This sucks. Totally.

Because… well, I’m going to rant. I don’t feel fine.

It’s this matter of… overcommitment. I come home almost everyday at 8pm, take a little break, do some work and I’m out of time. It feels damn… frustrating. I mean, fine, it feels good to see that you’re not rotting around meaninglessly, but I can’t find time for other stuffs.

Ever since I got into AC, it’s a painful job of catching up with 3 months of work. The entire of the first lecture week was dedicated to catching up on chemistry, and this week, the teachers are asking for tutorials to be completed within 1 day, because almost everyone has already done so except me. With barely satisfying O Level results, I did some self-promising that I would complete every work that has to be handed up to survive with 4 H2 subjects in AC. And so for the past few days, my entire nights were on chemistry tutorial, physics tutorial, math tutorial, and today, another math. There’s econs waiting already. And GP too.

Ok, this is how I screwed my schedule up:
Monday - SMC, Physics Olympiad
Tuesday - Bowling
Wednesday - Free time perhaps? OH JOY.
Thursday - Bowling
Friday - Possibly Astro.
Saturday - Bowling

Crap.

Definitely, it is Bowling. The damn problem. But it’s the only sport CCA I can ever excel in at AC, with prior experience. 3 times a week is alright normally, but considering how I have 3 CCAs and Physics Olympiad trainings, I’m screwed. I can’t just be in SMC alone with their image of being a ‘dork club’. And just today, I signed up for the NUS-NTU Science Research attachment programme, and judging from the briefing, the commitment I have to put in is… AH HECK THIS SUCKS.

Financially, I feel… guilty. Yeah you can go on and believe that crap that Derek is rich, but my Dad is a long-time retiree and it’s uneasy for me to keep spending.

Bowling (out of interest, mainly) - Custom equipment, at least $200-$300. Trainings fee, $150 per term.
Graphic Calculator - $199
Textbooks (with no intention of reading them) - $100-$200
(Useless) TIME magazine subscription - $130

And lately, I spent so much on lunch and dinner that I’m left with nothing each week. As such, I requested my parents to increase my pocket money to $70 a week, and heck, it’s a damn guilty feeling.

D’oh!

First day of tutorials, and… it’s alright I guess.

Teachers are generally okay, except for the chinese teacher who doesn’t realise that there are people in class whose chinese suck (aka. me) and she ought to speak in simpler terms and not get shocked when she asks a question and I give a “whaaat?” face back at her and perhaps even more surprisingly is that in contrary to popular belief everyone at ACJC suck at chinese it seems like they don’t and I’m like a total chinese loser in class with everyone and their A1s and I should stop typing without punctuations sometime about NOW. BLEH.

Yeah so today. In the morning journey to school, it rained. With ACJC a good walking distance away from the MRT and bus stops, people were screwed. That’s where I learn to appreciate my Daddy-&-Mummy Express. And Kok, Jim and DW should too. Quite a number of people just took the taxi from the MRT to the school despite the short distance. What can I say? Typical ACSians?

Aha. Chapel. It’s alright whaaaat. Just that, can we at least sit?

And after school, I had:
1) SMC - I… shall not comment. Dork club.
2) Talk by Principal to Appeal Students - Dammit. They make us (or rather, me) sound like people who made it in purely through CCA and suck at studies. I’m a partial 7-pointer reject, dammit.
3) Physics Olympiad Training - OHOHOHO Khor. A NUS graduate with honours in Physics who insists that leptons, and all other sub-atomic particles, are made of quarks. So did an Indian Scholar. Pfft.

Ok, now what?

Oh yes. Wei Rong tagged me with a terrible quiz. D’oh! But… that’s not for now.

Uhh… I’m finding it increasingly difficult to blog these days… like, I can’t be bothered. Huuuh. Being reminded that I’m paying for the website is one of the few things keeping it alive.

I’m not too sure what to make of today. It’s one of those days where it’s just weird. Just. so. damn. weird.

Mm-ok.

Alright.

I’ll try to give a summarised summary.

The batch of BP’s Science Team 10th Batch members arranged for a gathering today. Although we’re mainly in NJC and ACJC, but it still makes sense for a gathering once in a while. Fair enough.

What a joke it was. Sentosa just had to be suggested. No probs with that actually, just that… never you mind.

Yeah so uh-huh, we went. 9am we left for Vivocity. And when we met up, we stood there staring at each other’s empty hands for a couple of seconds before the inevitable question popped up: “Who has the ball? Soccer ball? Volleyball? Any ball??”

Curiously enough, all of us who turned up were boys (although the girls were invited, lame excuses were given for their unenthusiastic support). So the question could have a twisted interpretation, but that’s not my point and purely up to your imagination.

Heh.

So in the next half hour of so, we shopped around Vivo. Incredible isn’t it. Eight of us, boys, shopping. In Vivo. Got a ball from… WHERE ELSE BUT TOY’R'US. It was cheap, so we got it. Also got a frisbee, food stuffs and drinks. And then finally, headed over to Sentosa.

Obviously, we reached and played soccer and ultimate frisbee and blah blah blah blah blah, but after a couple of hours under the baking Sun, we were baked spent quite a while rotting before deciding to go cycling. And what the heck, the bikes were priced a $5/hr for the cheapest scrap metal they have. You rich-asses or Sentosa-frequenters might be thinking, “Duh. That’s the standard price. Derek is a such a moron to not know the price.” but the price did really surprise me. So what to do? DON’T RENT LAH. AHAHAHA.

And so we didn’t.

Here’s where I shall start talking about the phenomenon called, emo. No, we’re not talking about alternative rock music. But rather, emo as in really, EMO.

From there, things got weirder and weirder. Some of us went emo.

…

I’m finding it pretty difficult to put the day’s events down in words here, so I shall skip the whole load of it =(

AHA. In the end, we ended up at Vivo again to watch TMNT. It’s said that “TMNT is good for you” by don’t know who, but really TMNT is good for you. Just that the queue was really too long as well so we travelled to Orchard Cineleisure. Bought the tickets, rotted around more, with emo-ings, and finally, watching the movie.

I can’t be a spoiler so I shall just say… yeah, it was pretty alright I guess. Rather generic actually, but whooo cares. They’re turtles for heaven’s sake. Turtles.

And from here I’m having problems trying to end the entry. It makes me reflects on the emo moments today. Of 17 year old boys. LOLZ.

Alright, did a better Jacob’s Ladder this time, worthy of a page. Here goes~! Or just read it here.

Overview

What is a Jacob’s Ladder?

A Jacob’s Ladder is the type of high voltage “climbing arc” display
seen in many old (and usually bad) Sci-Fi movies. Jacob’s Ladder come in
all shapes, styles, and sizes.

How Does a Jacob’s Ladder Work?

The high voltages involved allows the electric current to leap
through the air to a nearby contact point. The air acts as an
dielectric, resisting the flow of electricity. When a high enough
voltage is built up between two points, a spark jumps through the air
like lightning. Through air, it takes about 1 thousand volts to jump
1.1mm. The voltage determines the distance the arc can first strike the
other electrode. The current on the other hand determines the distance
the arc can be drawn after it has connected the two electrodes.

The simple explanation is that an arc starts at the bottom and due to
the fact that hot air rises, tends to move up the diverging rods until
they are too far apart for the voltage provided by the power source.

While it is true that warm air pushes the arc up the ladder, there is
also the typical ‘high leakage’ or reactance curve of the transformer
contributing to the effect. The transformer will happily arc across the
bottom as long as Paschen’s Law will allow. Once this arc is struck the
current in the arc will actually increase to the transformer’s preset
limit. The heat is also creating higher resistance.

Normally the transformer would try choke the voltage down as current
increased. But just above the arc exists a path that the transformer can
easily maintain and which in fact will lower its current.

At the top we are not only at the upper limit of the transformer but
it is also where the current is very low and so all the fun breaks apart
only to reignite down below.

WARNING:

A Jacob’s Ladder is extremely dangerous. Make sure no one should come
into contact with one - particularly curious onlookers. The thousands of
voltage involved can jump through a significant distance in the air to
objects with sharp points and edges generally. This distance
occaisionally varies unpredictably with humidity. The current of 30mA of
a typical transformer is near lethal, if not worse.

Materials

1. High Voltage Transformer
2. Metal Rods
3. Insulating Base
4. Connecting Wires

Construction

There are only two major parts to a basic Jacob’s Ladder: a high voltage
power source and a pair of metal rods arranged in a narrow V
configuration on an insulated and fireproof support.

A few types of transformer can be used. Generally, amateurs look for a
few types of transformers. These range from luminous tube transformers
to microwave oven transformers, but I’m only going to comment on the
type I use: Neon Sign Transformers.

Neon Sign Transformers (NSTs). They can be obtained from neon sign
shops. The cost can be from $30 to over a $100, depending on the
condition and ratings. They are generally ranged from 6kV to 15kV, with
about 30mA. There are 2 kinds of Neon Sign Transformers, one of them is
Iron cored and run at 50Hz, the other are the new smaller switchmode
ones which run at 20kHz and are a lot lighter. The heavy iron-cored ones
usually perform better.

Just like that. As simple as it can get.

Testings

Attempt #1:

For the first attempt, I used the metal frame from old metal hangers.
I removed the outer layer with a pair of scissors and some hard work.
The metal was terribly rusty, so I spent quite some time sanding it.

I cut the metal frame into two lengths, and bent them to shape. They
were held down to a plastic support with random weights I found around
my house.

Nothing is tuned and adjusted to produce the best looking Jacob’s
Ladder, but it’s just a proof of concept.

And power’s on!

Attempt #2:

I decided to have a more permanent setup,
something that I can have on display when there’s ever a need to. It’s
gotta be much aesthetic and steadier than the first attempt, so I came
up with a proper design.

I went out to purchase a small piece of
acrylic, and a 2m long flat thin metal bar. The bar’s made of brass, and
I had it cut into a few pieces. They would serve as the metal rods.
Also, they’re rather expensive actually, and I felt guilty after
purchasing them.

It took some difficulty to bend them as they’re quite
tough, but it worked out eventually.

I drilled holes in the acrylic and the metal bars, to attach bolts and
nuts through them. These bolts and nuts will secure the metal bar firmly
to the acrylic. Drilling large holes through metal is such a pain…

And done!

I did a few runs, adjusting the positions of the metal bars to produce
the optimal spark. After 2 or 3 runs, I finally decided on this:

Ok, Photography and About pages were under construction, and always bothered me ‘cos I don’t like leaving things undone. Painful irony that it’s typical of me to do so.

So, I just got the About page settled, recycled the content from the previous one actually, but updated it.

Yup, that’s all. Hah.