Notes

Hasan Notes for Week of 2/2/2024

2 Books

• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance 
  • We’re going to read 3/4th of this book
  • More philosophical and metaphorical than the second book
  • To be read for the first half of the semester
• Shop Class of Soulcraft
  • Read during the other half of the semester
  • Teaches about the practicality of trades

Discussions will be held on each reading, and a discussion leader will be assigned

• This is a large part of your participation grade
• The discussion leader facilitates the discussion
• The discussion starts by discussing the motorcycle metaphors in the Zen Book

The lab will be split up into 4 different groups with 4 different instructors helping

• Guests will also be coming in to help the groups every step of the way

Wrench and Tools Standards

• We will be using the Whitworth Standard for the tools
  • Make sure to use the same standard to not round out the hardware
    • Several tools, such as wrenches, may appear to be the same size and may fit a certain nut, but is not necessarily meant to be used
  • There are both Imperial and Metric standards for tools, and so in the lab, you may see both standards
  • If correct measurements and standards are maintained then the hardware can be weakened.

Learning Objectives

• Learning how to become a more efficient engineer and learning more about engineering
• Learn to use tools in a lab scenario
• Engine design, in this case, would specifically be compact engines in motorcycles
• Identify how philosophy and motorcycle design could intersect
• To better understand the terminology in the design process: EX: carburetor/ carburation
• The evolution of motorcycle design and how motorcycles have changed over the years
• Exploring the part of the whole motorcycle, the purpose for each part, and identifying where each part belongs in the system
• Identifying the parts in a system and how the individual systems operate between one another

Read the introduction to Zen, which is chapter one

• This will be discussed in class on Wednesday
• Do not get the bootlegged versions of the book
• The first chapter is posted on canvas

As for riding the motorcycle

• After completion, the students can ride the motorcycle assuming their license permits them to.

 

Wednesday 

Discussion leader- Celia

There remains a sense that there is no one in the book knows where the group is going

• Some clues hint that Chris may indeed know
• The book is shown through a first-person perspective, from the narrator

Motorcycle metaphors

• There was a scene where John and the rest were at a bar and John’s motorcycle was not starting
  • They tried getting the motorcycle to turn on but it was choking and thus couldn’t turn on
    • This happens when the valve allowing the air in the carburetor is blocked off, this explains why John smelt gasoline when he tried turning it on.
  • Since the carburetor was choking due to the gasoline in the motorcycle, the motorcycle wouldn’t turn on
• Page 14, where motorcycles have a more open design
  • This motivates people to work on their own motorcycles
    • This is opposed to how traditionally individuals may refer to a mechanic to fix their car

Content of the Chapter

• The chapter describes the group traveling along the roads with the narrator’s son and couple
• The group, especially the narrator, shows a preference for the sensory aspect of riding a motorcycle
  • The narrator describes the lack of a frame on a motorcycle, which makes him feel as though he is in the environment as opposed to merely viewing it
    • These ideas feel almost as if he was preaching this idea
  • Riding rough terrain is also preferred because of the amount of connection they feel
• John and the Narrator feel strongly about their own views on motorcycle maintenance
  • They both acknowledge one another and their viewpoints, but they still become extremely frustrated with one another
• The whole book is an inquiry into values in regard to the philosophy of motorcycles and their relationship to the narrator

Aditi Notes for Monday 2/5/24

• Disassembling motorcycle today, will record every piece to stay organized
• Engine starts to smoke as it burns gasoline, need to reboard the cylinders in the engine
• Stater is an electrical component
• Will unscrew wheel from axel and re-screw nuts
• Fly wheel critical for engine, lets it keep running, flywheel for a one cylinder vehicle is more important than for a four cylinder vehicle
• In a normal engine there is an intake valve
• Compression ratio is how much the piston pushes the air and fuel together
• Taking right stoichimentric mixture of fuel and air gets brough together at room temperature 
• Intake, compression, light the spark, power, exhaust, timings are very important

Content of Zen and the Art of Motor Maintenance Chapters 2-4

Discussion Leaders: Kamilla, Brian, Will

Motorcycle References

• Pg 21-  reference to horsepower of motorcycle engine
  • Our Motorcycle has a Basal Metabolism of about 150 Watts, ⅕ of a horsepower
• Pg 24- Extreme overheating in motorcycle because oil is blocked up and can’t cool the engine, pistons expand too much from heat and become too big for barrel, motorcycle has a seizure so pistons connected to crank shift gets stuck and motorcycle skids
• Pg 21- Didn’t check there was enough gas, had a reserved gas tank but assumed the engine had failed
• Pg 26- Overhead cam chain tension, our motorcycle will not have either of these. Our motorcycle will have a push rod. Some engines have valves that are driven by chains, chain tensioner used to roll onto the chain to keep it tight
• Pg 25/26- Ford engine only has one valve, adjusting the tappets adjust the play of the motorcycle
• Pg 25- Delayed the timing to make it run when its cooled down, Advanced timing is when the piston is on its way up before it keeps top dead center, wind up not burning up all the fuel when doing this
• Speedometer (measures speed of wheel) needle and tachometer (measures speed of engine), 1:1 relationship between wheel speed and speed while is running, 
• Firing rate is two oscillations
• Modern motorcycles can get up to about 1500, get high pitched sound
• Pg 42. Tools you would pack with you would be throttle cable has an adjuster on it, clutch cable, cotter pins go through holes and keep a pulley from sliding off a shaft, feeler gauge is a collection of pieces of metal with different thicknesses to precisely set a gap, chain adjuster link, roller chains can be riveted together, an adjustable spanner wrench can allow you to set a gap, impact wrench can help get out rusty bolts out 
• WD- 40, WD stands for water displacement, good lubricant
• Cold chisel has steel with no handle on it, very good for separating two things
• Tire irons- lever to get in between the rubber and rin of a tire and flip the tool over to pull the tire off its rim

Book Content Notes

• First person narrative, limited point of view
• Motorcycle may be a reflection of narrator, reference to taking care of yourself
• Takes care of machines very importantly
• Ego- justified why the mechanics did a bad job, comments on their speed and lack of passion for motorcycles
• What does the motorcycle mean, how does it represent values?
• Motorcycle is a passion for him as opposed to a job
• Arguing about ghosts and if they believe in then or not
• Gnerder does not need to apply when fixing motorcycle
• Narrator conforms to social expectations
• Used a ghost to introduce Phaderus- what exists, what is abstract
• Light is made up of particles that have wave properties, concepts change with time just like how ideas change within this book
• Thorreua reference- ironic because he doesn’t like technology
• Treats motorcycle like his kid
• What is best, big idea

Aditi- Notes for Wednesday 2/7/24

• Engine group- labeled parts of disassembled engine, T20 motor
• Motorcycle disassembling group- lifted off tent, ignition coil, wheels, fenders, 
  • Front and rear wheels were held in by pins
• Science Demo on Thermal Expansion: Aluminum bar is on top of wire with flag on the side, as bar moves can see flag spin. Bar is heated up and flag rotates, bar is then cooled and flag rotates back to its original horizontal position
  • Context: seizure, piston gets hot and expands in barrel
  • Coefficient of thermal expansion per metals vary
• Fully combusting gasoline returns carbon dioxide and water, gasoline has 22.7 million joules/kg
• Science Demo on electrolysis cell: Bottom of vessel has platinum electrodes, vessel has water and a little acid inside, breaking water into hydrogen and oxygen, pH of water is about 7, sparking the gas will launch the ping pong ball, flame temperature is about 2000 K, hydrogen and oxygen are in a perfect 2:1 ratio
  • Pressure will rise from 1 atm to 7 atm caused by increase in temperature, 1 atm is about 15 Ibs/ inch^2
  • Ping pong ball is like piston in engine

Content of Zen and the Art of Motor Maintenance Chapters 5-6

Discussion Leaders: Leila, Carson

Motorcycle References

• Pg 52. Checking engine, puts it in clutch, clutch is a set of friction plates that separates the engine from the wheels
• Pg 53. Handlebars need to be fixed because they were slipping, a shim stop is a thin piece of metal, clamp on handlebar had a gap
  • When aluminum is oxidized, it will form stable aluminum oxide and not rust anymore
• Pg 68. Red strip, chain adjustment without loosening the nut, when whole assembly is pulled back chain becomes tightened
• Breaks up motorcycle into its different systems
  • Power assembly: engine- contains feedback system (tapets, etc.) lubrication system, power chain system, fuel air system consists of gas tank, valves, carbonator, air cleaner
  • Battery only takes DC, a rectifier is a one way valve for an electric current
  • Distributer is the contact point of sparks, distributes high voltage charge, opening and closing of two points
  • Camshaft controls the opening and closing of an engine’s intake
• Flywheel stores rotational energy
• Connecting rod connects flywheel to piston
• Lubrication system has an oil pump. Holes drilled into engine case that creates an oil gallery

Content Notes

• John reacted negatively to the improvised shim, learned that he was a drummer
• John is interested in the shim potion yet feels ashamed when it is a beer can, narrator is seeing beer can for what it was used for versus John sees the beer can for what it is. Narrator is resourceful, John wants to fix things using their actual items
• John gets asked a lot of questions by Chris and Sylvia
• Chris has mysterious pains and no knows what’s going on with them, narratoeu  has been treated with shock therapy for general mental illness
• End of chapter get intro to phadereus who narrator describes as evil adn insane yet has respect for phaderus and his analytical abilities
• Narrator uses vague language to show the tension between himself and phadreus
• Break things down in a more qualititaive sense, breaking motorcycle into category 
• In North Dakota in chapter 5

Sarah’s Notes for 2/12/2024

• Frame group had difficulty getting the forks apart
• Prof. Littman managed to get it apart
• Fork tubes are held in by clamps
• The clamps didn’t release, so the fork tubes weren’t releasing
• Managed to take the first part of it (triple tree nut), which allowed the
• The whole assembly came apart with the bearings
• 15 bearing on the top and the bottom
• Using the largest adjustable wrench (16 inch), he put enough torque to twist it free
• Then it took another half hour to get it loose

Troubleshooting group

• Worked on the almost finished bike from last year
• One of the issues was it was slipping when Prof Littman tried to start it
• He looked inside at the clutch plate assembly and they were going to try and tighten it to prevent it from slipping
• Started to put on a brake
• There was no clutch cable on last year’s motorcycle
• They had to find the correct cable
• There were some issues they needed to resolve in order to resolve it
  • i.e. the cable didnt fit into the placeholder correctly, so they took the tool off, and Prof Littman made a new one 
• Had to pull the crank in the gear shifter to resolve the issue of the slipping

 

• We use the puller to pull the kickstarting lever
• It just didn’t slide off, so it needed to be pulled out
• A two-jaw puller is used
• Center shaft on the kickstarter had a little dimple on the middle
• The center screw of the puller has a sharp point that went into that hole
• The jaws were attached, then the screw was turned, and that pulled the whole assembly back

• Normally you could pull a part on the shaft
• Instead you’re pushing in the middle and pulling on the other side
• The screw that’s pushing in is in compression
• But you’re not pushing over the entire length of it, the screw is resting on this bar 

 

• Motorcycle cables
  • A center steel cable inside of what is really a tightly wound spring
  • Brake cable of a bicycle is a flexible cable – inside it is a steel bundle of wires is sliding on a portion of the string
  • Spring part is being compressed and the center cable is under tension
  • It gets its flexibility because its a steel spring but gets its strength in compression because all the loops are touching

 

Carburetor and wheels group

• Wanted to remove the wheels from the rims
• Only sawed like halfway through the wheels
• Then pulled the wheels off the rims
• Pneumatic inner tube inside of that
• Tired getting off with a tire iron, but the tire irons were bending and because the tires were so old they lost their flexibility
• They were cutting through rubber and the steel belt of the tire (just on the part closest to the rim)
  • There’s a steel wire inside the tire to give it strength
  • Unique to motorcycle bikes, because they have to withstand more 

 

Frame group

• Finished dismantling the frame of the motorcycle
• Organized the parts by where in the bike they came from, or what purpose they served
• Used the wrenches and the Whitworth wrenches and the locking adjustable wrench

 

Engine group

• Organized the parts then learned about how they work together
• Gas law – pumping mechanics of the engine, valve system
• Engine is a four-stroke system
• There’s different cycles and the timing of when a stroke happens 

 

Engine demo

• We have a single cylinder engine, but this is 4
• There are valves
• Orange one = exhaust valve
• White one = intake valve
• Piston gets to the top, gotten rid of all the gases
• Then it gets to the intake – pulling in the fuel and the air
• Gets down to the bottom -> then compression, both valves are closed
• Then it gets to the top, and that’d fire the light bulb
• Model T engine
  • Firing order: cylinder 1 > 2 > 4 > 3
• Every rotation of the crankshaft you’re firing a piston
• One is intake, another is compression, another is in power, another is in exhaust
• This engine doesn’t require so much balanced inertia in th crankshaft
• You can also see the connecting rods
• Square engine in the sense that size of the piston and of the stroke are the same (4 inches)

 

Wheel group

• Discussed pressures holding the tires in place
• Had to cut it in the beginning because they couldn’t get it out
• Even though they’d cut the tire, the air didn’t immediately flow out
  • Problem was this was an old motorcycle, the tires had lost their flexibility 
  • What had been flexible rubber became hard rubber

 

Frame group

• Took apart the motorcycle as much as they could with wrenches and oil to loosen up the parts
• Labeled everything 

 

Engine

• Organized the parts
• John explained physics behind the engine
• Got familiar with the parts before they put it together
• They’re gonna go through and make sure there are no broken pieces next
• John said the pieces are already quite clean, so they need to focus on cleaning the flywheel 
• They might do electrolysis to get the rust off
  • Electrolysis 

 

New experiences

• Last year was the first time they ever separated the flywheel
• You can read manuals to find out how to do these things
• There’s also YouTube videos on the Internet 
• Like we sometimes make our own cables 
• What’s a brake cable, what’s a clutch cable, what’s a throttle cable etc.
• You may have to search for these on your own

 

Cable group

• Went over physics and science behind how each part works
• Going to start cleaning things
• Compression ratio
  • Fuel to air ratio (14.7:1 is the perfect mixture for maximum consumption of the gasoline)
  • Compression ratio
  • If you think of the volume of air when the piston’s all the way down
  • And then the valves close and the piston goes up -> you go from a big volume to a small volume
  • That ratio is the compression ratio
    • For gasoline powered cars they’re 8-10:1
    • Higher compression ratio = more efficient engine (thermodynamic efficiency)
  • There are 3 different ratios for our engine
    • If the piston head is flat: 7:1
    • If the piston head is domed: 9:1
    • If it’s very heavily domed: 10.5:1

 

Troubleshooting group

• Clutch
  • There are 3 sets of plates squeezed together
  • Friction pad that slides on a metal plate
  • Torque clutch – if the torque is not large enough they’ll move together when they’re mean to slip
  • They’re held together by a nut 
  • Kickstarting the motorcycle – instead of turning the crankshaft and starting the motorcycle, it was slipping
• Didn’t have the clutch cable
  • Found it and put it in the right one
  • Made a tool to tighten the springs
• In cable assembly, it has to rest against something, because when the cable is pulled, the rest needs to be pushed

 

Troubleshooting group

• Feral used to solve the problem

 

Troubleshooting group

• Trying to start the bike, but it was slipping
• Took cover off the clutch and had to tighten the friction pads (like tightening a spring, but it was a really obscure type of screw)
• Had to take the cover off the other side
• But they had to disengage and take off the gear shifter before that
• The kickstarter required the puller 
• Tapered pin used to tap that out so it would take the shifter
  • When it gets drawn in, it gets tighter and tighter
• Each screw was a different length
  • So they needed to pay attention to which screw they were putting in which hole
  • Some holes are blind holes (not threaded all the way through)
    • Putting a long screw into that hole will rip out the threads
    • Importance of making sure you have the right hardware is important 

 

Engine group

• Went over how the strokes work
• Intake > compression > power > exhaust

 

Chapter 7, 8, 9

 

Discussion Leader – Drew

 

Chapter 7 Motorcycle References

 

Page 85

• “Moving chain”
• What’s engaging with the spockets is a cylinder that can rotate on shaft
• The chain has all these lengths, but it’s not a rigid length on shaft, it’s actually a roller
• You have friction between the roller that’s on the chain link
• As it’s rolling on the sprocket – if that’s dirty, or even if it’s clean, it just needs to be lubricated

 

Page 84

• “John is speeding faster and faster… He gives up on him and slows down. Unless you’re looking for trouble in this heat, you don’t go over 85.
• Tires are wearing down because it’s so hot
• When you go faster and faster it wears them down more
• Tire pressure
  • It’s difficult to ride a bike when the pressure of the tire is low, or if you’re on sand
  • The tire is what interacts with the environment
  • With friction they wear down
  • The rubber itself becomes softer when it’s hot and that can contribute to a blowout

 

Page 79 

• “Exhaust pipe was a blue color”
• Narrator says to just live with it
• Happens close to where the pipe connects to the engine
• Chromium coatings on the steel exhaust pipes have a tendency to turn blue when they get hot
• The more advanced, the hotter it gets

 

Page 88

• “Heat rises from the engine as if it were on fire…”
• Hot air rises and changes the density of the air so changes the index of refraction of the light, and it bends the light
• You’re seeing the convective heat flow
• There’s different ways that heat moves
  • Conduction = Thermal conduction down a piece of material
  • Heat by radiation = sunlight that warms us, IR light goes through space
  • Convection = hot gases that swirl and move through the air

 

Page 89

• Oil filter cap that’s so hot it burns through the fingers of his gloves
• Diff. motorcycles have different methods of oiling
• Ours has a reservoir and a pump that pumps oil into the engine and then into the reservoir
• The top of the oil filter cap is what’s hot
• You filter the oil, why?
  • You start with clean oil and a clean engine
  • It’s so you can reuse the oil
  • There’s all sorts of stuff (bits of metal) that gets into the oil
  • If the pump gets clogged, the oil starts flowing
  • There’s an oil screen in our motorcycle that looks like a coffee filter – it’s like a screen that keeps out mosquitoes, but finer than that, that keeps out particles you don’t want in the pump

 

Chapter 7 Content

 

• Phaedrus’s knife, how it can divide the world into parts (79)
  • Analogy to how knife can divide a handful of sand into the people in the world
• Starts off with a tangential description of Phaedrus
  • Insane people are either written off or you understand him
• John and Sylvia wanting to go fast, but the narrator wanting to slow down is a turning point that the narrator is comfortable in his surroundings and he can contemplate the situation as it goes by
• Phaedrus (84)
  • Talks about him as an individual
  • We gain a new, human-focused perspective on Phaedrus, rather than a ghost
  • He caused his wife and family to suffer, he was a being of both solitude and intelligence at the same time
• “He was systematic, but to say he ….” (84)
  • We have to remember that all these parts are linked
  • Romantic way of looking at it
  • One way of starting the motorcycle is to push it down a hill, because once the wheels start moving, all of it will start to run
  • Interesting for a traditionally classical way of thought that Phaedrus would have, looking at the parts
• Sandpiles separated by classical/romantic views
  • Romantic would look at the overall shape of the sand and not get it down into the individual piles
  • Classical person would break it into piles of opacity, size, color, and so on
  • He said there’s multiple ways of making that separation and of cutting things up
• Phaedrus was dead (88)
  • Kind of says he’s coming back
  • He was dead because of the shock therapy 
  • They told him he had a whole new personality, the idea that Phaedrus was destroyed and is slowly coming back
• Mark Twain Life on the Mississippi
  • He learns to read the river

 

Discussion Leader – Daniella

 

Chapter 8 Motorcycle Reference

 

• Carbon molecules and gas not finding enough oxygen, not loading up the plug
  • Tip of the plug is black = indicates rich mixture, retarded ignition, low compression, too cold a spark plug
• A noise in the engine, tappet adjustment (94)
  • Tappets only adjusted when it’s cold, because when it’s hot the rods are long and expanded and the adjustment is when it’s cold so it doesn’t force the valves open when it gets hotter
•  Checking the timing on the tappet
  • You have an intake pressure exhaust
  • You have to be in the cycle where both valves are closed
  • Supposed you’re checking the tappet on the exhaust valve
  • There won’t be any gap
  • You need to be in the resting position, because that rod is sometimes pushing to open up the valv
• Switching to standard jets because of the altitude 
  • This is a carburetor in cross section
  • There are 2 jets on our carburetors
  • Carburetor is the way the fuel gets in
  • 2 jets
    • 1. Pilot jet – for idle, even when the slider valve is closed/very little air getting through, there’s still an idling mixture getting through
    • 2. Main jet – as you bring your slider valve up, you bring your pin up and it lets fuel get in through the main jet; there’s a needle that helps you adjust that mixture
  • You put a smaller hole on the main jet at higher altitudes
  • The old airplane engines that use carburetors allow you to adjust the mixtures, because of the high altitude

 

Chapter 8 Content

• Finally seems like the narrator is getting along with John and Sylvia
• Emphasis again on the difference between John’s thinking and narrator’s thinking (96)
  • The narrator sees concepts and John just sees parts
• Discussion about steel, about it not being a natural material
  • Wasn’t until the late 19th century that you could mass produce steel
  • It takes an idea to be able to create that
• “Not everyone understands what a completely rational process this is” (94)
  • Motorcycle maintenance = rationality
  • Phaedrus says something similar later
  • It’s not about a knack, it’s about the care and attention you put into it

 

Chapter 9 Motorcycle References

 

Sarah’s Notes for 2/14/2024

 

Update

 

Engine group

• Valves
• How quickly once you open a valve and unload it
• Spring returns it when you stop pushing on it 
• When you take it apart, each valve spring has an inner one and an outer one
• One of them has a clockwise twist and the other has a clockwise twist
• When you open the valves you don’t want them to turn
• Counterwinding of the spring allows it to have a linear motion

 

Troubleshooting group

• Clutch cable
  • Started with the initial clutch cable they found last lab
  • It was very taut, not the length we were looking for
  • Considering cutting it down to make it suitable for the motorcycle – but they found one that was longer
  • That’s actually the cable from this year’s motorcycle (so we’ll have to fix the other one when we’re putting this year’s motorcycle together)
  • Steel coil at the end of the cable
    • Inner cable was too short, so we need to grind the hardened steel covering the center cable 
• Found the best way to route the motorcycle with the cable
• Fashioned a tool to keep the handlebar tight

 

Tire group

• Working on taking the outside of the tire off of the rims
• Got one of them done 
• They need to cut the other side
• Tire sits on the rims
• If you torque the rims 
• It’ll rip the stem out 

 

Frame group

• Went to the MAE shop and used the arbor (?) press to get the rod out of the …
• Opened the oil chambers in the forks but they’d already been emptied

 

Discussion 

 

Carburetor

• Needle goes into a hole 
• Slide is all the way up to the top
• It has the widest opening
• When the needle’s all the way down it’s idle
• Down at the bottom you’re at the top speed
• You can shape the needle to match the needs of the motorcycle

 

Friction

• Important for operation of the clutch
• Important for figuring out how much torque you need in the motorcycle
• Linear velocity dependence = resistance goes linear with velocity
• Coolant friction = stick slip friction
  • It initially sticks
  • You get to a certain point where it starts sliding
• Coefficient of friction
  • Stick-slip friction is generally considered to be independent of velocity 
• Normal for
• Tangential force = force acting down x cosine of the angle
• On an incline, there’s a point where the angle increases enough that the object starts to slide
  • Tan of that angle is = coefficient of friction
  • Ice would have a lower coefficient of friction
  • Coefficient of friction for tire on asphalt is about 1

 

Where does friction come from?

• Atomic level understanding explained in the article Prof posted
• Book on a foam pad with little hills
  • When you put a weight on it, all those hills are gonna flatten out
  • Laptop on top of the book
  • If you pull on the book, the force it takes to get it to slide is the coefficient of friction times the normal force
  • He’s pulling on this book
  • The concept that gonna happen in the clutch is the same thing
  • As you put the laptop on here, pay attention to how much it flattens
  • You can measure how much that displacement is
• If you have foam pad, then book, then foam pad, then laptop
  • It goes down the same amount
  • It doesn’t matter whether the laptop is above another surface or directly on the book, it flattens the same amount 
  • If you pull on the book now, sandwiched between these two pieces
  • What are the forces that’s gonna take the book to slide?
  • If it took 1 pound of force before, now it’ll take 2
• Coolant friction depends on one source of friction/contact, but here there are 2

 

• If you have a paper under a weighted surface
  • One page of paper you can pull it away
  • But two or three, it pulls the weighted surface with it
  • The more surfaces the more force you need to overcome friction

 

• Clutch basket is able to turn around
• Here’s a plate that’s just a flat surface
• Friction plates have notches on the outside
• The slippery ones have notches on the inside
• Idea is you make a sandwich
  • Friction pad on the back
  • Next one to go in is a slippery one (on the inside)
  • Next one to go in is a friction pad
  • Next one to go in is a slipper plate
  • Next one to go in is a friction pad
  • Another slippery one
• What holds the plate together is a compressed spring
• There’s a rod in the back
• The amount of torque necessary to get this to slip is increased by the number of surfaces
• Advantages of multiple plates
• Compression that’s pushing them together allows them to slip
• When you’re shifting gears you need to detach the engine from the drive mechanism
• Making it tighter by adjusting the springs can get it to a point ~ something like 10 foot pounds from the engine, needed to get the sufficient torque in the rear wheel
• We can work backwards from the to find out how big the piston needs to be
• Piston has an area to it, and a pressure 
• Rather than 1 surface, we need to have it such that we don’t have to pull so hard on the clutch lever
• You wouldn’t be able to pull the lever and actually have it released

 

Chapter 9 – Daniella

 

Motorcycle references

• Beginning of the chapter: process of the engine misfiring
  • Engine usually goes popopopopopp
  • Misfire is skipping one, or an additional explore
  • A misfire interrupts the beating of the engine
• The electrical system not working (107), the horn
  • We need the electrical system to make a spark
  • The horn can make a sound

 

Content

• The scientific method
  • Not only in terms of machines, but also in terms of making a wrong turn societally
• The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking something you don’t actually know (105)
• It explains the scientific method
  • It’s a practical explanation of why you need to resort to it
  • The problem is motorcycles and a lot of devices can have multiple causes to its problems
  • Might not start because of the fuel system, engine system, gas leak, etc.
  • When you have to resort to the scientific method, he’s using the motorcycle as an example to show how you go about forming the hypothesis
  • You wanna make a hypothesis that sounds dump initially because it could be something really subtle
• Scene about narrow interaction with the car, the car board flapping on the road
  • We’ve seen this with his relationship with chris 

 

Chapter 10 – Hasan

 

Motorcycle references

 

Content

• Talks about the type of people who go into science
• Einstein split people into camps of doing it for ego or for utilitarianism or the purpose of science
  • Says phaedrus was one of those people who did it for the sake of science when he was younger
• Einstein has the thought that science is a function of time
  • What we know now is never gonna be an objective truth of science
  • What he know now just gets better and better, and this makes the narrator feel helpless
  • It’s hard to pursue science when we’re never getting to an end-all-be-all answer
  • We don’t reach truth, you just reach a temporary conjecture that leads you to the next one
• The purpose of the scientific method is to select
• Einstein is noted for changing our understanding of the physical world = via relativity and his energy equivalence
  • Gravity, etc. he introduced a lot of ideas that changed the way people thought

 

Chapter 11 – Bryan

 

• Engine backfiring (123)
• Adjusting carburetors b/c of a sound (125)
  • Up in high altitude
  • There’s talk about it being rich and lean
    • Rich = more fuel than the amount of oxygen can burn
    • Lean = too much fuel for the amount of oxygen
  • Becomes too rich at high altitudes
  • Lean engines run hot
    • If you mess around with the spark to much, if there’s not enough fuel in there, the engine tends to get hot
• 131 Priori motorcycle
  • Changes in it are slower.. Disappearance of rubber, loosening of bolts
  • Gasoline in the tank
  • “Disappearance of rubber from the tires”
    • As you run the motorcycle, when it’s hot, the tires wear down
    • Over time, you eventually have to replace your tired
  • Change of gap between break shoes and drums and loosening of bolts and nuts
    • Vibration causes nuts to come lose
    • Brake shoes
      • Have drums
      • When you apply the brakes the shoes go out
      • Old-style shoes sometimes used asbestos
    • Asbestos is a thermally safe material
    • Shoes get pushed out then rub on the drum
    • The harder you push the shoes out, the more the torque resistance is on the wheel to slow you down
    • As you use them, you wear off some of the pad
    • Eventually in your car, whether you have drum or disc brakes, eventually you have to replace the friction pads

 

Content

• Explicit mention of philosophy
• Phaedrus deciding the world is ugly
• Hume inspires Kant
• There’s something called natural philosophy (what they used to call physics)
• He is introducing hume first, same era of adam smith and james watt 
  • Were all in glasgow together
• Hume’s approach to the world is that the entire world is within one’s mind
  • Case against the evidence of causation
  • Kant responds saying that knowledge begins with experience
• Without the concept of space and time it’s unintelligible 
• Kant talks about the idea of understanding how thinks work
  • Starts from senses, but goes beyond that to rationality
  • One inspires the other
  • You don’t measure time, we have a sense of it, but not a sensor in our body that measures times
  • We have ones for force, light, heat, etc. but not time
  • He’s arguing that there’s more to understanding the world and what it is that makes philosophy interesting to him, to the narrator, is he rejects science
• What does it mean to have an A priori motorcycle
  • Not supplied immediately by the senses, like time, but it’s there and around us and we sense it with our intuition
  • Conflates the idea of motorcycle any d philosophy inour minds as being one and the same because there’s this a priori motorcycle within our subconscious minds
  • Knowing the motorcycle we know there’s intuitions we have about the wheel and the gas 
  • Hume – looking at it from different angles, you might not even see the full motorcycle
• Drawings upside down of portraits are better because they don’t draw based on their concept of a face/nose/eye, they focus on the lines
• Copernicus story about the flat earth
  • Whether you have the copernicus view or the flat earth view, the world is the same
  • He inverted the a priori conception of the world – there’s more than one
  • Just b/c it’s a priori doesn’t mean it won’t change
  • It can change how the world works
• Starts off wanting to do philosophy

2/19/24 Scribe Notes, Week 4 – Leila Siskind

Recap of last week’s work:

Wheels – finished taking the tyres off, then they spun the wheel on the truing stand to check that it was working correctly. The front wheel was in good shape but the rear wheel had some waddling to it, the motion was side to side.

Framework group – disassembled the forks with difficulty. For the first fork they grounded down the socket wrench then, holding the fork with the vice and the wrench with the vice grip, they were able to unscrew the first fork and extract the spring (suspension system). For the second fork, they tried this method to no avail so instead resorted to using a 5/16ths socket and two adapters, with the help of Professor Littman, they were able to unscrew this fork by putting a socket and the adaptors (which we ground flat) into an impact driver and hitting the contraption into the restrictor rod using a mallet.

Engine group – attempted to use electrolysis to polish the engine but the machinery in the labs was in use so they were unable to do this. They will re-attempt this this week.

Troubleshooting – almost done with the clutch. They also worked with the brake cable, adjusting it. Today they will work on the springs but they may have to put new springs on because the old ones were slightly too soft. Professor Littman has purchased new springs which may be a little too small but they are stiffer.

During precept today, we spent some time looking at the workshop instruction manual for our Triumph Tiger Cub. Professor Littman drew a model of the sprockets and explained this to our class. We determined that the rear wheel is going about 15.5 revolutions per second when the engine is going 100 revolutions per second. We also determined that the top speed of the motorcycle is about 66 mph. During the next class, we will assess the torque required for the engine and the rear wheel as well as the tension on the chain.

Reading:

Chapters 12-15 in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Design (not many motorcycle references)

Chapter 12

Discussion led by: Hasan

Motorcycle references

• None

Content

• Starting in Cooke City (after they have gone up to the high prairie), they finish this chapter in Gardiner, Montana.
• Pg 135 “Chris seems to understand my remoteness better than they do…” suggests that the narrator relies on Chris to control and be cognisant of his emotions.
• Pg 136 “it’s a problem of our time…” commenting on how people specialize in one thing but are not exposed to anything else.
• Pg 137 “remembers that Phaedrus had a high regard for DeWeese” although neither one of them fully understood the other. We later learn that Phaedrus / the narrator is drawn to things he doesn’t understand.
• Pg 141 “logic presumes a separation…” he is very logical but is trying to explain this Eastern philosophy. Essentially saying that logic is not enough.

Chapter 13

Discussion led by: Daniella

Motorcycle references

• None

Content

• The narrator has critical thoughts about the teaching in universities. In the previous chapter we learn that the narrator and DeWeese were teachers.
• Church of Reason speech, separating the university from the peoples’ minds and thought analogous to separating church from state, extracting the truth from them. The narrator is comparing the university to the church, making the parallel between the professor and a minister. Discussion of what happens when a school loses its accreditation. The narrator argues that the goal of the university will not change if it loses its accreditation. He also argues that if the faculty is asked to do something they disagree with they can argue that they will not do it in pursuit of the truth in the same way that a minister will go to someone above himself.
• Physicality of the church itself has no real connection to the religion, the religion exists without the building. Separation of the religion itself and what goes on within the building
• Pg 151 “You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in”

Chapter 14

Discussion led by: Ava

Motorcycle references:

• Switch into low gear on gravel to avoid tipping the motorcycle over.

Content:

• Pg 160 “I’m not the same person at all”, “If he were aware of the literal truth of that he would be a lot less at ease…” We learn more about the narrator.
• The art aspect of the motorcycle is that you develop your own peace of mind upon completion because you develop your own thoughts. Softening the distinctions between these two areas. Seeing the art and the subject.
• Convinces DeWeese that he is sculpting his rotisserie.
• Ends with the narrator’s revisiting of the fact that his attempts to define quality were one of the catalysts for his descent into being crazy.
• Pg 170 “ ‘I’m not sure what you mean by classical reason.’ Analytic reason, dialectic reason. Reason which the university is sometimes considered to be the whole of understanding” Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were all about seeking truth.
• Discussion about Plato rejecting the Sophists who were trying to convince people of things – persuading people to a point of view.

In lab today:

Troubleshooting – Will be working with Professor Littman.

Wheels – Taking apart the hubs.

Framework – Will finish taking apart the forks.

Engine – Will be working with John.

 

2/21/24 Scribe Notes, Week 4 – Leila Siskind

Recap of last class’s work

Wheels – worked on the hub. Today they will remove the rest of the bearings, pull out the other axel and potentially remove the spokes. They need to record the orientation of the hub relative to the rim to facilitate the process of lacing up the wheels when they put in the new spokes.

Framework – finished disassembling the forks and removed the springs. Then used wire brushes to remove excess dirt buildup on the frame. Today they will patch up any points of entry and then use the sand blaster to remove rust.

Engine – talked about parts with holes that might need to be replaced. Also talked about the differences in materials (aluminum, cast iron and steel). Counted the teeth on the gears. They are getting ready to finish cleaning up the engine.

Troubleshooting – measured and cut the tubing, also worked with the oil line. They encountered some difficulties with the removal of the chain. They had to rotate the sprocket but the motorcycle was in gear which meant that the rear sprocket wasn’t able to turn without the engine turning so they had to put it in neutral. Today they will take care of the electrical system and fix the throttle cable as Professor Littman identified as faulty parts of the motorcycle.

During precept today we revisited the workshop instruction manual for our Tiger Triumph Cub. This time we used the information to calculate the tension on the chain and the torque required in the engine. We determined that 5 ft lbs of torque are required in the engine to get the rear wheel to slip at the lowest gear. A higher gear would require more torque (Torque = r x f when they are at right angles to each other). The required tension on the chain is about 30#. 

Reading:

Chapters 15 & 16 in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Design

Chapter 15

Discussion led by: Sarah

Motorcycle references:

• Pg 175 chain adjuster. 

Content:

• John and Sylvia leave. The narrator takes Chris to a school with some significance to Phaedrus. Go to a place that the narrator remembers from his past.
• Discussion on thought and statement.
• The narrator encounters someone he believes to be a former student of his who is now a teacher at the school. The student is shocked because the narrator seems to have lost his beliefs.
• Pg 176 discussion about writing stories at school and a decline in quality of writing.
• A struggle to grapple with the meaning of quality from the point of view of the narrator who is a writing teacher.

Chapter 16

Discussion led by: Brian

Motorcycle references: none

Content:

• Discussion of a social experiment where there was a temporary implementation of a gradeless system at a school. The results showed that the students with the highest grades were the most supportive of the system because they were genuinely intellectually curious but the students with the lowest grades were the least supportive of the program because they wanted to know if they were passing or not.
• Discussion about writer’s block. Rather than her trying to write an essay about what other people say, Phaedrus encouraged the student to write on her own, create something new. Metaphor for climbing up the mountain. “Motivation of this sort, once it catches hold, is a ferocious force”
• Pg 181 “A memory came back of his own dismissal from the university for having too much to say”

 

Brian Notes, Week of 2/26/24 and 2/28/24 ————————————-

Monday, 2/26: 

Motorcycle Updates:

Troubleshooting group

• Adjusted the chain, took it off, took off two links, and then put it back on.
  • Required consideration for how many links to take off → shouldn’t take off more than necessary, took off two links → used a dremel with a spinning stone to grind off the top of the link end (which is made of hardened steel). To get the pin out, use a hammer with a metal end with a taper punch (matched the diameter of the pin). 
• Put cover back on on one side of the clutch

• Issue with the third of the three cables they’re working on – could maybe detach it, but might have to take off the carburetor, and put in a missing insert 

Engine Group

• Cleaned 90% of all the parts of the engine
• Used the parts cleaner for smaller parts, scrubbed things with WD-40
• Question – considering getting new covers, since one of them has a crack in it which is poorly patched up with putty
• Might need to look into drawer with other covers
• Stamped on the inside of the cover is the triumph number, so we can find one of the same make on ebay

Frame Group

• Check if there are any holes or major scratches or cracks in the frame
• Sandblasted part of the frame
• Sandblasting blasts compressed air with sand onto the metal, taking off pieces of it along the way → a vacuum is created by the moving air, and pulls up particles of sand which hits a surface, can be used to rough up or clean surfaces, take off paint, etc.
• On jet engines, they use dry ice instead of sand, and for other cases sometimes people use ground up walnut shells 
• Protected bearing surfaces by using caps to keep sand out when sandblasting
• Used wire brushes to take dirt off the frame 

Wheel / Electrical Group

• Disassembling the hub and cleaning parts
• Keeping track of stokes, distances between them, characterizing them so it’s easy to put them back together, including the offsets
• Then, taking the wheels off
• Rims and spokes came in 
• Took pictures of the spokes to keep track

Science:

• Could have enough torque from the back wheel to lift the front wheel off the ground
• Downforce on rear wheel is actually greater than previous calculation found 
• Angel of gravity is changing relative to the bike, which puts more weight on the back wheel, so we can accelerate more than what we previously calculated
• Half a g of acceleration → 0 to 60 mph in about 6 seconds
• If you brake too hard using the front brakes, you can flip over frontwards 

 

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Chapters 17, 18, 19

Chapter 17:

Discussion Leader: Ava

• Had a preliminary class discussion about our personal definitions of quality as a concept → longevity, being careful, robustness, difficult to find faults in it (both from a subjective and an objective point of view), what other people think of it (appearance), meeting various standards
• function → the wheels are round, the bearings are smooth, etc.
• appearance → more subjective, based on the expertise of the observer too
• emotional element → what is it like to ride it: easy to steer vs stiff, unbalanced vs balanced, etc.

Motorcycle References: n/a

Content: 

• Chris’ fears are discussed, and also where they start the discussion of quality and how to define it – it starts to go haywire when you try to define it
• Problems with trying to define quality – narrator comes up with a lot of failed definitions throughout his life, and thinks back to phaedrus as a teacher, but we see that neither of them can really reconcile a concrete definition
• Phaedrus is obsessed with definitions due to his classical training
• Pg 206 → “What is quality”, but after this point, Quality is capitalized, which indicates personification or added significance
• The issue with philosophers trying to define things → the struggle with knowing something empirically, as Phaedrus and his students do, but not being able to define it, which puts it at odds with reason… definitions are the foundation of rational thought
• Students are upset because Phaedrus doesn’t even know the answer to his question, which feels backwards because students should be pursuing new ideas 
• The narrator says that mountains should be climbed “as quickly as possible, and without desire” → focus in on quality by not really thinking about it too much 
• Quality is associated with authority, vividness, sensitivity, unity, etc. → unity is improved by using an outline, authority is improved by using footnotes, so there are tangible ways to get at quality

Chapter 18:

Discussion Leader: Ryan

Motorcycle References: n/a

Content:

• Delves further into the idea of quality, looks at Phaedrus’ discovery into the idea of being able to recognize the existence of quality, but not being able to define it. If we look at life and its elements, we can see how dull is without quality, so that proves that it has to exist, if we notice its absence. 
• Connection between quality and classical and romantic viewpoints, and since Phaedrus can’t define quality leads him to believe that it’s not really something in line with the classical view (because it’s not entirely logical) 
• “Life would just be living without any values or purpose at all” → speaking of the omission of quality… quality gives purpose, whereas pure rationality wouldn’t… quality adds ambiguity to life
• “Definitions are the foundation of reason” → why Phaedrus is driven crazy to define quality, but now he doesn’t want to define it
• one technique to check if something exists is to first remove it and see if anything changes it → philosophy technique
• Everything changes in quality’s absence, but the thing that changes the least is logic → potential point of disagreement, because there is quality of arguments… or like a compact proof in math. Phaedrus may have this view because he is looking only at the result, and not the process that leads to a result. 
• His conclusion in this chapter is that he wants to have it undefined 

Chapter 19:

Discussion Leader: Professor Littman 

Motorcycle References: n/a

Content:

• Definition of quality in subjective and objective lenses → is it what you like? or if it exists in the object, you have to explain how to quantify or detect it, otherwise it is nonsense… 
• Phaedrus’ peers ask him, does quality live in the object, or is it just personal preference (from the view of the observer)
• He starts to construct an argument in the mode of debate, as opposed to having a dialectical sort of discovery. He talks about the horns of the dilemma and how to go about them. 
  • Throw sand in the bull’s eye → change the topic
  • Refuse to enter the arena → ask a different question
  • There can be a classical type quality and a subjective type quality 
  • However, he ultimately decides that it is not either, it is a separate entity entirely and forms a trinity
• Summiting the mountain is a metaphor for and mirrors the level of his argument developing over time, and him finally coming to a conclusion that quality is completely separate from the classical or the romantic. Chris’ demeanor also shifts during this portion, so his inner journey is also dependent on this discovery of quality as framed by the chapter. 

 

Wednesday, 2/28: 

 

Motorcycle Updates:

Troubleshooting group

• • Attached the throttle cable to the carburetor
  • Attached the carburetor to the engine
  • Took apart a filter from the engine
    • pliers were used in this process, which flattened the threads attached to the filter for the oil reservoir: lesson is to never put tools on threads (no clamping, since the threads come to a point, so if any force is applied, they flatten) 

• If you ever need to hold the thread, jam two nuts together so that they’re tight. If you put the two of them together, they lock. The threads between jam nuts will stretch a little bit, and pull back like a spring (steel is elastic). Once they’re locked, then you can grab the nut and turn it. That’s how we removed the studs without hurting the threads . 

Engine Group

• Emailed about parts that were needed → crank ball bearing and a crank bearing as replacements → would be bought on ebay, or found in inventory
• Sandblasted the barrel, and the barrel was measured
  • Measured with the two telescoping pins that you lock in place that allows you to find the diameter of the barrel. The barrel is slightly oval.
  • The barrel was bored for 20,000th over the standard, and it was 3,000th over that. Looks like we will just hone the barrel (3 spring loaded stones that will clean up the surface by taking off a small amount of material). 
  • Re-boring is not necessary
• Had a conversation about disassembling the head even more and talked about welding
• The tool for compressing the springs was working, but it was stuck → eventually, John got it out 

Wheel Group

• Working on loosening spokes
• Some of the screws were messed up which was making the process difficult.
• Worst case, the spokes can be cut with a bolt cutter
• There is a large diameter hub on one side and a small diameter on the other side of the wheel. Some motorcycles, the hub diameter on either side is the same. Consequence on the spokes: one set of long spokes, one set of short spokes. The rim of the motorcycle, if you flip it over, is backwards → the dimples are desired for either short or long spokes. So, labeling the long and short side is very important. 
• Powder Coating is the next step, so all the grease needs to be removed before heating. 

Frame Group

• Inspected the frame for cracks 
• Cleaning down with a wet rag and drying it so that the steel doesn’t tarnish, also used the sandblaster 
• The frame was in pretty good shape according to Glenn
• Fume hood is now available for when solvents need to be used

Science:

• Torque vs angular velocity curve → for electric motor, should be a linear relationship
• Power vs angular velocity curve → greatest power at a given voltage is found at the peak of the parabola power curve.. similar idea to the hill curve for sports 
• Power = torque * omega (angular velocity), analogous to Power = force * velocity
• Device demonstration: find the difference in the tensions between the top and bottom rope, multiply by radius of the contraption’s wheel, this yields the torque load on the shaft 

Chapter 20 + 21 (very related, so we did them together):

Discussion Leader: Professor Littman

Motorcycle References: n/a

Content: 

• Chapter 20:

• • Chris and the narrator are climbing the mountain still 
  • Displays a chart relating reality (subjectivity and objectivity) to quality
    • He redefines the previous thought process, linking quality directly on the same level as reality → quality informs reality
  • Point about what Phaedrus was supposed to be teaching, the classical perspective of quality, versus what he was teaching, people’s impressions established what was good and what was not, not based on any metric analysis. 
  • Phaedrus defines a trinity, where quality is not inherently subdivided under the categories of classical and romantic. Quality is instead a separate entity, forming a trinity with objectivity and subjectivity. 
  • Interesting idea: All of our conscious thoughts are technically in the past. 
    • The past exists only in our memories, the future in our plans, the present is our only reality 
    • Everything is unreal, because you can only ever perceive things from the past → any vision, sensation, takes time from the object to you and your ability to process it. Your interpretation of it is always in the past, because you get your information late. 
    • “Any intellectually conceived object is always in the past”, and thus always unreal. “Reality is the moment of vision before the intellectualization takes place”. 
  • The classicist is concerned with the present in relation to the past and the present. The romantic exists in the present. 
  • Hegel vs Lao Tzu → The absolute mind (which draws only on the classical point of view)  and the Tao, the way and its powers… 
  • Phaedrus reads a poem discussing Tao, and makes sense of it in relation to his ideas of quality… he believes Tao is Quality

• Chapter 21:

• Climbing down the mountain, but the narrator never got to the top of the mountain – he doesn’t finish what Phaedrus started.
• As he’s explaining these ideas, he realizes that he’s talking more like his old self, so he decides not to go up, and Chris is disappointed.
• Phaedrus went crazy when he got a deeper understanding, and the narrator wants to avoid this
• The narrator separates Art, Religion, and Science under the umbrella of Quality. He’s not sure about what he said in the previous chapter. 
• Quality is the parent of the subjective and the objective. He puts quality at the top, right there with reality. 

William Swart Notes, Week of 3/4/24 and 3/6/24 ———————————

• Monday, 3/4:

• Motorcycle Updates:

• Troubleshooting Group

• Worked on the rear wheel and the chain link adjuster

• Put two nuts together on a chain link adjuster to straighten it

• Speedometer gear assembly on the rear wheel converts the rotating wheel into rotation of a small square pin that goes to a cable that carries the rotation up to the speedometer which also has a square pin on it connected to a magnet in it that shows how fast the motorcycle is going. Cleaned parts that were overly greased. 

• Looking for a correct spacer, but could not find one with the correct dimensions, so Kamila perused Ebay to find one but could not track down the physical dimensions so we will have to make one. 

• • • • • Plan: take off the front wheel because the front fender is touching the tires so the wheel is not able to spin without rubbing

• Engine Group:

• Cleaning parts

• Discussed the remaining parts 

• Going to finish sandblasting the crank 

• Talked more about the different parts and used a special tool to take apart the valve spring compressor
• Even if you put a lot of the parts under force, it still might not give way, so sometimes it is necessary to hit it with a hammer to free stuck parts

• Wheel Group:

• Taking the spokes off of the hub and cleaning them thoroughly

• Frame Group:

• Took apart the strut (rear suspension), a spring shock absorber, for cleaning

• Science:

• Electrical discussion to follow on Wednesday 

• New postings on website related to readings such as friction, virtual work, torque, “welling up,”and force-velocity relationship

• In lieu of a technical discussion, the good weather allowed us to go drive the Model T in the Friend Courtyard. After a brief discussion about the mechanics of it, including how the carburetor is above the engine without a fuel pump causing the car to be driven uphill backwards, everyone got a turn to drive it and it was a popular sight to see. 

• Chapter 22:

• Discussion Leader: Hasan Alsaedi

• Motorcycle References: none

• • Content:
    • Went from Bozeman to Three Forks, Butte, Anaconda, Phillipsburg, Maxville and Hall all in Montana to Missoula. 
    • Discussion about mathematics and polymath Jules Henri Poincaré theories through the narrators new Chautauqua

• Narrator compadres Phaedrus to Poincaré
• Discussion on Poincarés theory of geometry and narrator goes on to say it is not true it is advantageous
• Poincare was a deep thinker concerned with mathematical issues and truth
• Mention of Reimann and non-euclidean geometry
• Einstein’s idea is that there is no difference between gravity and acceleration (ex: light traveling by the sun bending)
  • If you think of light traveling in a straight line in deep space into an ascending elevator, the light will appear to have bent
  • Famous experiment of this carried about by Bob Dicke of Princeton in the mid-1900s corroborating this theory
  • Curvature of space and time
• One main point to this chapter: which is the best geometry?
  • Euclidean geometry vs. non-euclidean geometry
  • The decision is a subjective one, but also predicated off of the needs of the situation

• Chapter 23 (very short discussion on just a page):

• Discussion  Leader: Professor Littman

• Motorcycle References: none

• Content: 

• The narrators nightmare reoccurs where he is dead and cannot communicate with his grieving family but can see them through 

• The font is sans-serif meaning it is Phaedrus speaking but not the narrator.

• Chapter 24:

• Discussion Leader: Professor Littman

• Motorcycle References: none

• Not going to fast on curves

• The broken screw and methods for repairing it

• Content:

• Narrators begins by recalling that it was a dream
• Start moving again on the trip
• Revisits discussion of care and quality, both internal and external
• If you care about something, you will do a quality job on it
• Care is the internal manifestation and quality is the external appearance
• Important prelude to what is coming in the next two chapters: the narrator mentions the idea of being stuck and cannot derive a hypothesis to solve this issue
• The narrator is stuck fixing the motorcycle and the machine screw has gotten in his way because he worked on it too quickly and in the process he ripped the head of the slotted screw off
  • The screw itself is an inexpensive part but because he cannot get in to fix it it is worth the whole value of the motorcycle
  • He gets very frustrated
  • Different methods of extracting the screw like applying oil or using a wrench
• He has given up on his idea of three qualities and reverts to romantic vs. classic discussion
• Brings up qualities in different circumstance like Harry Truman as a pragmatic politician basically saying that if one thing doesn’t work he will just do something else
• Also brings up the train with boxcars behind it in conjunction with the idea of the classic quality
  • The locomotive and leading edge of the train is the romantic idea that he is driving at
• Preintellectual idea of the present versus the past and the future… the front of the train is lille the romantic idea and where it is going
• The narrator is trying to put classic and romantic on equal footing in that they each provide a different perspective
• He ends the Chautauqua rethinking about how to get the stuck screw out
  • Screw extractor
    • Tool with a spiral in it and some cutting edges that dig deep into the screw for a counter-clockwise extraction operation
  • Drill the screw out which may damage the threads and cause another issue
  • Burn it out with a torch
• They end this chapter in Grangeville, Idaho
• The next two chapters will deal with the idea of getting stuck

• Wednesday, 3/6

• Motorcycle Updates

• Troubleshooting Group:

• • • • • William and Fahad disassembled the wheel as there was an issue where the wheel was rubbing up against the fender so they took it apart to diagnose the issue and will put it back together carefully this class
        • Kamila and Drew worked on the speedometer and modified a part in the lathe 

• Engine Group:

• • • • • Aakansh and Brian finished sandblasting the barrel
        • Others took apart the head, made from aluminum alloy, with Jon and discussed what they would do with it… one option is to grind it a little bit 

• Wheel Group:

• • • • • Cleaning the hubs with the oil
        • Making sure they had all the parts of the brake components
        • Separating the break shoes from the two springs that were holding them in place
        • Task today is to get all of the parts that are to be powder coated together

• Frame Group:

• • • • • Checked for cracks in the frame and diagnosed that there were none
        • Learned about drilling and tapping holes in aluminum with the milling machine
        • A tap is a tool that allows one to cut into metal
        • Tried to take apart some of the suspension in the machine shop
        • Separated and cleaned some of the parts to be powder coated which Professor Littman will be taking to Philadelphia over the break 

• Science

• • • • Electrical System (system that generates the spark)
        • See diagram posted on website
        • Three electrical contacts
        • Ignition coil also has three electrical contacts
        • Two coils (one of which has more turns, called primary and secondary)
        • The primary is a very heavy wire with a few turns, and the secondary is lighter with many turns
        • Diagram shows the proper internal connection
        • Power in = power out 
          • Power = voltage x current
          • If the voltage is higher, the current is smaller
        • The secondary turn allows you to go from a small voltage to a big voltage
        • In the case of the motorcycle, going from voltage of a battery (6-12 volts) to 1-2,000 volts
        • The two coils are connected so there effectively only three wires
        • The top has a little cone because it is very high voltage which produces sparks, so you don’t want the wire to spark
        • The center electrode of the spark goes to the center of the spark plug which gets hooked up to the frame
        • On our motorcycle, we have points of tantalum that separate (open up) to produce a spark
        • Also there is a capacitor (two electrical plates) that improves the quality of the spark
        • Magneto-electricity: generating electricity from magnetism (“changing magnetism”)
      • Demonstrations
        • Spark generator
          • When you run current through it it will produce a magnetic field
          • The core is made of a bundle of wires
          • Primary coil around which becomes magnetic when you run current through it
          • When it gets magnetized iron gets pulled in and breaks the contact points, and then falls back
          • On the primary is completed and then stopped repeatedly
          • The magnetic field going through the core is large then zero (constantly fluctuating)
          • The secondary coil with thousands of turns is not attached to the primary coil at all… it is just wrapped around the core
          • The two electrodes are on either end
          • When you hook it up to a low voltage battery it will generate some sparks
          • The sparks that were being generated caused radio waves that caused the camera to actually disconnect from the projector… it disrupted the connection
          • The spark is about 20,000 volts per inch
        • Faraday’s Law: spinning magnet with some coils on either side
          • As the magnet spins, the magnetic field sensed by each coil is changing (gets larger then smaller and reverses direction)
          • As magnetic field is increasing, voltage is positive… as it is decreasing, voltage is negative
          • With an iron core inserted, it increases the effect by the permeability of the iron which is 1000x stronger so you are able to generate a voltage
          • Generator from the motorcycle has a stator and a rotor → 6 pole magnet spins on inside of stator which has 6 coils (only 2 needed to run the motorcycle)
          • One pair of coils used to generate voltage for ignition system, another for the horn, and another for the headlights
          • As magnet spins, magnetic field increases and decreases through each set of coils producing an AC voltage
          • On our motorcycle there is an ET system (no battery)

• Chapter 25:

• Discussion Leader: Professor Littman

• Motorcycle References: N/A

• • • • Content:
        • Passing through Idaho now
        • Analysis of the classic and romantic
        • Technology as it exists today lacks quality because proponents are not invested in its creation
        • Socrates and others say that one has to separate emotion and passion from analysis
        • Adam Smith in theory of moral philosophy has theory of being impassioned observer
        • Narrator rejects these notions… Phaedrus says inner peace of mind is the whole thing… physical and mental quietness
        • Quality is not just a sweet, romantic thing based on a classic analytic approach but that there is really more to it
        • Quality is the idea of caring about something that rejects modern views that a creator or consumer cannot identify with the technology

• Chapter 26:

• Discussion Leader: Professor Littman

• Motorcycle References: N/A

• • • Content:
      • In Oregon now
      • Gumption is the essence of the chapter
      • Narrator looks at his motorcycle and determines that it is quality: “Quality. It’s carried us so far without trouble.”
      • Narrator determined to never sell it as it will last longer than he does
        • He is in love with his motorcycle
      • In order to get things done, people need gumption and not fall into traps
      • Traps include internal and external
      • Setbacks are external and hangups are internal
        • Many subcategories of setbacks and hangups
        • Out-of-sequence assembly is one setback
          • Example: assembles motorcycle and sees he has an extra part so must take it apart and assemble correctly
          • Solution is to keep a notebook
        • Intermittent failure setback… things that do not happen always and are tough to accept
          • Try to correlate them with other things the cyclist is doing
          • They can cost money and pain
          • Solution is to be observant
        • Parts setbacks
          • When a part is broken, missing, worn
          • Must buy or fashion a replacement
          • Many different problems with getting parts
      • Hangups (internal gumption traps)
        • Value
          • Idea of rigidity… an idea in your mind that you cannot let go of
          • Example of the monkey trap
          • Ego – where you don’t admit you don’t know something
          • Anxiety – afraid to do something bad and do not even try
          • Stubbornness or refusal to ask for help
          • Boredom
          • Impatience
        • Truth
          • Concept of “mu” – or “no thing”
          • Two-term discrimination without consideration of other possibilities
          • Solution is to ask a better question when answer is indeterminate
        • Muscle
          • Mechanics feel… when you are tightening a bolt, now tight you do it
          • Know something about the properties of the material and the force to be applied
          • Able to discern quality based on feel
          • Be in a good physical position when working
      • Punchline of the chapter: “The real cycle you are working on is the cycle that you call yourself.”
      • “Self-help” chapter
      • Quality and the internal and external aspects to it
      • Motorcycle is just sort of a metaphor
  • Plan:
    • Every part to be powder coated in the wagon

 

Ella Simmons Notes, Week of 3/18/24 and 3/20/24 ———————————

Over Spring Break –

Parts were taken to the powder coater (in Philly). 23 parts taken to the powder coater. 

• Sandblast the metal parts to get off the parts
• Powder coating is an electrical process that joins the “powder” particles to electrically charged surfaces. If there are any surfaces that generate an electric field (like threads), the powder will be attracted to it and bond with it. So screws and caps were put on all threads/areas where we do not want it to be powder coated
• Frame fork tube took almost 3 hours to clean and prepare ! (degreasing, sealing up all the holes
• Chain guard was caked up with grease and whatnot

All parts now at the powder coater – they’ll come back in 2-3 weeks. For about $300, which is very reasonable!

 

– Went around and shared what we did during spring break instead of what we did in the lab – 

 

Discussion about the End of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – 

**Starting new book: Shop Class as Soulcraft (for next class read just the introduction)

Prof Littman lead the discussion – 

Started by breaking down the different pieces of the book. The book is the narrator’s fictional travel log about his trip across the country.

• Travel portion
  • End up in San Francisco. 
  • (Will) Left off when they were in Bend, and the narrator was lamenting being on the West Coast because everything moves so quick and seems so impersonal.
  • (Littman) Head down the coast of California to San Francisco in the last leg of the journey. When they get to the more coastal, urban areas, people become less social and more to themselves. 
• Narrator’s relationship with his son Chris
  • (Sarah) Chris is realizing that his relationship with his father is changing. Starts crying a bit more, has a breakdown.
  • (Gabrielle) Chris has more and more meltdowns until the narrator sends him home to protect himself and Chris. Chris doesn’t want to leave and the narrator realizes that Chris is similar to Phaedrus and might on the trajectory to become him.
  • (Littman) The Narrator’s dream about Phaedrus starts the tension between Chris and the narrator. The narrator makes the decision to send Chris back on the bus, but doesn’t tell him until much later thinking Chris will be relieved. Instead, Chris has a breakdown. As Phaedrus comes out more and more, Chris seems relieved. Chris realizes his father is a ‘fake’ and that they don’t have a ‘quality’ relationship. The book ends with the narrator turning into Phaedrus and Chris seems, again, relieved, breaking the tension.
  • (Sarah) We only get the perspective of the narrator, which shifts our perspective on the book.
  • (Littman) The narrator was not really living a quality life. 
  • (Bryan) The narrator early on is fairly cowardly, never accepting or engaging with Phadrus thoughts of quality (dream also shows this). 
  • (Sarah) A small moment where they are on the road and it’s raining, and the narrator puts the blinder down (for the rain), but decides he doesn’t like it, raising it. Chris stands up and says that he can finally see.
  • (Littman) Metaphorical that Chris is no longer in his father’s shadow but stands up and can see past his shoulders?
• Philosophy
  • (Sarah) Learns about philosophy at University of Chicago.
  • (Littman) The Narrator gets into University of Chicago through a trick and gets on the Committee of Analysis of Ideas and Study of Methods (does not get into the Philosophy department). Wants to argue with Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. Narrator tries to work out why Plato, Socrates and Aristotle did not think that rhetoric and the arts were not as important as science and reason. A soul is like quality in the narrator’s mind. Socrates says a person seeking truth is in a “chariot” and there are two horses pulling him along: a black horse that is passionate and keeps getting in the way of the chariot, and a white horse that is reason. The narrator reflects on his interaction with a professor where he disagreed with this story, and ‘outwitted’ the professor. However the narrator feels criticized, which makes him depressed and subsequently insane. 
  • (Littman) Mythos is the older Greek stories – myths. Logos are the newer Greek stories rooted in logic and reason. 

 

See Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance page on website for summary/important parts of each chapter. 

 

The next book, Shop Class as Soulcraft, has a lot of motorcycle references. Motorcycle repair forms the basis of a lot of examples.

 

During in Lab –

• Engine Group: John will be there. Painting barrel black with high temperature paint. Continue to work with John. Valve guides were loose so new ones were bought. Need to decide if the new ones can be inserted (John will make decision)
• Troubleshooting Group: Rear gear on, speedometer on, new clutch springs attached. Work with Littman. 
• Frame Group: Restore other parts (tank needs to be sandblasted, fenders need to be cleaned and sandblasted) while frame is in shop. Bondo is a paste that is sandable and that can fill in dents (will use this).
• Wheel Group: Work on Carburetor – which is very different from previous carburetors that we’ve had. 

Will probably have a guest a week for the next couple weeks. 

Wednesday——————————————-

Next week – 1 chapter
The following 3 weeks – 2 chapters
The last week – 1 chapter
Week 1: Chapter 1
Week 2: Chapters 2 and 3
Week 3: Chapters 4 and 5
Week 4: Chapters 6
(Due on Monday of each week)

 

Engine Group

• Talked about welding (there way a crack on the casing that needs to be fixed)
• Going to put the engine back together coming up
• Spent time setting up the engine stand
• Now is a great time to take pictures 

Troubleshooting

• Fixing chain link adjuster of rear wheel
• The oil line was loose, so another line was found and put on (now oil lines are tight enough that they won’t leak based on Littman’s experience)
• Used teflon tape on gas threads to create proper seal

Wheels

• Waiting for new rims and spokes
• Cleaning the carburetor (different than what we’ve had before in this course before because it has a float) – there are a number of holes in the carburetor and it’s important to figure out what’s connected to what. 
• Cleaned paint off the spring arm (a motorcycle from previous years)

Frame

• Sandblasted frame and part of the fuel engine (trying to get all the paint off) – mask is needed when using the sandblaster.

 

Several visitors lined up – Bill (wheel expert) will be coming in 1 to 2 weeks. Materials expert, chemical engineer, and fluids expert will also all be visiting. Someone should be coming in next week (probably Monday, but potentially Wednesday). 

Plan for today: go through introduction of Shop Class as Soulcraft. 

 

Discussion Leader: Professor Littman

(Littman) What do we know about the author from the introduction?

• (William) Did political science at University of Chicago.
• Worked at a think tank for a number of years, but didn’t find it fulfilling
• (Ryan) Puts a very high value on motorcycle maintenance in general. Cash in his pocket felt very different – from the motorcycle work it felt more meaningful. 
• (Danielle) People like being in a teamwork situation because they don’t want all the blame to be on themselves and they don’t want to do all the work
• (Littman) Book was written in 2009 right after the financial crash in 2008. There were some comments about college students becoming less attracted to Wall Street – he talks about this in the introduction. There is further discussion about the time frame the book was written in later in the book. 

The last book was: what is best? This book is more about: what work is best?

• (Sarah) The narrator has a different definition of success from most people. And he states that it’s important to not have other people tell you what you should od

(Littman) The narrator talks about trends in technology…

• (Sarah) As things has become more technological difficult, the technology has become more and more hidden, covered up (uses a car example)
• (Littman) Narrator says that there’s a trend of repair people repairing the entire system, instead of just one inexpensive part that’s broken. 
• (Brayn) I
• nteresting how narrator says manual work can be just as, if not more, stimulating 
• (Danielle) You also get to see the results of your work with manual labor – not the same way with traditional office work. 

There’s a difference between trade and craft. Crafts blend in with art. Trade is utilitarian. The narrator would rather call it trade. His experience with trade is with an electrician, and later carpentry. He mentions the “carpenters level”, which is the standard he has to meet. 

There’s a lot of tools available on ebay – because a lot of schools no longer teach shop class.

 

Fahad and Littman attached the high voltage cable to the top of the spark plug – however it was initially put on backwards so they made a modification to properly connect the two. (voltage is on the order of 5-10 thousand volts). The spark plug now generates a spark! Very close to getting the blue motorcycle to turn on. 

 

→ For the carburetor group: need to make sure the two jets on the carburetor (the main jet and the pilot jet) are absolutely clean

→ For the frame group: back to the sandblaster

→ For the engine group: work with John – potentially visit Glen to hone the barrel.

———————————————————————————–

Carson Notes for 3/25 and 3/27

3/25 

Motorcycle Updates: 

Troubleshooting group: 

• Drew connected fuel lines.
•  Filled up oil reservoir for the other motorcycle. Accidentally overfilled but syphoned it back to normal levels. 

Wheels Group: 

• Can start identifying parts to put back together. 
• Clean out where paint got into the threads of any parts. 

Frame Group: 

• Continued to sandblast, the fuel tank was finished. 
• Tank and fenders will be continued to be cleaned
• Paint, and primer will be applied. 

Engine Group: 

• Barrel was left with Glenn in the shop to hone. 
• Continued to take apart the engine and get a better understanding of how things fit back together. 

Professor Littman: 

• Put gas in the blue motorcycle and he thinks it may be close to starting.
• It kicked back when he tried to start it. 
• The timing of the spark was way off. Will continue to work on that in the future. 
• The clutch was slipping, but stronger springs were put in. 
• Clutch plates are also bent, which could be an issue. 

Science Discussion: 

• Electrical system: 
• Every time the points open up we get a spark. 
• Current flows from the battery through the coil into the breaker point. 
• Other ends of the breaker points are attached to the frame of the motorcycle. 
• The rectifier: should be 4 points on the rectifier, 4th goes to the frame of the motorcycle. 
• Rectifier converts AC into DC. 
• Diodes work in pairs. 
• Current flows counterclockwise. 
• Diodes do not start conducting until about a half volt is flowing through. 
• Our motorcycle has something called energy transfer, we do not have a rectifier. 
• Things are times precisely without a rectifier. 
• The downside of this is it makes the motorcycle harder to start. 

Reading

Shop Class as Soulcraft Chapter 1: 

Discussion leader: Professor Littman

• There is no longer an emphasis on arts or shop classes in general anymore. 
• Lack of understanding that some professions need trades. 
• Schools are not funding shop classes anymore. 
• It romanticized the assembly line, and for upper-class kids to create and have their own mark on making things. 
• Ford employed a lot of immigrants early on, the motivation of this act was two-fold: getting the children of labourers to have skills, and the second part has to do with the children of the managerial class, and making sure they have the skills of trades. 
• Talk about manual work having physical labor, and that modern white-collar jobs do not have much of this. 
• Nowadays people come out of university, without having any specific skills, and thats why people go back to university after leaving to acquire more physical skills. 
• The author talks about how the objects that workers make leave a permanent mark on the world. 
• Pride in workmanship, and your work being visible to others. Ex: fixing vehicles for restaurant employees that you visit.  
• It gives the author pride in owning a workshop instead of just being a member of a think tank. 
• Debate on education vs working in a trade. 
• Societal pressure for kids to go to college from the parents, but for some kids, it is better to go directly into a trade instead of going to university. 
• People were forced to work more in the past, and life got easier for many. As technology advanced more kids started going to university. 
• Argument from Alan Blinder, and how people assume that the manual labour market is in decline, but that is not the case. Physical labour cannot always be outsourced. “You can’t hammer a nail over the internet” 
• The author spoke on how much value he feels because he owns a shop instead of working in an office. 
• He enjoys making face-to-face transactions with people. 
• The author has a bad attitude towards the managerial crisis. 
• Mention the distinction between problem-solving and problem-finding. 
• Opposite of the craftsmen and the consumer. 
• Craftsmen care about what they build and put value on it. 
• The consumer does not put this same care on objects and gets rid of things when they fail or are not in use. 

————————————————————————————

3/27

  Motorcycle Updates: 

Troubleshooting Group: 

• Fixing up last things with blue motorcycle
• Fixing clutch plates that were bent. 
• Slipping because surface was lacking tension
• Sanded down the plates.
• Kickstarter ratchet was slipping, and engine would not move
• Professor Littman fixed the timing Trying to rough up the clutch plates
• Spent some time trying to take apart a rubber spacer from the clutch

Engine Group: 

• Cleaned up more parts
• Put the extra engine back together
• Worked on fixing the cracked cover with brazing
• Brazing is an alternative to welding
• Attempted on a separate cover, did not work very well
• Glenn pressed in Valve guides
• Using a machine screw, pushed the valve guides out, and pushed them back in
• Glenn honed the cylinder. 

Frame Group: 

• Used the sandblaster to finish the fuel tank
• Took screws off of hub caps
• Continue to sandblast on fenders

Wheels Group: 

• Caps on the hubs were removed
• Get ready to press in the bearings, find the axels
• Bearings have came in
• Powder coating did not protect the drum
• Inner surfaces are covered in paint, they all need to be sanded by hand

Kickstarter and Timing Information: 

• There are 2 shafts
• The main shaft and the layshaft
• There is a sprocket in the back of the engine that runs the rear wheel
• Main shaft is connected to the clutch basket
• Clutch basket is moved when you kick. 
• The shaft rotates which starts the engine
• When in gear, the clutch basket turns the main and layshaft
• When you want to disengage the engine, you press the clutch in and separate the plates. 
• Shafts are in neutral when the motorcycle is not moving
• Timing: the timing was off on Sunday. 
• Had to figure out when the piston was at top dead center
• Prof Littman had to adjust the points, so that a spark is created just before top dead center on the piston
• Four degress before top dead center is when the points are supposed to open

———————————————————————————–

Aakansh Yerpude — 4/1 & 4/3 Notes

4/1 Notes

Group Updates

Speakers

• Can ask about various topics for the presentation we all have to do at the end of the year

Martinelli coming this Wednesday

• can ask about carburetors, fluid mechanics device, Bernulli’s equation, atomization of fuel
• engine group: can ask about the barrel, fins on the barrel for air cooling, size/number of fins

Bill Becker coming next Monday 4/8

• retired architect, designer of a project at the Franklin Institute that was there for 8 years
• Started restoring motorcycles during retirement
• Will tell us about the physics of wheels

Professor Ju coming next next Monday 4/15

• Expert in combustion, teaches rocket propulsion course
• Produces materials and flames
• Ammonia is very bad for emissions, it’s a pollutant — using it as a fuel is bad

Professor Arnold -> last week of the semester

Shoutout to Will and Drew for starting the motorcycle

Engine

• Finished cleaning engine, cleaned screws 
• Talked to Glenn about honing the barrel and the bearings
• Applied polish to the valves, putting it in the head and spinning 
• Jon is going to help use the seat cutter, angle is super important
  • The valve presses into the seat
  • 3 angles; the valve itself sits on one side so it makes contact on the middle of the valve
  • If the valves aren’t done right, the motorcycle will leak: poor performance and will get smoke out of it
• Put the spare engine back together
• Jon showed us how to switch gears using the kickstarters

Wheel

• Got the new hub back
• Scrubbing paint off the interior of the hub with sandpaper
• Professor ordered brake shoes, will allow to put the wheels together
• Cleaning up the bearings, shafts, washers using the oil cleaner

Troubleshooting

• Working on electrical system, on/off, headlights
• Going to wire in just the ignition system and the taillight and maybe the headlight

Frame

• Finished sandblaster mud cap
• Took screws out of the mud cap
• Used a tool to get the paint off the new frame
• Professor talked about using Bondo for the dents and what not, then putting sandable primer on it

Idea of integrated design: one of the criticisms of the motorcycle — top end of the frame is free to flop around, so the integrated design = bolted both ends of it

Going to put the fender back on to stiffen the assembly, 

Shop Class as Soulcraft

Chapter 2. The Separation of Thinking from Doing

Professor Littman as discussion leader

Content

• Degradation of blue collar work
  • Talks about the difference between labor time vs labor cost, cognitive aspects of that, concepts of wages as compensation and what that means — Ava
  • Industrialization, new technologies being discovered that makes work more efficient — Ryan
  • Brings up Henry Ford assembly line, separating all the tasks — thinking is separated from doing because workers are mindlessly performing a task — Will
  • “Labor and Monopoly Capital: Degradation of Work in the 20th Century”
  • Scientific management — labor cost vs labor time, becomes less of a skill and more of a capitalistic endeavor — Ella
  • Discussion of how its difficult to keep employees, hiring 1000 to get 100 to stay, Ford increased their wage and people began to work more efficiently even though costs became higher — Wages as compensation vs the job being intellectually stimulating — Daniella
  • Using science to promote the idea of management: time and motion studies
• Degradation of white collar work
  • White collar work has become smaller and smaller — has turned into more of the elite group of people with knowledge — Leila
  • Everyone is an einstein
    • Argument from Richard Florida: being self-directed and creative, brings in business model of Best Buy which encourages employees to create their own ways of selling their products as best as they can — Leila
    • Even if it doesn’t increase sales or success, the leaders of the company attribute failures to those people — Daniella
    • These people are asked to do extra creative labor for no increase in compensation even if their ideas are used, false sense of agency to the workers — Brian
• Can’t just be creative without having understood disciplines of the field; can’t build a bridge unless you know how forces and designs work. However it is still important to let the playful side out, but is very critical of those who are just playful and not grounded
• Ex: musicians / mathematicians can be creative but first have to gain a lot of knowledge and experience
• From book, advice to young people: if you go to college, treat it as a spirit of craftsmanship going deep into the subjects
  • Pertinent to our current situation, going deep into liberal arts and sciences which is central to Princeton — Will
• Expert systems are relevant today, automatic decision making, idea of decision trees

Chapter 3. To Be Master of One’s Own Stuff

Motorcycle references

• Kickstarting the motorcycle
  • modern motorcycles do not have traditional kickstarters
  • Bigger motorcycle, higher compression ratio = harder to kick it over
• Dipstick on the oil, example of Mercedes who doesn’t include the dipstick anymore
  • Allows you to figure out how much oil is in the crankcase
  • Takes away the agency and appreciation of what’s happening in the engine
• Oil on a motorcycle
  • History of old motorcycles vs newer ones, lubrication of hand pump
    • Hand pump: putting some oil into the engine as you’re riding, if you forget = engine wear, if you put too much = wasting oil
• Agency vs autonomy
  • Agency is that a person is able to directly fix the object themselves, autonomy means knowing it needs to be fixed but they have the power to take it to someone and that it can run without you needing to get involved
  • Author advocates for agency, but the consumer wants autonomy
• Device and a thing
  • The thing is something that you have to control, vs interacting through the world with the device
  • Stereo is a device, guitar is a thing
• Betty Crocker cruiser
  • Argues that betty crocker made a mix that only had you add water, but the ones where you had to add eggs sold better because it gave you the sense of autonomy and that you’re actually doing something
  • It’s not the product but the practice that is really attractive: know what you’re doing

 

As weight flies out, cam rotates, when piston hits top center the points open up

From the time you hit the spark, the fuel starts burning but it takes time and doesn’t burn instantly. You adbacne the spark so that you get the maximum push after the piston has gotten to the top and center. Speed of combustion matters, the faster you go, the more you advance the spark

 

Next week read chapters 4 and 5, will discuss those on Wednesday

Monday we have a guest speaker, discussing wheels

 

4/3 Notes

Group Updates

Frame

• Epoxy, mixing up the tube
• Bondo
• Bolts from frame were sent to the powder coater

Engine

• Pressed bearings into covers
• Took pictures of expanded view in the engine
• Scanned the cover of the gasket, making a graphic that will go to the laser cutter

Troubleshooting

• Attaching the fender back on to the cover of the bike, raised it and put it on a platform so the wheel could be taken off and fender was attached

Professor Martinelli

• From italy, came to Princeton for grad school and did a PHD, after research he started teaching
• Taught fluid mechanics, 305, 306, 321
• Background in aerospace engineering, aeronautical and aerodynamics
• If you try to move through a fluid — which is air — the fluid will oppose the motion
  • This drag must be overcome for the motorcycle to move
  • you put the body that you want to analyze and you take some measurement and sometimes is actually a very useful to have a flow visualization only of the around the body motion picture
• Often propulsion requires a fluid
• Work is generated by compressing and expanding a fluid
  • Working fluid is a mix of gasoline and air; it fires in the cylinder and expands and creates work
• A sailboat is the most integrated system in engineering
• Engine cooling requires exchange of heat in engine with outside air
• For incompressible fluid mechanics, there’s a powerful law: Venturi effect and Bernulli’s equation: 
  • For an incompressible flow, a reduction of area causes an increase in local flow velocity and a consequent decrease in pressure
• The carburetor then fulfills three main functions: 
  • Control the engine power by adjusting the air intake flow according to the command of the rider
  • Meter the fuel flow in the air flow
  • Homogenize the mixture of air and fuel to enable the subsequent 
• Fin’s Heat Transfer:
  • The temperature inside the cylinder can be as high as 2000 C
  • Cylinder head is at a much lower temperature
  • Convective heat transfer:
    • Inside the metal = conduction, heat flux will be proportional to some characteristics of the material 
  • Energy balance for a fin results in many equations
  • It is possible to obtain optimal thicknesses, spacing of the fins by mathematical computations
  • Discussion of flow patterns and typical covered wheel
  • All the forces and drag are generated by the spin
• Q: We have three different types of pistons, flatheaded, domed, and significantly domed. The issue has to do with the compression ratio. How important is the shape of the dome on the piston?
  • A: Depends on what you’re trying to do. On your engine, probably not that important. But if you want to increase the fuel efficiency, you want to have a rich charge at the beginning for ignition, and then a lean charge when the temperature is high so you burn less fuel. In this case, you need to get a swirl on the cylinder, the shape of the piston is very important.
• Q: Shape of our motorcycle affecting its aerodynamics?
  • A: It’s pretty lousy, not a streamline, which creates a lot of drag. Compute the frontal area with the rider and use some formula related to turbulent weight, and then you can estimate drag. Most of the drag is going to be affected by the frontal area and the person riding it.

---

Ryan Brunswick 4/8 & 4/10 Notes

4/8 Notes – Guest Speaker: Bill Becker 

Evolution of the Motorcycle Wheel

• 1790 first wooden prototype
• 1885 first motorcycle with motor
• 1895 spoked wheel with metal rim and hub 
• 1960 Modernized motorcycle design/front wheel spokes and rear wheel used cast
• Todays using wheels with magnesium or even aluminum 

 

Major wheel design influences 

• Weight
• Speed/efficiency
• Technological advancement and industrial revolution 

 

Material property considerations 

• Strength 
• Flexibility 
• Cost 
• Conductivity 

 

Rim and spokes made out of steel for our wheel. Best Performance at the lowest cost = efficiency 

 

Dead Load = Motorcycle weight itself 

Live Load = Additional weight like passengers 

Static Load = Wheel at rest 

Dynamic Load = Wheel in motion 

Acceleration of back wheel (Rotary torque), applying break, turning the motorcycle, colliding with an object or maybe a curve.

Spokes divided into groups of 4. 40 for British wheel. 4 spokes in a cluster because. One to transfer energy from hub to rim. Once to decelerate. One Spoke to the left and one spoke to the right. Basically each used for the 4 different directions. Our wheel uses triangulation pattern for spokes. More stable than other designs. Also triangulation in the cross section of the wheel.

5 basic forces involved: compression, tension, shear, bending, torsion

The tire is perfect for resisting impact and protecting the internals of the wheel. The rim undergoes serious compression. Spokes help resist tension and protect the hub. Hub in tension with the spokes. Spoke is only good in tension because it can’t resist compression well due to its slenderness.

Static load resisting gravity… all spokes experiencing different degrees of tension. Top 20 spokes do all the work as motorcycle is just sitting there. 

Acceleration – back 20 spokes go into tension

Brakes – front 20 spokes go into tension

Same thing for turning. 20 spoke taking in the tension and other 20 taking a brake.

Stress – Applying forces to an element 

Strain – Reaction to Stress. Too much stress will lead to the inevitable breakage of a material. 

Relationship between stress and strain (Young’s model).  As soon as glass stressed beyond its elasticity, it breaks. 

Strength of our steel spoke can hold 750 pounds before breaking. Strain = 0.002 inches 

4/10 Notes Book Discussion

Chapter 4 Notes

• Different people better suited to different careers based on what they are more apt at + more passionate about 
• Too focused on money + test scores at the cost of actually finding out what we are truly good at
• Need to be careful about how we choose our careers 
• Narrator speaks about his first job at car shop and how he first had to do a lot of menial tasks (ex. parts cleaner). After a while, however, he finally got to do a lot of fulfilling hands-on work with the cars. 
• Wasn’t instructed on what to do in car shop. Had to figure things out for himself primarily
• Mechanics taught him how to pack a wheel bearing (Putting grease in wheel bearing so it doesn’t wear).
• Fixing is very different from building from scratch
• Doctors and mechanics fix things that they haven’t made
• String Theory – The theoretical vs the practical. Shoelace example: Tougher material might prompt more resilience when untying shoe 
• New mentor is more inviting and sparks joy in the narrator’s work 
• Narrator want to quadruple speed of Volkswagen car (Ideas to increase speed: Boring the cylinder, more efficient fuel, adjust carburetor to let in more air, turbocharger used to increase pressure and get more air in.) 
• Tries to customize engine and finds a problem: the galling (scratching) of the cam loads and the rocker pushing too hard on the valve stem. 
• Determined the springs were too stiff. Why? To accommodate higher RPM’s 
• Discussion of drawing and that in order to do a good job, you need to have high attention to detail. Likewise, same idea applies to mechanical repair. 

Chapter 5 Notes

• Career change to motorcycle mechanic 
• One day a Motorcycle doesn’t work…
• Applies current and it started to spin but then it would stop
• Fix: Pull out the bearings and put in another set of bearings
• As the Narrator gains more experience, he’s able to to solve more repair problems independently
• Business aspect does not come naturally to Narrator
• Question: Should Narrator charge the customer for mistakes made during repair that take up more time. 
• Incentive for mechanics to replace parts that don’t really need to be replaced because it makes them money

April 15 notes:

Fahad bin Faisal

What happened last week:

Engine group: debating on which cam shack to use. Making sure the ratios are correct after realizing the piston ratio was off. Too hard to kickstart. Debating on which piston to use. Ignition timing.

Framing group; fixed a dent in the tank, sanding down. Putting parts of the frame back together.

Wheels: spokes. They did a wring twist and trying to make it right.

Troubleshooting: electrical system, mapping out how to route it thorough the system. carburetor and getting the screws right.

Guest:

Professor Ju, MAE department. Research area is in combustion and propulsion. Working with NASA on propulsion system. using renewable electricity to do manufactured materials, ammonia, and hydrogen. Leading DOE energy earth shot. Teaching rockets and hydrogen propulsion for rockets.

Ignition. Light too early, high early combustion, longer resin time in the engine. NOx: nitrogen in high temperature, nitrogen reacts with oxygen to create NOx, NOx. Created acid rain. PH values of swimming pools. Causing human health issues.

 It has to be regulated from all propulsion aircrafts. From 1990, car companies have to sacrifice efficiency to regulate NOx emission. The higher the temperature, the higher the NOx. Ignition earlier, you are causing the engine to knock. Two things which make you want to delay the ignition. Less time for engine knock.

If you go to the pump station, you have to choose an octane number. It is the engine running of fuel. They have a standard test engine, putting the fuel and running the engine. In a gas engine you suck the air and keep the fuel, you have a spark. The speed of a flame is less thana. Meter per second. The engine consumes the fuel in 10 milliseconds. Knock means the mixture is so reactive that the rest of the fuel starts to auto-ignite. Once the flame ignites by itself, the speed of ignition rises and can cause detonation. The detonation can be 50x higher. It could destroy the engine right away.

To prevent this, you use octane number. The higher, the more anti-knock. The fuel allows you to operate at a higher pressure more efficiently. Engine temperature is important to. The hotter the engine the higher the knock.

Diesel engine doesn’t have a spark, they auto-ignite.

Octane measure is real fuel, if you have 100% octane, octane is 100. It will be less resistant to knock. Alcohol octane number is close to 110. 110 happens when you increase the pressure needed for a knock.

Alcohol has high octane numbers; inner density is lower.

High pressure=higher efficiency. Same with rockets.

The highest temperature normalized by the lowest temperature. Lowest temperature is the. Environmental temperature. Making the temperature higher.

In the world there is big emphasis on decarbonization. Using battery to prevent this. In the near future this will happened. How do we reduce the energy sectors in manufacturing.

In China, EVs occupy 50% of new car sales in China. Less than 10% in the US.

China, 10 years ago wanted to shortcut the route to EVs. For that to happen. They need two things.  Price has to be low. Electricity has to be cheaper. China’s coal powerplant increased dramatically, to make energy cheap. China is both helping and hurting the climate issue. Every two weeks China builds a new coal mine.

In the US if you increase dramatically renewable electricity, you cannot use batteries to stop it. You cannot pump water to the reservoir. You use peak hours of fluctuating electricity. For 10 years it will still be there. For large scale energy stories,

Milai cars in Japan. Have a hydrogen gas tank in the car.

If you compress hydrogen into 200 bars for cars to use, you lose 15% of efficiency to use it.

Transportation, safety, and density make hydrogen not a great choice for somewhere like Japan.

Liquid ammonia; much higher density compared to hydrogen. Don’t worry about the burning. Transportation, safety etc. problem with ammonia is if you burn it, it takes thousands of ppm of NOx. You’re creating thousands of PPMs.

Gas turbines: jet engine.

Princeton have two gas turbine engines. They can be up to 30% efficient.

Combined cycle is very preferable.

In 20 years’ time:

Batteries will be widespread.

Hydrogen will be the clean energy generator. You can clearly change it.

Green, blue, and dark hydrogen. Dark hydrogen from natural gas. Green hydrogen is from electrolysis. Blue hydrogen is electrified paralysis of methane from hydrogen and carbon.

AI; and driverless cars are going to be the future.

Africa and. Asia. Africa and Asia are incomparable in terms of size.

For KSA in the next 20 years, oil will still be around. In the long term, these countries will move on to nuclear energy, etc.

The government of Saudi should look at green energy.

Marine engines and ammonia.

You create enormous amounts of N20, it’s a two or four stroke engine. They continue on one engine. If you have CO2/hydrogen. Burn alcohol it’s much better than ammonia.

Guest left.

Presentation on the 6^th. Reading on Monday. Next week Ch.8 and the afterword.

April 17 notes:

Fahd bin Faisal

Cap screws:

Top ones for US bolts.

No markings.

3 radial lines.

6 radial lines.

The bolts would look identical. But the yield strength differs. More markings, more yield strength.

Readings:

Chapter 6:

Contradictions of a cubicle:

Dilbert cartoons: engineer in a cubicle.

The point made in the beginning is: results-based and performance-orienting. That is very easy to say, but you are not really producing anything either.

“production of goods instead of production of brands”

Indexing and abstracting:

Ziff-Davis company: still exist. Book isn’t sure whether they are still around, but they are.

He got hired for the job because he had a masters. He was being paid more. His job was to read a paper, and then rewrite the abstract. He thought it to be quite dumb. Supposedly writing an abstract for nothing he knows about.

His credentials got him the position, but he isn’t confident in it.

Interaction with his supervisor: she critiques his work; she had his job previously. When she is critical, she pays specific focus on the grammar and not the content. The company isn’t doing anything worthwhile, they’re just in business.

Issues of credentials:

How important credentials are to a job.

Soft skills are more important than learning a trade in this world.

Recruiters saying that your grades don’t matter. You’ve shown a display of “middle class self-discipline” in that you can do disciplined study of a specific field.

Ranking has some effect on graduate school.

Teamwork-pull getting people to work together. The ego-breaking attitude.

The crew vs the team.

How do you figure out whether you’re doing a good job?

Individual agency and through it figuring out if you’re doing a good job.

Through good organization and insight, you can balance and improve individual output.

Steve Jobs at Apple-left and Apple did poorly. Comes back and turns it back around. The metric here is how well the whole company is doing.

Chapter 7:

Thinking as doing:

Education nowadays focuses in knowing why and not how. People don’t know how to perform tasks, but just know the ways of doing it.

Knowing how is more important than knowing why.

People have a know-how of a particular system. they know how to operate but know how to improve upon. Other people can make radical improvements that knob-twiddlers won’t be able to do.

People who work on electrical systems know that thy need to make their work tight, dry, and clean.

Ohms law: relationship between voltage/current and resistance.

Story of fixing an electrical system that isn’t working. It’s a wet day, so he brings out a WD40, a water displacement, it replaces the water with the surface of oil. If something’s wet, you spray it with WD40. If it’s a sandy day, you can use an air hose instead of the WD40.

Tasset knowledge of the firefighter and chess master.

Formulaic thinking, how some people tend to think in patterns. You start with the example of firefighters. Also talks about the IBM’s deep blue. Also, the ultimate chess master in 97. Ability to predict move and see patterns. Mechanics see patterns from prior experiences.

Training sets are what these neural networks do. Through the patterns they give you an answer.

Neural networks are nothing but pattern recognizers.

A mechanic figures out connections, without really understanding what’s going on underneath.

Chapter 8 and concluding remarks next week. Also last page on acknowledgements.

Celia Notes for 04/22/2024

• Monday, 4/22

• Motorcycle Updates

• Troubleshooting Group:

• Worked on electrical routing, but focused more on technical issues (aka wire sizes, unconnected wires). We are using multi stranded copper wire. Has 30/40 strands. 

• Engine Group:

• Putting engine together. Figured out how to put bush into case. Didn’t work well (got stuck). Put bush into freezer so it shrunk. Tight fitting -> same size as other bush, so purchased a replacement. Oil passageways in bush due to the bush getting the hottest in all of the motorcycle. When in place, should blow air into oil passageway and make sure it’s coming out the right hole.

• Wheel Group:

• Worked on trueing the wheel. Make sure it isn’t oblong in any direction – if it is, tighten the spokes. Concentricity with axle is critical.

• Frame Group:

• Used Milwalkee drill to sand down Bondo with a sanding disk. Replacement Bondo is sanded too much. Work on struts (shock absorbers) attached to other frame. Work on assembling front forks.

• Science

• Wires may be needed to be held in a crimping manner, thus you usually twist them together and solder. Higher gage wire, higher current. AC wire is raised on the outside (skin effect). Means a wire with a lot of current and its AC, it wouldn’t make sense to have a solid wire because only outer millimeters are being used. 
• Meet today, Wednesday, Final class meeting in same class May 6th. Model T and motorcycles and class picture! Presentations: 15 min for presentations, posted on webpage. Also 1 page self assessment. 
• Stress strain curve. Strength of spoke. For a spring, the more you stretch it, the more force. Graph demonstrates these forces and is on website. Demo 

• Chapter 8:

• Discussion Leader: Professor Littman

• Motorcycle References: N/A

• Content:
  • Starts with anecdote about the first perfect ten. Compares it to how a lot of jobs make people seek external validation as opposed to internal validation. 
  • Idea of the standard. Starts with Nadia’s personal and intrinsic validation that she could be judged by. 
  • People nowadays don’t see a measurable result from their work.
  • Speed shop. Line between job and leisure as a way of life. Social hierarchy is tied to community. 
  • Workers from Uk and Germany, as model for enjoying own job. 
  • Karl Marx – author grew up in commune. False consciousness. Marx plays down idea of pride in product. 
  • Mortgage market – local vs national bank. Psychology experiment. He likes seeing the fruits of his labor. 
  • End with discussion of own personal pov on book and author’s ideals.
  • Wednesday, 4/24
    • Motorcycle Updates
    • Troubleshooting Group:
    • Electrical system work. Best way to bring wires from front of motorcycle to back without having them touch anything – through a hotline. Continue with that today, and if done, can run it. 
    • Engine Group:
    • Put in rockers and gaskets and covers on. Crankshaft was worrying because it wasn’t going in, maybe because it was compressed. Solution was just push it in further. Talking about bush in case.  
    • Wheel Group:
    • 19 in wheel from the blue bike is put back together and on the blue bike. Still worked on truing as the rim was not centered on the hub. The front wheel was in the forks, it was off center. Process of shifting the whole rim in comparison to the hub to center it and put it all back together. 
    • Frame Group:
    • Worked on tank – applied more bondo and sanded down tank.
    • Science
    • Crank has shaft that connects both halves – centered shaft. One side goes into bush (bush is a cylinder that takes shaft so it can turn) and the other side into a ball bearing. Issue of whether or not shaft is lined up with connecting rod. Connecting rod connects into piston. Nothing connecting the halves other than the journal. Two halves can be clocked relative to one another. Crank out and given to Glen so put into a feeler gage so as you manually rotate the laith, you can see it manually moved in and out. Checked 2nd half. We found it was out a fair amount which is important because it can cause bad vibrations in motorcycle. Used heavy mallet, find place with journal connecting two halves, and based on that hit it with a mallet pretty hard to get it to move. 
    • When in shop verified all oil passageways into bush were clear.
    • Tension or compression testing. Strain gage tests strain. Measured stress strain relationship for a piece of steel.  Stretch before it breaks. Wheel group talk about calculation of diameter of spokes in presentation. 
    • Concluding remarks:
    • Discussion Leader: Professor Littman
    • Motorcycle References: N/A
    • Content:
      • Reason he wrote it was because he was struggling himself to find out what he was going to do with his life – the issue of what constitutes meaningful work. Talks about experience with bankers. Inclination for bankers to actually want to get to know clientele and scope out trust, because of this less evaluation of risk, crash of 2008.
      • Experience of going to India. Artist worked in metal, common language of art and motorcycle. Connection across cultures. Less isolation. 
      • Controversial psychologist – Charles Murry. Talks about book about education. Confrontation of failure – makes you humble. Freedom for self reliance. 
    • Acknowledgements:
    • Discussion Leader: Professor Littman
    • Motorcycle References: N/A
    • Content:
      • Combine disciplines of machines and economics. Sense of where the author got his information – dealing with idea of meaningful work. 
    • Plan:
      • Post Princeton plans? Whole class discussion.