Car Runs On Air? - Don't Fall For This!

The other day a guy at work sent me this link to a story about a car that runs on air.  Compressed air motors are nothing new.  Our boys had little cars that shot across the room after they pumped up the air tank.  Before there were tiny gasoline engines that powered model airplanes, they used compressed air.  I have read numerous articles about compressed air motors for years, some of the inventors making amazing claims about how far and fast they can travel on a tank of compressed air.

What got me about this video were not the claims by the inventor but the ridiculous conclusions by the reporter.  Anyone who has filled an air mattress on a camping trip or blown up one of those huge inflatable swimming pools knows first hand that compressed air is NOT FREE!  It comes with a price, and sometimes a huge price depending upon the volume of air or the pressure of the air that is required.  Can you imagine blowing up the tire of your car with your lungs?  Compressed air is not free!  Not only is it NOT free, but it is also not an efficient way to power a motor, like the motor of a car.

The main inefficiency comes when the air is compressed.  Wherever this takes place, there is a huge energy loss due to the heating of the air during the action of compressing the air.  It is the same when you pump up your bike tire with a hand pump.  The base of the bike pump can get so hot you can't touch it without burning yourself.  All that energy that is used to heat the air is lost into the atmosphere.  It takes a lot of electricity to compress air.  A lot more energy that you get out of it in the motor of a car that runs on air.

It is a scam!  Don't believe it, especially at the end of the video when the reporter starts talking about perpetual motion and using compressed air to generate more compressed air.  It is ridiculous!

http://www.flixxy.com/zero-pollution-automobile.htm

"Dumber Than A Monkey With A Crayon"

Just prior to my graduation from the 8th grade into my first year in high school, I was required to take a placement test to help me decide what classes I should take the following year. The test was composed of several parts, which were supposed to help a school counselor know if I should take honors, college prep, regular, or maybe even remedial level classes. I did very well on all the parts of the exam except the true or false spelling test. This test consisted of 100 words, some spelled correctly and some spelled incorrectly. If the word was spelled correctly, I was to mark "True", and "False" if the word was spelled incorrectly. I remember looking down the list and thinking that all the words looked fine to me.

A few weeks after taking the test I met with a school counselor to learn how I had done. He briefly showed me the high marks and then turned my attention to the spelling test.

"Son," he started, "You only got 40%."

I remember thinking that it seemed a bit low to me, but what did I know. I was just a kid and he was a school counselor.

"That's pretty bad," he added, watching for some type of reaction, such as dialated pupils or sweaty palms. I could tell he had spent many years studying human behavior under stress in order to obtain his position in the school. Not seeing the reaction that I suppose he was expecting he continued, "You probably know, kid, that a monkey could get 50% on this test just by marking all of the answers "True".

Again his subtlety escaped my naive young mind. I didn't even know that monkeys took tests, let alone spelling tests. At this point he became impatient to make an impression on me.

"What I am saying kid," he stressed as the pitch of his voice increased, "is that you are dumber than a monkey with a crayon."

At this point the comparison between me and a hairy monkey finally sank in. I was awe struck. How could he say such a thing to a young impressionable child? He recommended that I take a remedial English class my first year as a high school freshman.

That night I went home and told my parents that I was dumber than a monkey with a crayon. They immediately questioned where I got such an awful idea. When I told them the entire story my loving father took me aside and told me that I was not dumb. Not only that, but he also said that I should sign up for college prep English class in high school. I did as he suggested and not only survived the first year, but also did well in English all four years in high school.

Following high school, I subsequently learned that I have what psychologists refer to as the "engineering gene". Research has shown that most people who possess this gene are poor spellers. However, this experience made a strong impression on my mind and I have always been aware of my limitations in spelling.

Thank goodness for dictionaries and "Spell Check".

Human Bottle Launcher

Most of us may remember launching those plastic rockets that you filled with water and then pumped air inside. When you released the rocket, the compressed air inside pushed out the water and the reaction launched the rocket in the opposite direction.

We have used 1 or 2 liter pop bottles to do the same thing. Using PVC pipe we construct a stand as shown in the photo. Fill the bottle 1/3 full of water and quickly turn it upside down on the launcher. Hook up a bicycle pump and pump air into the bottle through the PVC pipe structure. The bottle will release itself from the launcher when pressure overcomes the holding force on the mouth of the bottle. The air inside the bottle forces out the water and the reaction launches the bottle in the opposite direction. It is not uncommon to reach a height of 50 feet with a 2 liter bottle.

I found this short video on the Internet the other day. It shows a young kid being hooked up to what appears to be a system of about twenty 2 liter bottles hooked together on some type of common air/plumbing assembly. The assembly is pumped up as I have described and attached to the kid's back. Somehow, all of the bottles are released simultaneously and the kid is launched out over a body of water, where he is quickly rescued.

I have run through the numbers to see if it is possible to launch the kid into the air. By my first order calculations, it would take more than 50 bottles to lift even a skinny kid off the ground, let alone that far over the water. Therefore I believe this video is fake. But it sure looks impressive. Don't you agree?

The Company Refrigerator

I work for an aerospace company of about 70 employees. We have a nice breakroom with tables and chairs, coffee and vending machines, a microwave oven, sinks, a dishwasher...and YES we also have a Company Refrigerator. The company provides the refrigerator so that employees can bring their lunches to work and keep them cold during the day until lunchtime. I often bring a plate from home with leftovers from our previous night's dinner. Some people bring sack lunches and some people bring Tupperware containers with leftovers or a salad and dressing. The top of the fridge has a large freezer with an ice machine and space for frozen items.

As with any situation, there are always those who lack simple common sense, and who fail to understand basic ideas. They often cause problems. Let me explain.

We all know that food is cheaper when you buy it in bulk. For example, a frozen dinner costs less if you buy it in quantities of 50 or 100 than it is to buy one at a time. The same goes for peanut buttter. You get more peanut butter for your money if you buy the five gallon size container than if you buy it in a 16 oz. size. This idea of bulk buying is one that engineers easily understand because it involves mathematics including fractions and ratios. Therefore it is common to see an engineer buying things in bulk, whether it is food or quarts of car oil or postage stamps. This idea of buying things in bulk meshes nicely with another characteristic of engineers.

Most engineers tend to be a bit lazy. For example if engineers had their way, they would never make their beds in the morning. After all, you're just going to sleep in it the next night so why bother making it? And if they DO make their beds, they often just sleep on the floor or on the couch for the same reason. This is especially true of engineers that are not married, but that is another story.

If you combine this laziness with the desire to buy in bulk you have big problems with company refrigerators. Let me explain what I mean.
Our company is located across the street from a Costco. Costco is the perfect place to buy in bulk. It seems that everything at Costco comes in packages of two or more. In addition, all the containers are huge. If you go to Costco to buy a bottle of Asprin, you have to buy two 1000 tablet bottles in a single package. Milk is sold in gallon containers that are joined together in pairs with a nice plastic handle that makes it easy to carry two containers with one hand. Apples come in containers of 20 and bannas are sold in 10 pound boxes. When one of our engineers goes to Costco to buy lunch, he nearly fills the company refrigerator with his purchases when he returns. He is often too lazy to take his stuff home, since he will end up using it for lunches anyway, so why not leave it in the company fridge.

Our company refrigerator is full of bulk bottles of catsup, mustard, salad dressing, peanut butter, jam and numerous entire loaves of bread. In addition there are gallon jugs of milk and juice, 2 liter bottles of soda, and 5 pound packages of cold cuts. The freezer is full of stacks of frozen dinners, gallon containers of ice-cream and large bags of frozen vegetables. To keep their supply of food from getting mixed up with another engineer's stuff, they will often commandeer a drawer or a shelf and fill it with their personal items.

Sometimes employees will eat out at lunch. It is quite common for the women employees to return from lunch with doggie bags filled with left-overs. Of course they plan to eat it in the near future, but they soon forget about it and there it stays taking up even more of the limited space.

Now if all of this wasn't bad enough, there is the constant problem of spoilage. Left-overs don't usually last more than a few weeks before they start to decompose. The odor of rotting food can be quite strong until it becomes intollerable, and begins to taint the other food items inside the fridge. When that happens, one or two employees join together to clean the company refrigerator. No matter how much advance warning they provide the other employees, the cleaning day arrives and the fridge is usually full to its maximum capacity. It takes a lot of courage to toss out expensive Tupperware, family dinnerware, and perfectly good food items. There is usually some scraping to do where something has leaked out and dripped down the inside of the refrigerator. Hot water, soap and disinfectant along with plenty of elbow grease, and the company refrigerator is soon empty and clean. The odors are gone and you feel confident that it is now safe to store food inside without fear of food poisoning or contamination.

But it is a losing battle... for on the morrow the engineers return to work with their bags and plates and boxes and bottles and jars and ........

The Knack (Dilbert's mother learns Dilbert will be an Engineer)

This is a great video about young engineers and illustrates the anguish and sorrow that some parents feel when they learn that their child may become an "engineer".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmYDgncMhXw

The Little Red Fire Engine

This is the Little Red Fire Engine that I made for our children many years ago. All the neighborhood kids came over to help paint it red. They were all covered with red paint, but they had a great time. This is its third engine, and it runs pretty good, as you can see from this first video of our two youngest adult children riding on it at our recent family reunion. If you look carefully you may see that it has dual tires in the rear.

Steering Skateboard

This is a fun invention of mine. The kids call it the Steering Skateboard. It is 3 feet wide by 5 feet long and rides on 18 skateboard wheels. It is powered by a 40 horsepower snow-mobile engine which turns a 4 bladed propeller. We have only had it up to 30 mph in our neighborhood, but based upon its maximum static thrust, it is capable of speeds of at least 55 mph. You can hear it in the video but it is really loud!

Gopher Scope

Here is a photo of one of my most recent engineering inventions. It is called the Gopher Scope. At the end of the 30 foot long vacuum cleaner hose is a small camera and two headlights. The video seen by the camera is displayed on the 7 inch monitor. The user inserts the camera end of the scope into the gopher hole and pushes it along the various passage ways looking for the gopher. Several methods have been suggested for disposing of the gopher after he is found, but thus far most of them have seemed too gruesome for a mixed audience.

I got into a discussion the other day with a doctor who performs Colonoscopies using a Colonoscope. I told him I had made my own scope that I used to catch gophers. He was not really interested, even though I told him that mine had two headlights and his only had one. However, one aspect of the scope really caught his attention. I told him that while I was inside the gopher tunnels I would often become disoriented because the tunnels were round and I couldn't tell which way was up or down. His eyes lit up! "I have the same problem inside the intestine!" he exclaimed. Sometimes we can see a puddle of standing water inside the intestine and we can use that to orient ourselves. After that we had a great visit.

The Engineering Gene

Deep within our genetic make-up is a wonderful combination of genes and chromosomes. These chromosomes form the talents and strengths which determine who we are. For some there is an ear for music. Others have the ability to speak and think at the same time (I really missed that one). For some it is art and drawing and seeing a sculpture out of a block of clay or a clean sheet of paper. There are an enumerable array of talents, and no two people are the same.I was born with the engineering gene. The engineering gene and the spelling gene cannot exist in the same person; therefore I cannot spell. Thank goodness for spell check and the old fashioned dictionary. The engineering gene allows me to put objects together in my mind as well as take them apart. I communicate with pictures and graphs and mathematics. Oh how I love math.When I talk to kids today about being an engineer I asked them if they love math. Teachers give you math homework assignments to do problems 1 thru 21 odd. (They always do that, you know, because the answers for the odd problems are in the back of the book.) I tell the kids that if you really love math, you will do the even problems as well just for the fun of it. Most kids think I am crazy, but some know what I mean. They are candidates for engineering.When I was a kid I loved to take things apart and see how they worked or why they no longer worked. I loved to make things and build things. I am always amazed with our world and the wonders around me. I love to ask questions.For example I ask the kids, "Which way do you run around the track on the field?""Counter-clockwise," they respond."Correct.""Which way to cars drive around the Indy 500 raceway?""Counter-clockwise," they respond again, this time with wonder in their eyes."Which way to horses run around the race track?""Counter-clockwise," they say in unison."Did you ever wonder why?" I ask them."Why," they ask me. I love to hear that question...and I love to answer it...Why?Because I am an engineer.

A Hundred Ground Squirrels!

Over the past three years I have been catching ground squirrels in my back yard. I use one of those "Have A Heart" traps that catches them alive. I place the trap on the top of my block wall fence and as a squirrel walks along the top of the fence it walks into the trap and the doors close, catching it inside. I average about one squirrel every 9 days. Over the past three years, I have caught 128 of the little guys. I caught one today, in fact. He was very angry, and chirped loudly at me.

When we first moved into our house, we had so many squirrels running through our yard that we had to do something quickly. The worst problem was their fleas. We couldn't walk in the yard without getting fleas on our legs. We worried about disease, especially with our four little children.

So I decided on the trap method to get rid of them, and it has worked like a charm. When I catch a squirrel in the trap, I load the trap in the back of my truck and drive the squirrel to his new home. His new residence is in a nearby field full of grass, bushes, a few trees, and lots of new friends.

Today I read a news article about a woman in Hazlet, New Jersey, who has been charged with animal cruelty after a squirrel that she caught died in a similar trap. According to the AP news article, she faces four counts of animal cruelty, including one that cites her for "not providing the squirrel with adequate food, water and shelter."

When I read that article it gave me cause for concern. I have never fed any of the squirrels that I have caught. Maybe I need to put a small dish of water inside the trap along with a bowl of food. Maybe I need to include a soft bed of straw in case the little guy wants to take a nap before I let him go. And what about exercise? Maybe I should include one of those wheels that they put in hamster cages.

I am going to need a bigger trap!