Engineering

I have been offered two optional courses I really want to do, but at the sametime been told that I can only choose one. The two courses are: Software engineering (programming) and Networking The thing is I really like them both. Quite good in Newtorking but keen to learn more. Programming; still learning, I like to think I can do it, I think I can. At the same time I want to learn it by all means necessary. It's just that when I was doing my project on programming recently, I was havinng loads of doubts, thinkin; is this for me?, do I consider myself as a coder?. I love programming, I wanna be there coding, I'm doin the best I can. As per Networking, I feel that…

this is a simply odd question that with my knowledge i dont have the proper answer for. my project is for a 69.5 ford maverick. what i would like to do is to mount a hood scoop that will sit beneath the hood until the speed begins to accelerate at which time the scoop will begin to rise out of the hood. i was thinking using the air flow to regulate the height but i am unsure of what i would need to do this. i would much appreciate the help.

I'm somewhere between stages 2 and 3 of my experience with entropy and the 2nd Law of Thermo and could use a bit of a sense check. I've been meditating on the fact that there's no entropy difference between colored balls that are all mixed up vs. ones that are separated according to color. When I extended this to the case of an isolated, rigid chamber containing two segregated ideal gases, I concluded that there isn't a change in entropy when the gases mix. Then I got to thinking about Boltzman's discovery of the relationship S = k*ln(W), which seems to confirm my conclusion because in this case W remains constant as the gases mix (and k is, of course, a constant …

Does anyone else here besides Pseudoswallo and me think that trebuchets are cool? Pseudo, I've only made one, a real lousy thing cobbled out of whatever scraps I could find, with a 5-foot bamboo arm and a bent nail for an axle. But I managed to pitch a large softball into the third yard down, and the neighbors all thought I was nuts. Mission accomplished. I have fantasies about making something better and larger, and dragging it about the neighborhood on hallowe'en dressed like a medeaval corpse collector, pitching fake heads down the street and hollering "bring out your dead".

I have conductive wire(measured resistance), I have new batteries, and yet when I hook the positive end to the negative end of the battery, with my wires, it won't produce current! Grrrr.... Does anybody know how to make this work? BTW, I'm using double A batteries. I need this in order to test an experiment which if it works(the principle this simple, something that's easy, would produce alot of money, but seems to be overlooked by people, but my condition makes things blatantly obvious to me, that are invisible to others), but I have to be able to draw current, before I can power other components of my experiment. Any assistance would be welcomed.

Hello. Would it be possible to create a simulator along the lines of a skydiving simulator, in the shape of a horizontal tunnel...that someone could run and jump into and the wind from below would keep them afloat and their momentum would propel them to the opposite side... flying like superman? Thank You Charles B

Anyone else here interested in ELF/VLF radio at all? it`s a hobby of mine, and wondered if anyone else was into the same thing and would like to share data. I use a modified version of this cct: http://www.auroralchorus.com/bbb4b.htm it works great and is Very easy to build and quite forgiving when it comes to component variance. I`m sure I`m not the ONLY one on this board with E-Fields as a hobby, am I:confused:

So when I first saw toy R/C blimps like these, my first thought was "hehe, cool" and my second was to wonder if it could be modified into a "spy blimp" without too much effort. The idea is to find a wireless camera small enough to be supported, mount it on maybe a 45 degree downward angle underneath (rotating would be ideal, but I know I'm pushing my luck), maybe boost the transmitter significantly beyond the 300 ft. range most of these things seem to have, wait for a calm day, and take a spin around (and above) the neighborhood from the control station at the television. So I guess my question is, does anyone have one of these? How much lift are we talking about (at …

OK I have a '92 Toyota Corrossion that is ready to pack it in and I have a replacement vehicle I am ready to switch the insurance to. Experiments? Here are somes ideas: 1. Replace engine with electric motor and batteries. 2. Replace engine with lawn mower and weed wacker engines. 3. Replace engine with bio-hybrid (2 squirrels and a chipmunk). 4. Add some canola oil, alcohol, and water to the gasoline. Here is what I am thinking. It is overpowered. I am a patient man. If I drive slow and am in no hurry to get up hills will I get more effciency if I have some water in the fuel? The alcohol is to help the water disolve evenly. The canola oil is to help protect th…

Hello. If a magnet can hold 150 lbs of metal, will it repel a magnet with the same force when placing like poles towards each other? Thank you. Charles B

I plan to build a 10-stage dual-branch Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier. The circuit looks as follows, but has more stages: My circuit will use 30 capacitors and 40 diodes. I want to connect it to a center-tapped transformer, each half giving 120 V AC. So, per capacitor, I can obtain appr. 350 V DC and the total output voltage can be 3500 V. I want to use 220 uF/400 V capacitors. This allows for an energy storage of 400 J in the total circuit! I have one problem. If I connect the device to my output transformer, then I expect it to blow out my fuse, due to the enormous initial charge currents. I already built a 3-stage device with 100 uF/400 capacitors…

Hey, I just signed up..this forum is damn cool! Im on a couple of strongman/powerlifting forums (my other hobby) but I cant believe I never though of finding a good science forum given that Ive persued a degree in practically every field (math, physics, bio, ect) but have yet to actually recieve one in any of them....120+ credits and nothing to show for it. Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone knew of a device that consists of a sensor and some kind of object that, when sensed by the sensor, triggers an electrical response. Sort of like a motion detector but instead of responding to motion, it responds to its accompanying object. If there is no exact device out the…

To All: I would like to invite both members and visitors of the ScienceForums.net Engineering Forum to start a discussion on Energy Conversion Systems -- ask questions of interest, share knowledge and experience related to Energy Conversion Systems technical performance analysis, modeling, operation and commercialization issues. Also, everybody is welcome to contribute to the Energy Conversion Systems thread/topic. Thanks, Gordan

I was just curious if anyone here generates some or all of their own electricity through stuff wind turbines, PV cells, or some other means, or even just solar heating. If so, what's your setup? How's it working out? Would you recommend it to others?

I have a solid steel cylinder, an aluminum ring surrounding the cylinder, and a steel ring surrounding that such that all are concentric. I want to put a large static charge on each (in the kV range) such that the alu ring will have a tendency to stay centered concentrically. How do I figure out the repelling force between the alu ring and the inside/outside cylinders? all the force equations I find are for point charges in a field. Also equations to predict when I will run into arcing. Thanks! -speakerguy

I'm a second year Chemical Engineering student, and I can't seem to find decent exercises to supplement my lectures and tutorials. The tutorials have good questions, but I want more. Can anyone recommend any websites or (preferably) exercise books? I'd like something quite challenging, but obviously within my abilities (basic thermodynamics, heat transfer, etc.). Thanks in advance!

Hi. I have some idea of how they work, but never inspected one closely nor played with one. Question; what do you think would happen if bits and pieces of plastic are fed to it instead of sugar? Would it produce some "plastic wool" ? -Similar to fiberglass ?- (am not joking) Miguel

I'm quite aware of the Second Law of Theromdynamics and have considered "The Hydrogen Economy" a joke, because to get the hydrogen one would either have to break up water (obviously inefficient) to reconsitute it, or break up fossil fuels to create the hydrogen, also degrading the energy. Recently I've been reading that hydrogen engines are potentially so much more efficient than gasoline engines, that the loss in covering gasoline to hydrogen is more than made up by the efficiency of hydrogen engines. This still looks like hype from people who want to push hydrogen, but I don't have all the facts, is there something I'm missing?

I'm just wondering if anyone knows of a website or any formulas they can post that relate to flight, planes, helicopters, and propellors. I have some designs I want to test through mathematics, and once I have the designs down on paper I'll post them here to go through you guys. But to get the idea first and foremost, I'll let you know that I'm trying to make a gas powered turbine on a stiff winged glider for personal use as well as a single prop flying observational camera. You'll understand once I post the drawings. Heh, I already have my head in the clouds, why not get the formulae for them as well. O.o

I am wondering, are there any structural or civil engineers here? If so, what do you guys do for your job? If anyone else knows what exactly they do, and if there are any new 'fields' of discovery, so to speak, in these two areas that you know of, could you tell me about them too? I am interested in becoming either a structural or civil engineer, but I don't know what the difference is.

Im thinking about buying a pair of cheap walkie talkies, they have a range of 3km line of sight, they transmit at 0.5 watt and have 40 UHF chanels. For what i want to use them for requires them to transmit 5km over some small hills and tree's. I was looking in some old electronics books i had and i saw there was a radio booster amplifier circuit. This uses a 9v battery, a NPN transistor and a few other bits to amplifiy radio frequencies (from about 80 - 800mhz) and send them to the receiver. Without buying more expensive transievers or CB radio's, what can i do to increase the range? How much power would i need to reach 5km? what would be more effective, using a…

Electrochemical gas analysers can be used to measure CO, CO2, O2, SO2, NO2,and NO when using a biofuel called Waste Cooking Oil Methyl Ester (WCOME). What other methods can be used to measure the gases emitted by engines using this fuel or any fuel for that matter?

hi guys. new to the forum. im a mechanical engineer by trade, but have been asked by by my nephew now studing engineering a turbofan question and need a little nudge in the right direction His question reads An aircraft powered by turbofan engines cruises at a Mach No. of 0.82, at an altitude where Ta = 223.3K and Pa = 0.265 bar. Each engine has a by-pass ratio of 4.8 and a total mass flow rate of 210 kg/s at these conditions. The fan pressure ratio is 1.75 and the fan efficiency is 97%. The intake efficiency is 94% and the by-pass nozzle efficiency is 100%. Calculate the thrust from one of the engines produced by the by-pass air alone. now i understand that…

I am enjoying so much the threads on hybrid cars and LED lights that I'd like to launch here a thread on building and living efficiencies. I live in southern Oregon, USA, in a temperate climate right "between North and South". Winter nights average just a few degrees over freezing, with every fourth year or so having a cold spell of maybe -10C. Building spec is walls insulated to 6 inches, roofs 9". I built a solar collecting house with south-facing glass of 160 square ft. This is more than is advised because of loss. Figure an R- value of 2 for double-paned (not IR coated), and an R-value of 20 for the walls. Builders are advised to keep window area to 10% of wal…

Here is a practical question. Car engines tend to be grossly overpowered. If you are willing to give up maximum speed and accelleration for fuel economy, what modifications could be made to an internal combustion engine, besides replacing it with a smaller one? Let's assume you want to cut the maximum horsepower down to 60hp or so, and increase the efficiency mostly on the lower end, like in the 10hp range. The intention would be to use the car mostly in town and on back roads, and try not to drive much over 80km/hr, except downhills of course.