Monday, April 16, 2007

the good, the bad, and the ugly

I gave my physics students a project a while ago to design something useful using their newfound understanding of heat transfer. Some of the projects were excellent. Some were not so excellent. Here are a few of the highlights:

GOOD:
Turkey defroster that contains a pressure sensor and temperature sensor to automatically de-frost a turkey. This can double as a cookie cooling rack, and the temperature sensor will activate a fan instead of heater. Pretty awsome.

An alarm clock that cooks your breakfast for you after you hit the SNOOZE button. She built the thing and got it to ACTUALLY WORK!! Incredible.

A sensor that reads the temperature outside and rotates the clothes in your closet accordingly. On hot days, you will be greeted with a fine selection of summer tees and shorts. On a blustery winter day, you will awake to an array of turtlenecks and wool pants. They were definitely appealing to my tastes here.

The Bad:
The solar oven whose design was copied straight from the first website that pops up when you google "solar oven". No, I was not born yesterday. And I am a champion googler, thank you very much.

The Ugly:
A microwave utilizing a bi-metallic strip. Apparently she's never used a microwave before. Metal + Microwaves = bad news.

A device that automatically turns your computer on for you. Unfortunately, to get it to work, you have to spit on it. You know, I'm not sure it's that difficult to just hit the ON button.

8 comments:

MOM THE BOMB said...

Your students are something else! Some are quite impressive - others, not quite so much.

Anonymous said...

in case you didn't know, the wrappers used at Wendy's to wrap the Big Bacon Classic are metallic.
I found out the hard way and the entire building at ASU had to be evacuated

Charlo said...

I want to hear more about this spit activated computer. It could be useful for armless people. Is the mouse and keyboard spit activated too?

Ashley Erin said...

um, your students make me feel stupid. i wouldn't know how to build the alarm clock breakfast cooker.

poodle said...

um, why am i stupid?

Charlo said...

No fear, the brittany, I think they were insulting Ashley.

I'm with stupid ashley... I couldn't build any of those

Do you, by chance, google every project your students turn in?

Once upon a time, a student in one of my high school classes got in trouble for turning in an internet stolen paper. They got caught because the essay was so good that the teacher started telling another teacher about it. Aparently, someone in their class did the same exact essay.

The moral of this story is: if you are too lazy to do your own work and insist on plagerizing, settle for OK.... do not go for the gold.

I mean, don't plagerize.

Anonymous said...

yes, Poodle is smart, Ashley is stupid

poodle said...

is that brother? how come you didn't tell anyone your wife was having surgery?