Geeky Girl Engineer – Page 54 – Nature, travel, pets, home renovation, and geekery

Solar Eclipse : The solar eclipse is the main reason I came out west for vacation. I have seen a partial solar eclipse before, but never a total solar eclipse. It was like Continue Reading →

Snorkeling in Alaska : While planning for my vacation in Alaska, I learned that there is a company, appropriately named Snorkel Alaska, that leads snorkeling tours near Ketchikan. If there is a way for Continue Reading →

Carrie Blast Furnaces : I’m in Pittsburgh for the long weekend. Today I took a tour with Rivers of Steel of the Carrie Blast Furnaces. The area is part of the former U.S. Steel Continue Reading →

Nuttallburg : I started exploring New River Gorge National Park today. It is second on my list of things to see in West Virginia after the capitol. The park is really spread Continue Reading →

Bridge Walk : I spent today doing more exploring of New River Gorge National Park, but I started the day by walking across a bridge. The walk across the bridge was under the Continue Reading →

Solar Impulse

Posted on June 23, 2013 by geek

Solar Impulse, the solar powered plane that can store enough energy to fly through the night, is currently at Udvar-Hazy Center. The plane is a marvel of engineering both from the standpoint of being able to collect enough solar energy during the day to power itself all day and through the following night but also from the standpoint of being light enough in weight that it needs very little energy to keep it flying. I went to see it while it was open for public viewing Saturday, and from an engineering perspective, it is just beautiful. When viewed in person, you can see how the plane is covered in high strength fabric. In the back stabilizer, you can see the internal structures that give the stabilizer its shape. It is just an amazing vehicle. Note: If you click on any of the photos, it will open up larger in a new page to allow a better look.

front panorama of Solar Impulse

Side panorama of Solar Impulse

Solar Impulse cockpit and middle two propellors

view down the wing span

Tail and stabilizer

View of stabilizer from side showing internal support

View from below stabilizer showing internal supports and photovoltaic cells above

Solar Impulse wing flaps with photovoltaic cells on top

View between wing flaps using my zoom lens to show wires connecting photovoltaic cells

Giant Shiny Ball Play Thing

Posted on June 21, 2013 by geek

Last night, I went to Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences (CPNAS)‘s D.C. Art Science Evening Rendezvous (DASER). It is a monthly discussion forum on art and science. They always have interesting speakers, and it is one of the cool things about living in the DC area. Anyway, last night upon walking into the room right before the program began, I was immediately intrigued by this enormous sphere siting in the corner of the room, which I dubbed the Giant Shiny Ball Play Thing.

I had no idea what this thing was, and there was no mention of it in the program. I envisioned the amazing game of beach ball toss that a large crowd could play with it. The Giant Shiny Ball Play Thing was seriously one of the coolest things I had ever seen, and I wanted one. Sure it was probably about 10 feet in diameter and would never fit in my house. Even if it did fit in my house, putting a shiny inflatable ball in the same house with my cat and her claws would not end well at all.

I finally found out that the Giant Shiny Ball Play Thing is a reproduction of a satelloon. Greg Allen, one of the speakers, had it fabricated as part of his Exhibition Space exhibit. A satelloon is satellite balloon, of course, and I’m going to bet that either an engineer or scientist came up with that name. NASA made satelloons for Project Echo from 1956-1964. I am not going to describe the whole history because Greg Allen has a great summary of the project and the amazing satelloons. If you want even more history, you can read about it straight from NASA. The history is fascinating.

Thus the Giant Shiny Ball Play Thing is really a symbol of some incredible science and engineering history. I still want to play with it though. Also, I took a fun self portrait of myself in the satelloon.

There, dear readers, now you know what I look like.

Finally, if like me, you can’t get enough of the Giant Shiny Ball Play Thing, Heather Goss created this fun Vine video of it being deflated.

Kilograms Do NOT Measure Weight

Posted on June 19, 2013 by geek

I think like many engineers, one of the reasons that I liked the idea of going into engineering was the mistaken belief that a career in engineering meant working with numbers and not having to write. I have never been very good with words. I love numbers. Numbers make sense to me. Words confuse me at times. Also, the English language in general makes no logical sense to me, and I am a native English speaker. [Well, I’m a Southern, so you can go ahead and make an argument against the native English speaker part.] I can’t spell worth crap because of the aforementioned English language illogical thing. This is actually fairly common among engineers. Had my family known the warnings signs, it would have been obvious since I was about 5 years old that I was destined to be an engineer. I have always been good with numbers, and I can’t spell worth crap. Take note parents, as these are the warning signs your child may be an engineer. Also, an early love of duct tape.

I am fairly good with grammar though probably because there are more rules and less exceptions. Partially because of this and for other reasons, at my current job, I often edit other people’s documents not just for science and engineering accuracy but also for grammar, readability, and clarity. I have also been a peer reviewer for a few manuscripts submitted to scientific journals, and previously, I used to edit manuscripts that were about to be submitted to peer review journals. I keep coming across certain words and phrases that are scientifically and grammatically incorrect. There are many grammar style manuals that exist, but I have yet to come across a science grammar style manual. If one exists, I would love for someone to point me to it. So I’ve decided to start writing about some of the most common and inappropriate phrases in the hope that maybe it will stop at least one one person from using these incorrect phrases.

The most common and completely wrong phrase I see is stating that something or someone weighs a certain number of kilograms. Ironically, non-US citizens, i.e. people who live in a country where they use the metric system, are just as guilty of this phrase as US citizens who sort of have the excuse that they live in a country that refuses to stop using the completely archaic and impossible to use if you are a scientist or engineer, English imperial or US customary units. For the benefit of everyone who doesn’t understand why this is wrong, let me explain why it is.

A kilogram is a unit of mass. Mass is the amount of stuff that an object has.

To say something weighs something, you are saying it has a certain amount of weight. A weight is a specific type of force, and because it is a force, weight, like all other forces, is measured in Newtons (N) in the metric system. Weight is the amount of force on an object due to gravity. Therefore, weight is the mass (the amount of stuff) multiplied by the acceleration due to gravity. If you happen to be a person on Earth with a mass of 70 kg, then since the gravitational acceleration on Earth is 9.81 m/s², you have a weight of 687 Newtons (N). Let’s say you happen to be an astronaut, and the Moon program gets revived, and you go to the moon. Your mass will not change. Your mass will still be 70 kg, but once you arrive at the Moon, your weight will be about 114 N because the Moon’s gravitational acceleration is 1.63 m/s². While you are on your journey to the Moon in space, there will be no gravity, so you will have no weight. You will be weightless, hence the fun videos of astronauts floating, but you will still have the same 70 kg mass.

To review, a person or an object has a mass that can be measured in kg. A person or an object that is on any celestial body with gravity has a weight that can be measured in N. It is completely incorrect to say that a person or an object has a weight in kg. It is also confusing. Does it mean you have a mass in that number of kg? Does it mean you have a weight in that number of N, not kg? Please, don’t use kg and say weight. Mass and weight are not interchangeable. They do not mean the same thing.

Master Closet Shelving

Posted on June 14, 2013 by geek

As part of Home Renovation Phase II, I stole space from the living room to create a walk-in master closet. The master bedroom had a small walk-in closet that led to the very small master bathroom. In Home Renovation Phase III, planned for sometime next year, I intend to create a nice size master bathroom using both the old master bathroom and closet. Thus, during Phase II, I created the new master closet. It is not spacious, but it is workable and has plenty of storage room for two people. It includes tall hangings, double hangings, shoe shelves, clothes shelves, and drawers. It is 124 inches long and 72 inches wide. That leaves the standard 24 inches for hanging areas on both walls and a 24-inch aisle. I bought the components from Closets To Go, and the color is Sunset Cherry. I really like the way it came out, but I would like to have a conversation with whoever wrote the assembly directions. Why is it so impossible for companies to actually check their assembly directions for accuracy? Also, there were a few issues that I solved using the engineer’s standby of fixing it by taking a hammer and banging the crap out of it.

With the master closet completed, Phase II of my home renovation is finally done 13 months after it was started. Yes, it took a long time, but I did much of the work myself.

newly created master closet

finished master closet

shoe shelves

clothes shelves

Cicada Attacks Teddy Roosevelt

Posted on June 9, 2013 by geek

At the National’s games, in the middle of the fourth inning, the Presidents race. Evidently, poor Teddy Roosevelt has only won few times. At today’s game against the Minnesota Twins, Teddy had an early lead, breaking far away from the rest of the pack. Then he got attacked by a giant 17 year cicada. Seriously, he did. Poor guy was left on the ground while the rest raced by him. Then George Washington won. I think George Washington won. At that point I was too confused by the fact that Teddy got attacked by a cicada. I thought cicadas were harmless but noisy insects. Evidently they can be vicious. On a side note, I am beginning to wonder if the President’s race might be fixed.

Run or Dye

Posted on June 8, 2013 by geek

I came. I ran. I dyed. [I did not die though.]

Today I ran in Run or Dye. It is the very definition of a fun run. After running two fun runs, I have come to the realization that I need some insane fun run clothes. I don’t know when tutus became a thing at fun runs, but many people were wearing them today and at the Turtle Trot. Some people are even more inventive. Most people wore some white because during and after the race, they throw dye on you, so the white really helps to show off the dye. On a side note, according the packets of dye, the dye is made of cornstarch, food dye, and flavoring. I unintentionally got some of the dye in my mouth, and I have to wonder if the flavoring is to make you NOT want to eat it, as opposed to for what flavoring is normally used. Also not that you want to know this, but probably like everyone, I inhaled some dye. I have being blowing out some extremely amusingly colored mucus.

I am not trying to be philosophical, but a common phrase people use goes something like “I don’t care if he is white, black, brown, purple, or green” or some variation of that. Generally it is used to indicate that the speaker or some program or whatever is not racially discriminatory. After the race, I was just observing all the people covered in varying degrees with all the bright dyes. It occurred to me that at that moment, for once there really was some purple and green people. Funny thing was, with many people, they really were pink, purple, green, or some other color. Some people were covered so thoroughly that it was really difficult to tell what their skin color was. I thought it was wonderful. It was just a bunch of happy, sweaty, insanely colored people having a marvelous time.

I have never seen this many fluorescent socks.

I have never seen so many fluorescent socks before.

Lined up, waiting to run. Look how clean everyone is. That will change.

The suspenders are holding up the hula skirt because how else are you going to keep a hula skirt on when you have no hips?

Tutus are now a thing at fun runs evidently.

I don’t know if they are actual medical professionals or if they just like to run in scrubs.

With a sailor’s hat, covered in dye

“I thought they said rum or dye”

Covered in dye and happy

Man in full body suit. I have no idea why.

I’m curious how the feathers stayed in while they ran

Some people really dressed for the occasion. The woman in the middle needs to up her game though. (It appeared to be a wedding dress.)

The dye party after the race with clouds of dye being thrown

The dye party after the race

Central Park in June

Posted on June 6, 2013 by geek

I love New York City’s Central Park. Then again, I suppose anyone who has ever been there loves it. I spent part of my recent trip to New York wandering around Central Park. Here are a few photos from my visit.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir

The Lake

stone staircase

rock outcrop

metal bridge

ravine

rose

flame azalea

allium flower

Belvedere Castle

carved concrete column

My First Trip to Brooklyn

Posted on June 5, 2013 by geek

I’ve been to New York City numerous times, but for as many times as I’ve been, I’ve never ventured outside of Manhattan. My guess is I’m not the only tourist who has done this. On this past trip, I decided I need to explore a bit of Brooklyn, partially because I wanted to go to the New York Transit Museum. Brooklyn is huge, so I couldn’t see everything, but I walked around a bit of downtown, Brooklyn Heights, and DUMBO. Downtown Brooklyn has some nice office and municipal buildings and a nice little park.

Brooklyn Borough Hall

Cadman Plaza Park

Then I walked to the Brooklyn Promenade, which is just a lovely elevated park-like walk area with spectacular views of Upper New York Bay, downtown Manhattan, and the East River.

Brooklyn Promenade

view of downtown Manhattan from Brooklyn Promenade

view of Statue of Liberty from Brooklyn Promenade

view of East River from Brooklyn Promenade

Then I walked to the area around the Brooklyn Bridge tower.

Underneath the Brooklyn Bridge

Manhattan Bridge as seen from Brooklyn Bridge Park

I then walked to DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). It has a nice waterfront area as well as some neat shops. Also, it has hipsters.

Manhattan Bridge Arch

Finally I walked around Brooklyn Heights. It is a lovely area with classic tree lined streets of row houses.

Brooklyn Heights

Those are the highlights of my first trip to Brooklyn. There is still more to explore. I shall return someday.

Central Park Turtle Who Loves Being Photographed

Posted on June 2, 2013 by geek

Wandering through Central Park yesterday, I encountered this turtle. He was in the grass right off of the Turtle Pond within a foot of the fencing to protect either the grass or wildlife or both. He totally wanted his photo taken. He just sat there while people walked by and would helpfully turn his head a bit so that everyone could get his best side. Really though he was so cute, he had no worst side. Then when he had had his paparazzi fix, he walked slowly back to the water, knowledgable that at least one photographer (me) would post his photos in a blog post and at least two photographers (my sister and me) would post his photo to Twitter. Life is good when you are a turtle in Central Park.

My questions for the Internet are: Can anyone identify for me what type of turtle this is? And what is that thing beneath his mouth that kind of looks like a tongue?

Update: I’ve had a suggestion that it is red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans), which appears to be correct based on photos and NYC Central Park’s website. Still not sure what the thing below his mouth is.