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How an Online School Assists In Integrative Science Learning

Letting students participate in science competitions has always been a good way to promote learning. And some institutes have taken the contemporary notion of competition to the next level by bringing in initiatives such as the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition. This year, the version had many projects related to synthetic biology; the concept at this level is to design, build and test genetically engineered organisms. A lot of these have a direct link to biomedical engineering. For instance, one project focused on engineering gene circuits in a model organism of yeast to better understand how cells make their decisions. These circuits may very well be used in future bio-manufacturing. Projects such as these fall in integrative science and students can be reared for such learning through online education. Not only are there a massive number of tools, but hands-on tutorials can also serve as a good guiding template for the student.

Getting Your Kids Excited To Learn From A Science, Engineering or Math Tutor

Did you see the new Goldie Blox video? This company, whose tagline is “toys for future engineers,” just released a viral video in which three young girl engineers execute a Rube Goldberg machine set to the tune of the Beastie Boys’ “Girls.” This video is excellent because it helps draw young girls’ attention to the possibilities of engineering. Maybe after seeing the video, they’ll ask their parents for a Goldie Blox kit or try to build a Rube Goldberg machine in their living room. Maybe they’ll learn, as all engineers do, that a successful project means educating yourself in math and physics; that you need to know exactly how far apart to place each domino to make sure your train falls at an even, consistent rate.

Clarity in essay writing

Your essay will be one in a large stack given to a reader or readers after you submit it. In the case of college admissions, readers will have so many essays to read that they will spend only a few minutes on each. Exit and SAT essays will receive somewhat more time and attention, but it still holds that one reader will be responsible for many essays. That is why it is imperative that you not only impress your reader(s) with your unique take on a topic but also say exactly what you mean as clearly and, in many cases, as concisely as you can. Your essay goal is to convey information, including the fact that you can write well. That goal won’t be achieved if your readers don’t understand your first few sentences or paragraphs and stop reading, or if they finish reading but fail to grasp your message. Learning how to be a clear and accurate writer will help make your essay readable and will guarantee that those who read it understand exactly what you mean to say. The five guidelines in this chapter show you how to clarify your writing. Suppose you are facing some problem in…

Using SQLite in Raspberry Pi

If you are doing some data logging, sensor reading, or another routine task with Raspberry Pi, you probably think of using the database. The list of database software choices is quite long, but you will end with a single or few tables in the database in most cases. The first thought might be MySQL – a well-known database server in WWW. Anyway, this is a pretty heavy tool to have running on Raspberry Pi. In my opinion, SQLite is probably the most suitable choice. Because it is serverless, lightweight, opensource, and supports most SQL code. Another handy thing is that SQLite stores data in a single file which can be stored anywhere.

Raspberry Pi – mounting USB drive

Raspberry PI, by default, has only one memory available – an SD card that also holds the kernel itself. Unless you are using a large SD, eventually, you will run out of space -especially if you are dealing with media files or playing with the camera module. The easiest and cheapest way of expanding memory is to use a USB Flash drive. If you are accessing PI from the terminal screen, then probably one of the built-in USB ports is free, and you can attach a drive directly to it; otherwise, use USB HUB – better with an external power option.

Setting up Tiva C Launchpad project template with Sourcery Codebench and Eclipse

Tiva C series TM4C123G (MCU:TM4C1233H6PM)Launchpad is updated version of Stellaris Launchpad LM4F120 (MCU: LM4F120H5QR). Practically this is due to TI’s choice to change the name of the product line. Such action led to some confusion, especially for software developers. This means that software libraries had to be renamed, software tools adapted, and so on. Since this work is most renaming things from one point, this is an easy task; from another point, it may be tricky to check all corners. So if you just into Texas Instruments ARM Cortex microcontrollers, it is better to start with the Tiva C series and forget Stellaris. Otherwise, this might get confusing to switch from one to another. At the moment, TivaWare 1.1 still has some issues due to migration, but most things should work fine. Let’s try to create a project template for Eclipse IDE and Sourcery Codebench Lite GCC compiler tools. First, you need to download and install Eclipse with CDT C/C++ tools (Eclipse Indigo includes this). Next, you need to install the latest Mentor Sourcery Codebench Lite. Also, download and extract TivaWare for the C series, where all libraries and examples are located. To Flash microcontroller, download LM Flash Programmer. Other…

Capacitors Embracing the Green Revolution

One of the pressing concerns of our age is the environmental crisis. With the progressing technological evolution, the need for energy conservation and harvesting has increased. Harvesting energy is not an easy task, and most of the time, generating energy creates pollution in the environment. To deal with it, the international community has changed its approach. It is now focused on identifying the areas where energy is being wasted and rectifying those issues instead of producing more energy. The low power factor is one of those aforementioned issues. Power factor is a measure of lag in current concerning voltage. Its value varies from zero to one. This lag creates a component of electrical power that is not being used and keeps oscillating between generation and consumer ends. This circulation of power dissipates energy in the form of heat and creates extra load on the generation’s end. A power factor issue arises due to inductive loads, such as electric motors, fans, etc. Now the power companies have started to penalize industries with high inductive loads and a shallow power factor. The industries are taking initiatives to increase their power factor. There are two methods of power factor correction. One is using…

Raspberry Pi camera module

Recently I’ve received a Raspberry pi camera board. So decided to make a post about it. Raspberry PI comes with two interesting connectors onboard. One is between Ethernet and HDMI, and another is near GPIO. The one closer to the Ethernet connector is CSI (Camera Serial Interface) bus interface. This interface is common in mobile phones with cameras. This interface is specially designed for high data rates that are necessary for transferring pixel data. The camera board is a small (25mm x 20mm x 9mm) board where a fixed-focus 5MP camera module (OV5647) is assembled. The camera connects to Raspberry Pi via a 15cm ribbon cable. Camera module is capable of producing 1080p images at 30fps or 720p at 60 fps and 640x480p at 60/90 fps. Obviously, such images and fps require a high-speed interface and processing. So CSI is connected directly to Raspberry Pi GPU, which can process images without ARM intervention. This is why the camera module is a much better choice than the USB camera, which occupies the main processor and slows down the whole system. GPU processing also benefits with fast H264 video encoding and JPEG compression capabilities.

Experiment with Joule thief circuit

Joule thief circuit is popular among electronics enthusiasts. It has many implementations but probably the most common is a very minimalist voltage booster based on NPN transistor, coil, resistor, and LED. Its primary intent is to squeeze the remaining juice of dying batteries to light a LED. Since a pile of dying batteries keeps growing, I decided to give it a try. Instead of building the real circuit blindly, I decided to understand what is going on inside the circuit. So I made this circuit on the LTSpice simulator. You may find some difficulties when adding a transformer to the circuit, there is an excellent video on how to do this.

Simulating MOSFET based bidirectional 3.3V to 5V logic level shifter

Different logic levels are a common problem in various circuits. For instance, Arduino boards come powered from 5V or 3.3V. Raspberry Pi is powered at 3.3V, and it accepts and generates 3.3V signals on its GPIO. This is fine until you need to connect the 5V peripheral to a 3.3V device. This can be a simple LCD. Of course, you can get 3.3V LCDs, but this is not always the solution. Sometimes it is handy to build a voltage level converter. It can be a special buffer IC like SN74LVCC3245A. These work great as bidirectional voltage translators. But in many cases, there is no need for another IC in your circuit. Hobbyists like to go with simpler solutions. The simplest way is to use resistors, where signal levels differ. The fact is that in most cases, devices have clamping diodes on the inputs that are meant to protect a further circuit from over-voltages. For instance, clamping diode inside a 3.3v device will try to limit the input voltage to 3.3V. This is why a series resistor necessary to limit the current flowing through the diode. Using resistors doesn’t guarantee safe operation. First of all, you must be sure that the…