Past Days

Posted by HELiX

Um ok.

I wanted to blog yesterday, but I was feeling terrible; Paradoxically, it’s also the reason why I wanted to blog in the first place.

It’s horrible to cope with schoolwork, commitments, expectations, personal problems and, well, others’ problems. Most of this problems could be easily dealt with given some time, and unfortunately, I just wish I had more of it. I try to work hard, failing most of the times; play hard, failing too, surprising; because each time, I look at the clock and it’s freakin’ 1am.

I don’t know. Somehow I’ve got this feeling that I start off each entry with a rant/emo-comment/you-get-the-idea.

Today I skipped SPhO training to reach home quick to, well, have more time. Nothing productive has been done over the last 4 hours. And then when I think about this, I get even more upset.

Ahh enough. Let’s back to yesterday. This time, I skipped SMC to reach home quick, to work on the Tesla Coil. SMC doods, Science Fair’s this coming Thursday, my Coil was hardly completed, so please understand. It’s okay if you don’t except for that bastard who called me last night at 11.40pm to-

I went to the nearby hardware shop to purchase the remaining connectors needed, slacked around for a while and somehow it seems, ALWAYS, the time from 6pm to 8pm passes excruciatingly fast.

So it was well into the night before I got the Coil hooked up and ready for its first ever full run.

Had everything set up in my backyard.

8pm and BZZZZZZZT-

Like ^#%$#%NS(F*^@B#(&#JMD*@GDK*ASH#^T#T&^F*#FMJ*(#F lah.

WTF sia.

Firstly, as you can see, there was severe sparking within my capactior bank itself, which isn’t supposed to happen BTW.

And secondly, the sound was sickeningly loud. As in, seriously, seriously loud. I don’t really know how to put it down in words, but it’s louder than what you’re probably thinking. Amplified by the 8pm night silence, I had it shut off within 2 seconds or my neighbours would be out any second.

Nothing coming from the discharge terminal at all, and worse still, the spark gap. Very disappointing. But I was more worried about my $100+ capacitor bank which was hell to made.

I figured that the zig-zag arrangement was totally dumb, with the current preferring to spark through the dielectric air than go through the capacitors.

So I’m now totally lost. I don’t have much choices. The best and most recommended would be to solder everything, and get a new piece of acrylic, redrill, reattach and resolder, but that would be total hell. After a day, I’ve decided to try to stuff some unconductive material between the contact points to prevent sparking, hopefully. Even this alternative is hell.

Then I thought about it, too, that at this rate, the Coil isn’t in any shape to be up for Science Fair. I’ve decided to set up my booth with the Jacob’s Ladder instead.

The Tesla Coil project will thus be extended for, say, another month or so ‘cos of such a major error.

In happier news, like I said, WM6! =D

Of course, it’s meaningless to y’all non-PDA-Phone owners =/

And this is old, but I wanted to end this entry to something… more shocking. Or maybe not.

I Present To You, My Chinese Compo:

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Comments(0) 10:17 PM 5 May 2007

Weekend

Posted by HELiX

I wanted to post quite a number of great stuffs that happened over the weekend, but when I decided to dig out my homework just now- Okay, this shall not be one of those I’ve-got-lotsa-homework-and-you-don’t-as-if-you-don’t-attend-school-either kinda posts.

So because of… because of… unforeseen circumstances, there will be no pictures, so don’t come and say NPNT.

Alright, firstly, this is week 9. The damnest week of ‘em all. 4 common tests; sure it doesn’t beat any major examinations period, but hey, since they’re only common tests, teachers still expect homework to be done, lessons go on as normal and so does my practically 5 CCAs.

In happier news, I’ve decided to upgrade my phone’s operating system to Windows Mobile 6, from, well, 5 like duh. You know, like upgrading your computer from Windows XP to Windows Vista that kinda thin- Oh nevermind.

Also, I wanted to test the Tesla Coil in its first light over the weekend, only to realise that I ran out of wire lugs for the wirings. Just 2 wire lugs. That’s $0.60 of materials holding the experiment back. And Science Fair’s on Thursday, still got official no approval to bring the Coil nor any confidence that it’ll work at all.

What else… what else… Ah, congratulations to Soe Min, for official getting into AC Student Council! Ahem, unlike the councils in secondary school, the Council is AC is much, much more respectable, and being one is actually good, unlike BP where- AHEM. I actually respect the current batch of AC Councillors. I mean, look at the quality of their videos, programmes, and stuffs, you sure as hell know that A LOT of effort has been put into them. Unlike BP where- AHEM.

What else… Nothing? ‘kay back to work. D’ow.

Comments(0) 11:31 PM 5 May 2007

GOLD!

Posted by HELiX

NAPFA 5 Stations.

Okok here’s a fact. Lower secondary I got Golds for NAPFA, then at upper sec, with Mrs Ee as my PE teacher… GG. I got Bronze once and failed the other =/

The damn pull-ups. No-no. They’re fine. They’re great. The PE teacher was a dumb pyjamas lady who believed PE meant, well, PE. As in, physical EDUCATION. So she taught us the rules of rugby, floor ball and other games as though we don’t know.

Yeah-ha. But today, I did quite okay actually:

Standing Broad Jump (Uh. I WAS really horrible at this.): 232cm!
Sit Ups: 46 (49 but I got penalised for 3)
Sit-and-Reach: 50cm!
Shuttle Run: 9.9s (I slided and lost my balance, but heck, it’s an A!)
Pull-ups: 5 (from last year’s 1 =__=)

And YEAH. Along with 11.09 for 2.4km, that’s AAABCC. YUP. Gold. With 25 points.

=D

Comments(0) 10:33 PM 5 May 2007

Along came a Spidey

Posted by HELiX

My NUS Research Attachment appointment was cancelled today ‘cos the Prof was busy, so for the first time in many many weeks, I had a free weekday afternoon. It’s an awesome feeling, I tell ya.

But it seems, I’m supposed to study. Or rather, I was. There’s 6 common tests coming up in the next 10 days, and it isn’t even exams periods. Most non-AC students will start calling AC a mugger school now, especially the NJCians.

But nah, instead, I went to watch Spiderman 3. It’s been a week since it’s release. I’ve tried to watch it on two occasions. The first had the queue spanning from one end of the shopping mall to the other end. The second was at Vivo, on a fine Saturday evening. No surprises on how every single timeslot was completely full house until the midnight shows, which were left with the front few rows.

I had much, much better luck today, of course. At West Mall, cos Shu Wei and Xin Jie decided that it was the middle point between NJC and JJC and didn’t give a flying- um, to ACJC.

Since I ain’t too much of an ass to give spoilers (not that anyone interested hasn’t watched it yet), I shall make a few general comments:

1) Yes Shaz. I have no idea what’s Gwen Stacy doing in Spidey 3.

2) There was a particular point of the movie which was really pointless and senseless, while being emo.

3) Isit just me or does Tobey Maguire looks really similar to Peter Petrelli (of Heroes) when he, erm- attempted to morph into Batman? Wait, you mean that wasn’t the story- huh.

4) I should go watch my Heroes S01E21 now.

Comments(0) 9:03 PM 5 May 2007

The Two Thousand Four Hundred Metres

Posted by HELiX

Today happened to be NAPFA and HEY GUESS WHAT!

I’m still sick. No surprises there, actually.

My nose was still blocked, but I decided, what the heck, I’ve got a bigger mouth for breathing and let’s just get it over with.

And so I did. In fact, quite well actually.

I started off pretty well, sprinting for the first two rounds (out of 6), did fine for the 3rd, and began losing my pace at the 4th round. Yeah so I managed to keep my lead in front of the class for the 1st three rounds. Then Soe Min shot ahead of me on the 4th. I struggled through the 5th, was gonna die for the 6th and final round but I was like, what the heck, I ran for 5 rounds already and now I wanna take a break in the last round? So I sprinted that last round too.

Because of the damn Soe Min, I ended up 2nd in class with 11 mins 9 secs.

At this point, some cross country runners and those other guys with six packs might probably laugh but C’MON LAH. I SPEND MY TIME IN FRONT OF THE COMPUTER.

And probably even the BPians will laugh. Little do they know that BP cheats for fitness test. The designated 2.4km distance is significantly shorter than, well, the true 2.4km you have to run when there’s real tracks. If not I still wonder how’d I ran 10+mins during my sec 1 days.

After the 2.4km, I dropped at the stairs to the Oldham Wing, and died for 5 mins.

Mm-hmm. 

Comments(0) 9:49 PM 5 May 2007

GG Man.

Posted by HELiX

Oh, I forgot to mention that through the weekend, I came down with a flu and sore throat, including a slight headache initially. NAPFA’s this coming week, and after my 3km training runs a couple of times each week, along with pull ups, my effort placed into training will be pwned by this timely illness. D’OW!

Comments(0) 11:04 PM 5 May 2007

A Weekend Without Touching Homework, I Decided

Posted by HELiX

Considering that my last entry was on 2nd May, I should advise people to not expect entries too often. True enough, I was blogging daily a couple a weeks or months ago, but I can’t handle my schedule these days. I used to have some time daily for blogging initially, but after screwing up my first round of common tests, I decided to put in slightly more effort into the next wave.

And even as I blog now, I feel really guilty.

One part of me wants to do the Tesla Coil project, one part wants to do school work, one part wants to start playing video games again, and another part is just messing out with the other parts. Maybe it just wanna have fun.

And yah, I’m ranting here as if I’m the only one who experience this, when there are so many people out there who goes through the same stuffs as well. Ah this part too, the Emo part of me.

S’okay. Enough with this, let’s look into what I have done with my weekend.

On Friday, I had an objective. Objectives, I mean. Which includes the following:
1) Finish Intermolecular Forces tutorial
2) Er, glimpse at the new SPhO stuffs
3) Mug chemistry to reach lecture-pace
4) Start on the GP Environment Package
5) Do the GP AQ…………………………………………………. OH SHIT GOTTA HAND IN TMR-

Um.

Um.

Let’s change topic.

Over the weekend, instead of doing these things (none of them were completed, BTW), I worked on the Tesla Coil. Science Week in the week following next, and I hope it gets approved.

So, if you have been following at all, you might already know that-
A long time ago, details of my tesla coil.
And then the discharge terminal and secondary coil.
Recently, the capacitor bank was completed.

Primary coil is completed, too, and it’s just lying around somewhere. I’m thinking of improving (which might involve redoing it entirely) it, so I’ll keep that on hold.

But for today, first, the Ground Rod.

The Ground Rod, even though it sounds insignificant, plays a major role. Most components are required to be grounded, not only for safety reasons but for them to work. I decided to have a single ground rod with many connections to it, as I didn’t want too many rods to hammer into the ground.

I started with a thick length of copper wire and a foot long of 1-inch copper pipe.

I simply drilled the copper pipe, fitted in a bolt and nut, and attached the copper wire with a wire lug at the end.

Next up, the Spark Gap.

The Spark Gap acts as the power switch for the primary tank circuit. It uses the air to conduct electricity between its electrodes and generates a great deal of heat in the process.

Sounds simple enough, but the Spark Gap is the single component I spent the most time on. About 20 hours easily. There many many designs of Spark Gaps out there, and it was pretty difficult to decide on one.

There are two main types of Spark Gaps. A static one which does not involve any movement of electrodes, hence the name. And an exotic type that involves the electrodes rotating to provide better performance. The schematics for the rotating spark gap was too complicated, so I settled on a Static Spark Gap.

The design for a Static Spark Gap could vary from a simple one like:

However, the gap is usually split into lots of smaller gaps, all wired together in series. This is done for two reasons; 1) The more gaps you have the more power it can handle; 2) It is possible to vary the firing voltage of the gap by changing the number of electrodes that are in circuit (by moving the connecting wires).

In doing this, you get a Multi Series Static Spark Gap. Which was what I did in my case. This design for this varies a lot, and it makes a big difference in price, efficiency, feasibility, time spent, etc. Different people would have different preference of the large number of designs available. After hours of searching the web, I found a design that appealed to me. It’s by a guy called Scott; which Scott, I don’t know, but how many Scott’s are there who’s a Tesla Coiler?

So, I got started on it.

Two pieces of clear acrylic, drilled, and supported by threaded rods at the 4 corners. The threaded rods were really irritating to saw and file.

I found Aluminium U-Profiles of the correct size! Once again, sawing was really a pain.

And aligning them…

The electrodes! Copper pipes, held from the acrylic by Aluminium U-Profiles.

After hours and hours of drilling, finally…

The final assembled Multi Series Static Spark Gap! The connections were attached to the bolts and nuts supporting the copper pipe and U-profiles.

I decided to give it a test run despite the scorching sunlight. The large fan is needed to quench and cool the spark gap, increasing its performance.

I tested it, my house’s circuit breakers tripped. Along with my Mum’s TV, Dad’s radio, and sibling’s computers. I realised that the grounding of the transformer SHOULDN’T be attached to the ground wire of the mains, but instead, the grounding rod I made. The voltage of the transformer when supplied into the mains and back to the circuit breakers obviously tripped it.

The ground rod hammered into the ground. As in, really hammered.

After 6 hours, from 12pm to 6pm today. More than 10 rounds of reruns,
adjustments, reconstructions, along with 2 computer fans killed (I used
them initially, right next to the spark gap and ZAP, they died), and
the house circuit breakers tripping for 3 or 4 times.

Might be difficult to see with the bright sunlight, but if you look closely enough, you can see the sparks.

So yup, that’s all for the weekend. I’m now totally screwed, nearly 11pm on Sunday night and I’m starting homework. I think.

Comments(0) 10:42 PM 5 May 2007