Blog back online!
May 292020So I just fixed the blog engine - only took 2 years! This might mean that I'll be posting entries again, maybe.
snek!
Jun 152018
Taken during a lunchtime walk; Garthdee along the river path, sometime over May 2018.
On yet another Dee walk, I was forced to skip over a cheeky alloy snek as he clackered across my arid path. This species's young has developed a bad name in industry as it is often found inside jammed shopping trolly wheels, being attracted to the maternal anti-theft magnets installed therein.
Solar PV, Aberdeen and me - Update 3
May 062018I am currenly holidaying in sunny Gran Canaria and whilst dozing by the pool, I caught sight of a bank of solar panels. "Ah" I thought, I have those.
Its also been a while that I last blogged, so I thought I would kill two birds with one diamond laser and post an update. See graph.
It has been up and down with the generation rate but it has surpassed the conservative expectation that the installer gave me. Quite pleasing. The generation estimate was made against the avg Aberdeen sunlight hours, direction of panels, angles etc and the performance tracks the avergate sunlight hours/day nicely - below, yellow line.
The sunlight hours highs are May followed by August, which appears odd at first (July being the hottest month) until you realise heat and sunlight are not the same thing. It does make me want to investigate all this talk on micro heat-powered Sterling engines I hear so much about. These are dinky blacker-than-black heat traps that expand and contract gasses to drive turbines that generate UnLiMeD POWER!!@%@45£!
At a 60% to 70% efficancy rating, Sterling engines kick solarpanels and their 20% max efficancy off the ballpark. They are more complicated I am given to understand, however the clever dicks are working on the problem and hope to have something investors can overspeculate on soon [1]. When done, we can call China and ask actual ballparks of them - hurrah.
Project Intro: Research and design of self-organising, algae farming, soft robots
Apr 062017An amateur home-based project to design and evaluate self-organising, algae farming, soft robots.
This is a project started inpersuit of a personal interest in home-grown complete food sources. The notes below for my project log and project substages will be added ad-hoc.
The project itself will take place in 3 phases: (1) Stable Spirulina cultivation and remote monitoring via a conventional self-built monitoring platform, (2) evaluation and improvement of a self-built remote sensing and actuator 'nodes', tethered and water-bound to distribute aeration, inspection and monitoring; and (3) Migration from central controller-based coordination to autonomous, untethered agent-based methods. Succinct project updates will be made on the Research Gate platform whereas informal project notes will be made on the Author's personal blog (http://nordintown.com).
Phase 1: Stable Spirulina cultivation and remote monitoring via a conventional self-built monitoring platform.
1.1 Preparing the culture medium
Chemical ingredients for the cost-efficient RM6 culture medium [1] (Roof, Kaushik and Prasanna 2006) were obtained via various Amazon and eBay supplier sources. Super single phosphate (SSP) was substituted with an alternative inorganic phosphate source Potassium Phosphate due to SSP sourcing problems. Measures of all fertiliser ingredients were made for a 4l liquid volume within a 4.5l demijohn growth vessel, marked GV1:
- Potassium phosphate 5g,
- Sodium nitrate 10g,
- potassium Chloride 3.92g,
- magnesium sulphate 0.6g,
- calcium chloride 1.6g,
- sodium chloride 2g,
- sodium bicarbonate 32g.
The stated measures of each ingredient were made within 0.5l of dechlorinated local tap water and added to 3.5l within GV1. Any crystallised ingredients were ground to powder form.
Trip Hazard
Nov 192016
Taken during a lunchtime walk; Garthdee along the river path, sometime over August 2016
As I was out on another lunchtime health work along the River Dee, I tripped over a log. Post-recovery, I saw the log was in fact a rare metallic shrub flowering it's polished topside. Its hard to imagine that in just a few years, this small sturdy fixture - a relative of the common paper-clip weed - will be a mighty 12ft boat anchor.
Wall Moss
Nov 152016
Taken during a lunchtime walk; Deeside, sometime over August 2016
I enjoy seeing things like this. On a wall, up a building, on a dead log - I tend to imagine a time-lapse version of it's progress with the Attenborough-esk fabricated 'plant' soundtrack of wet clicks and crackles.
Mosses are indicators of pollution and generally, they grow only in clean environments. This doesn't mean that the postcode the 'green thing' has found is free of man-made muck, but perhaps implies that a conscript of the local biome has judged the host object as something they can at least work with.