.

Advisory

Lixin is our advisory for our project and will be supervising. Lixin helped use our brains to create an idea that is innovative for harnessing waste energy from the internal combustion engine. Now we have to write a contract with our outcomes and have it signed by our supervisor and then we can get started.

Project ideas

Today we were told to start figuring out want we want to pick as our topic. Lixin have a couple of presentations which he showed us on innovations that the modern automotive industry have come up with. I was prepared for today's class because I had been working on my own 3 problems and solutions for them (listed below). The only problem was my group member was sick today and could not come in which slows our final decision on the problem we are going to pick for the tech project. Problem 1) Majority of engine wear in an internal combustion engine happens during cold start and when driven cold. Solution: Design a smart engine analyzer that works in conjunction with the coolant temperature sensor, engine oil temperature sensor and Rpm limiter to ensure that if the car is driven without being warmed up properly it will prevent the engine from exceeding 2500 rpm unless overridden through the safety feature which works in conjunction with the TPS. This system will ensure that the engine will work at its optimal temperature aiding all emission control systems by running an ideal air/fuel ratio also known as the stoichiometric ratio. This will also allow the catalytic converter to work as efficiently as possible and ensures longevity of the engine. Problem 2) The depletion of fossil fuels and the rising demand for an alternative fuel source. Solution: A water powered engine. Using a catalyst to separate the hydrogen and oxygen atoms and through extensive research I believe that clean water can be used to power our vehicles. If the basic concept is considered, that water when in a sealed chamber is heated enough to build excessive pressure it will escape in some way whether it cracks the chamber or explodes a part of it. This happens when the liquid turns into a gas (because of the rise in temperature) as Charles’ law states “the volume of a given mass of an ideal gas increases or decreases by the same factor as its temperature on the absolute temperature scale”. If this energy can be harnessed in some way I believe it will be another method to use water to power diesel engines because of their high compression rate. Problem 3) The rising cost of petrol and congested city driving all spell a disastrous scenario for daily driven sports/performance cars. Solution: Design a system were a dead axle on a car is powered by a smart electric drive system, this way when the car is used daily the performance orientated petrol engine can be switched off and the car will only be driven by the electric motor/s. If this system is to be incorporated into any car then certain modifications will have to be achieved. The first one is the steering system has to become electric, the brakes will need a vacuum booster similar to diesel cars which are fitted on the back of the alternator and a safe way of engaging and disengaging the engine will also have to be designed. Also storage of the batteries (lithium-ion) will have to be considered and ensure a low unsprung mass. Additionally the electric motor/s should be able to assist the engine when more power is needed to boost the overall performance of the vehicle.

First Class

Class has started and it was alot about meeting peers, a lot of new faces and old. Choosing a partner wouldn't be to difficult as i know members from my last year so i knew exactly what to do :) The day was great enjoyed hanging out and listening what we have to do for our innovative idea and that we had to design something as a group.