Recap of last week’s work:
Clutch + Oil:
One group manufactured a part to tighten clutch; other team was researching the carburetor and how it works.
Top + Bottom End:
Cleaning parts; starting to move on to building the engine.
Wheels + Frame:
Cut spokes with bolt cutter, dissembled parts, made nuts more accessible by removing grease
Electrical:
Continued sandblasting main frame
Next Steps
- Putting a power coat and some of the parts in Philadelphia.
- Clutch Springs: Should be 1 21/32 of an inch.
Notes:
- Gasoline is a hydrocarbon. Oil is a mixture of many different hydrocarbons; when heating it up, the lighter substances bubble and vaporize. When distilling gasoline, start with crude oil, and warming it up. The first thing to come off is butane, then gasoline (octane: C8H18). To get better energy release, you have to get the best mixture of oxygen and gasoline (too little is lean, too much is rich). If it is too rich, unburned fuel with go out the exhaust pipe.
- The calculation: C8H18 + 12.5 O^2 -> 8 CO2 + 9 H20
- Exothermic reaction. Releases NOXs (nitrogen oxides, smog)
- The more power you have, the greater the acceleration. To get more energy out of the engine/per explosion:
- Larger engine
- Higher pressure in the engine
- Pure oxygen instead of air
- Use a fuel that has oxygen
Book Discussion:
- Quality is undefinable concept. Why is he trying to define it?
- Using students to find an answer to a difficult question.
- Pilgrimage to top of mountain India. While trying to analyze and understand philosophy, his physical strength and intellectual motivation wasn’t enough to get him to the top of the mountain. He doesn’t have a spiritual/mystic force pulling him upward; an egoist.
- “Quality is the cleavage term between hip and square.” Trying to bridge romantic and classical thought.
- He says, If we didn’t have quality, the world would be different. But is that a proof of existence?
- Art and beauty are not the same.
- Biology often makes things way more energy efficient than robotics can imitate.