Archive for Physics
More Railgun News
To follow-up on my earlier post, here’s a couple of videos of the experimental rail cannon being test fired. Enjoy. 
Railgun News
Not about mine this time, but a new version planned by the US Navy. It’s generally been “known” that certain navies have been thinking about ship mounted rail cannons for a good few years now, but it nice to finally see some action on this front. Not a lot of point in me repeating this story, when you can read about it here.
New Job!
As some of you will already know, I now have a new job. I’ve bidden a fond farewell to college work to assume a roll further up the education hierarchy at the University of Surrey.
I’m working at the ATI – Advanced Technology Institute – part of the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences. We’re more concerned with research, rather than education, although some MSc students do their projects in our labs.
I’d love to talk a bit about what’s currently being worked on, but I can’t really, for various reasons. But if you’re interested, a list of broad research topics can be seen on the ATI homepage.
Further Railgun Developments (03.12.07)
I did an interesting experiment to temporarily give more power to the railgun at the end of last week. Click here and scroll down to the bottom of the page if you’d like to read about it.
Cassini Imaging (CICLOPS)
The fairly well known Cassini probe is still exploring the Saturn ‘system’, photographing the gas giant and her moons, just as it has been since 2004. Within the past couple of days it performed a close fly-past the moon Iapetus. While looking at the first images to be sent back, I came across this site, which I wanted to share as it has some really nice photos from them mission, and some small animated GIFS. If you have an astronomical leaning, then I urge you to take a look.
Further Railgun Developments (19.09.07)
Wow, I’ve actually done some work on the railgun! 
Click here and scroll down to the bottom if you’re interested.
Exam Season
With Wednesday’s large AS Physics practical exam done and dusted, and Thursday’s massive Biology practical similarly completed, exam season is all down hill from this point onwards.
In contrast with the frantic dashing to-and-fro of the staff directly before and after, the students carried out the practicals calmly and with barely a hitch. The only notable incident was when one of the Physics electronic experiments caught fire. It was being powered by one of those industrial six volt lamp batteries, and it would seem that the crocodile clips on the two terminals accidentally came into contact. This resulted in a short circuit that caused the metal spring terminals to get very hot, very quickly, melting the plastic of the battery case and filling the lab with a horrible stink and a small amount of smoke.
To his credit, the student using the equipment at the time swiftly disconnect everything and raised his hand for assistance. Alas his suggested cause was that he’d “turned off the voltmeter, and the current had nothing else to do”. Erm…this is so wrong I nearly caught fire. Not exactly the sort of thing you want to here from a student during an exam. 
It Came To Me In A Dream…
I realise I haven’t had much to say on the blog recently, but that’s not because nothing’s happening. Far from it in fact, as I’m extremely busy. I’m currently working on several personal projects – in various fields simultaneously, all of which should be complete within the next few weeks. When they are, rest assured I’ll share the results here.
Oddly, I had a vivid dream last night, in which I met a Chinese man who had a similar home-made Railgun to mine, only with improved range and reliability. I asked him how he managed to achieve this, and he showed me the modifications he’d made to his rail designs (the only flaw in my own offering). His suggestions seemed feasible – a message from my overworked subconscious perhaps – so I’ll investigate their effectiveness as soon as I get a free moment. Maybe even tomorrow…
Finally, I’ve seen both ‘Casino Royale’ and ‘The Prestige’ since my last blog entry. I can recommend both highly, although the latter went on for about 15 minutes longer than it probably should have, and made some odd claims regarding the properties of Tesla coils…
Further Railgun Developments (22.06.2006)
I had a very productive day working on the Railgun yesterday, and hope to repeat this today. Read the full progress report here.
While I’m on the subject of projects, Wilkie has a new blog, where he is currently writing about his foray into the exciting world of robotics! Follow this link to find out more. I’ve also updated my Links page to point to his new blog.
