Donut Power

[QUAZAR]

This is brilliant.

Electricity from donuts

[mixedgas]

until I read it was part of a education contest I wanted to punch him. But then I found it was simply brilliant.

TiO2 does make a great UV photoconductor, did that in my old lab with TiO2 nanofibers.

UM, Donuts, Um, cheap tea., Ummmm I^2R ......
That guy is gonna be a brilliant chemist some day.
Steve

[tocket]

This is the type of solar cells I do research on. Specifically I make new dyes for them.

I can't help it but to wonder why they chose donuts as their titania source; surely there are better sources. The cell they made performed very poorly, so clearly donuts = bad.

By the way, the most expensive part of these solar cells is the (conductive) glass...

[mixedgas]

Its part of a US contest to make fun videos to teach people about easy science, with out coming across as one of the dumb, lame, Bill Nye the Science Guy or Beakman's World videos that are written for 4th graders and shown to high school students.

It also has a undertone to it as we have more laws like Jarod's Law in every state. Jarod's law here in Ohio came about when a poorly trained science teacher flash burned her kid and a few others at a very expensive private school by dumping a gallon of methanol onto a colored flame demo.

It bans just about everything that makes chemistry fun. Also major demos now have to be done by the teacher in a protective box, not by the students in the lab, as it was in my day.

Things banned include all nitrates, acids, strong bases, h2o2, metal compounds, oxidizers. You cant have silver nitrate or silver chloride, but you can have NaCl and baking soda. The list was drawn up by consultants who never taught chemistry.

So this contest is about how to do spectacular science with limited "SAFE" materials.

But once the video gets out, our state legislature will ban purple tea and voltmeters.

RANT MODE WARNING:

I know many of you here have had awesome science teachers. But keep in mind 95% of them have ZERO professional science or engineering experience before they teach. IE they may teach a lesson about electron beams, but they NEVER have adjusted the controls on a electron beam, save for maybe turning on or off a CRT. Most of them have never used a voltmeter, and I know this because I gave them voltmeter lessons at a summer institute. BTW< I volunteered for that, it was a non paid spare time duty for me. BTW< the electron beam apparatus for a school is only about 1 grand, and that price would come way down if they sold more of them, and would be money well spent, but 500-1000$ is usually the average yearly budget for a high school science department. Most of you spend more money on basic gear then that.

You got a kid, or thinking about having one? Then meet a local science teacher and ask them what is on their current wish list and make it happen. You would be amazed how much you can teach with a red, a green, a IR, a blue, a UV, and a yellow led, and a voltmeter. Let alone 5 mW of dpss green and a fishtank.

Most of the 500$=1000$ goes to consumable chemicals.

Think about it.


You don't want to know the safety BS I had to go through just to allow a high school student to use a scanning electron microscope at my former employer. None of it was really about radiation safety, as you could set for 5 years next to that machine and never see a measurable bump on the dosimeter. On a 1930's SEM, you might get some x-rays, on a new one, NO WAY. It was all about restricting access, assuming that only specialists needed the training or experience. State law, not local policy.

If you want to produce more idiots, treat and educate people like idiots.....

END RANT MODE>

Steve

[Xytrell]

Things banned include all nitrates, acids, strong bases, h2o2, metal compounds, oxidizers.

I can maybe understand the others, but peroxide??

[mixedgas]

I can maybe understand the others, but peroxide??

yeah, I'm have science teachers bring selected students to our lab just to see the basics.

Steve

[Agent C]

Indeed this is brilliant - so resourceful, but the overall state of science education breaks my heart. The AAAS is pleading (literally) with members to help teach science. They are taking the position that *all* professional scientists need to take time out and contribute to science education. We can't just go about our careers hope that somebody else will handle teaching science to the next generation.

yeah, I'm have science teachers bring selected students to our lab just to see the basics.

Steve

[mixedgas]

We are fast approaching the day when nobody will be able to "fix" what sustains us. I mean things like OSes are approaching 80 million lines of code.

Steve