Final Review

Wilson, Taylor. (February 2013). My radical plan for small nuclear fission reactors

http://www.ted.com/talks/taylor_wilson_my_radical_plan_for_small_nuclear_fission_reactors

For my review, I decided on a talk by Taylor Wilson, a scientist who built his first nuclear fusion reactor when he was fourteen years old.  I decided to do my review on this talk because I have always been interested in nuclear power.  Taylor Wilson is a scientist who has built a fusion reactor and worked on many other radiation products.  In this talk, Wilson describes the design of a new type of fission reactor.  His design uses the same process as all current nuclear reactors, but in a safer and easier package.

Wilson starts by describing the current state of nuclear power.  Currently, fuel rods heat up, which boils water which turns a turbine.  He describes it as being very similar to how we've been generating power for the past hundred years, only with a novel energy source.  Wilson's proposal is to build small modular reactors in a factory, instead of the larger reactors that we currently rely on.  By building them in a factory, the reactors can easily be shipped all over the world.  His reactor uses molten salts as opposed to water, which also means that they can use waste materials from nuclear weapons.  By replacing the water with CO2 or helium as a final fluid, the temperature of the turbine goes up making the reactor more efficient.  By using salts, Wilson's reactor is less pressurized, can't meltdown, and is much easier to disable in the case of an accident.  The reactors are sealed and placed in an underground pit, which makes them harder to use for nuclear weapons purposes.  Wilson even goes so far as to think forwards to space and exploration.  When not activated, his design is more inert than the batteries already in use for rovers.  The power provided by a reactor would be much higher and more reliable than that of any solar panel.

Wilson raises some good points.  Nuclear does provide an extremely viable option for clean power of the future.  There are multiple new designs that provide a much safer and more stable power plant  for energy generation than all of the current designs still in service from the 70s and the 80s.  His thought of mass production is also a good way to move the technology forwards.  The automobile industry did not take off until mass production, along with several other industries.  It stands to reason that this industry would also have the same effect.  Wilson does a very good job of presenting his design and the advantages it possesses compared to the current standard reactor design.  However, there are several other designs for newer, safer reactors, and Wilson fails to mention any of them, nor does he mention what potential advantages they have compared to his design or the current design.  Wilson does a good job of selling his design, and that was the purpose of his talk, however the lack of comparison to his competition leads to some doubt about how good his design actually is.

I have always believed that nuclear power is the way of the future.  It is clean and easy power that is much more abundant and more easily harvested than any other form of clean energy.  I would find it interesting to be working in the nuclear industry even if I am not planning to.  This provides an excellent view of the future of one of our most advanced power sources.  Nuclear is clean, easy power and the designs just keep getting better and better.

Taylor Wilson's talk presents a bright view for the future of nuclear power.  If he is presenting reactor designs when he is just 17, what will he do later?  He is excited about nuclear power and shares that excitement with the viewer, which helps make his point even stronger.

Final Review

Gerdes, C. (May 2012) “The future race car – 150mph, and no driver.”

Retrieved from:

https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_gerdes_the_future_race_car_150mph_and_no_driver#t-624603

For my report, I decided to review a Ted Talk by Chris Gerdes. He is a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University and he previously was the project leader for vehicle dynamics at the Vehicle Systems Technology Center of Daimler-Benz Research and Technology. He works closely with cars and engines. The video I watched is called “The future race car – 150mph, and no driver.” I chose this video because I’m majoring in mechanical engineering and want to do something with engines when I graduate from college. During his speech, Gerdes describes how technology is changing with automobiles and how his research team is pressing forward in autonomously moving vehicles. His audience would be anybody interested in cars and technology. He states that people have been doing work with autonomous cars, but his research group is developing autonomous racecars. This is because he believes “that before people turn over control to an autonomous car, that autonomous car should be at least as good as the very best human drivers.” The autonomous car has to account for different variables while driving and need to account for them accordingly. Professional racecar drivers are able to react to most driving scenarios as if it’s natural for them and that’s how Gerdes believes autonomous cars should run too. Gerdes’s message is mostly informative, but he also wants his audience to think about what course the advancement of technology should take. I believe Gerdes has a lot of brilliant ideas and is doing an excellent job as him and his team are engineering these types of cars.

Gerdes begins by putting into context why people might want to use an autonomous car. He then explains that the idea of an autonomous car was a dream since General Motors showcased this idea at their Futurama booth at the World’s Fair in 1939. He mentioned that the dream has taken a step forward when Nevada granted Google’s self-driving car the first license that will allow them to test their car on the roads within the state. He then explains how at his lab at Stanford, they are building robotic racecars that can push themselves to the edge of physical performance. His reasoning for this is that autonomous cars should be capable of driving like the best drivers in the world which he states is racecar drivers. His team is trying to develop cars that can sense when road conditions change such as it becomes icy. Once this happens, the car needs to correct its driving to account for this new condition and drive safely. He says that he wants “a car that is capable enough to avoid any accident that can physically be avoided.” He then lists a few projects that they have worked on. These include building the world’s first autonomously drifting car and working with Volkswagen Oracle to create Shelley, an autonomously racecar that has successfully navigated long and difficult racetracks. While working on these projects, Gerdes said that he has “developed a tremendous appreciation for the capabilities of human racecar drivers.” They can find the fastest path around a track at high speeds and without any technology that can solve for the fastest route. He then explains a n experiment where they measured the mental workload in a racecar driver’s brain as they’re driving. They discovered that a lot of what the drivers do is entirely reflexive or instinctive. This has caused him to think: do they want their autonomous cars to be based on algorithms or should they be more intuitive like racecar drivers? He then ends by asking the audience to think, what is the perfect balance between human mind and machine?

Gerdes does a very good job at explaining what an autonomous car is and how they are beginning to take shape in our world. He does this by giving a little history of the subject and then showing clips of projects he has taken part in. He then emphasized the point that human racecar drivers are extraordinary in what they do. He gives evidence of this by showing the experiment that was done on the mental workload of a driver as he goes around a difficult course. He then accomplishes the task of making his audience think about the future and what place autonomous cars will hold in it. For what he tried to accomplish, he didn’t leave any information out and did a very nice job at explaining his topic.

I had an interest in Gerdes’s topic from the start because of my fascination of cars. I loved watching the videos of the autonomous racecars. What I found really interesting was the idea “that before people turn over control to an autonomous car, that autonomous car should be at least as good as the very best human drivers.” This caught my attention because throughout history, most people created in invention and then would try to perfect it, but Gerdes is trying to push this idea to the max right away. Gerdes was also successful in making me think about how these types of cars will take root in the future.

Chris Gerdes’s Lecture on autonomous racecars was incredibly intriguing. He was able to show the past, the present, and make the audience think about the future in his lecture. He gave a lot of good examples to prove his points and make the audience agree with them too. Technology has played a major part on the world, but Gerdes is able to challenge the course it is taking and make people truly think about how it should continue.

Week 8 Review

Robinson, Ken. (2006, Feb). Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

In the TEDTalk Do schools kill creativity?, Sir Ken Robinson humorously explains the flaws of our current educational system. Sir Robinson expands the theory that the hierarchy of subjects taught in schools worldwide limit the creatively brilliant people. Sir Robinson, former English professor and advocate of creative learning, with the use of personal anecdotes and comedic technique challenges the structure of the educational system.

Being a former educator, Sir Robinson has a good grasp of the educational system. He brings attention to the fact that no matter where in the world, there is a hierarchy of ‘important’ subjects which is in the order of science and mathematics, languages, humanities and then the arts. This order is put in order of job procurement probability. Logically speaking, there is more job security for a computer programmer than a musician. The educational system is set up around this hierarchy and students that are not interested in the higher up subjects are constrained by the system. This logic leads to one of Sir Robinson’s message point; even though this system is for the benefit for the majority of the people, should the artists of the world be constrained?

This TEDTalk did not necessarily have anything to do with my veterinary career path. However, another option that I am thinking about is becoming a researcher along with teaching at a collegiate level. An issue that we students have now is the overload of memorization of facts and figures, without the liberty of creatively thinking and answer questions. This year alone, every test I've taken has been multiple choice. So either I knew the answer or I did not. And even then I had to know the answer in the professor's way of speech. So basically, in order to do well in classes students have to regurgitate the professor’s thinking to do well rather than having the freedom to explain the answers in their own way. This is another message point that Sir Robinson speaks about and I feel strongly about as well.

Sir Robinson’s talk was very compelling. His use of humor won not only me but the entire audience. His ability to talk on stage seemed very relaxed and natural which made him along with what he was saying agreeable. But now that I actually actively thinking about what he was saying rather than just listening, I realized he is a really good speaker. His credentials (degrees in drama and theater, english professor and professional speaker) are what allowed his TEDTalk to successful and not the content of the argument. Sir Robinson told many humorous and inspiring stories, but his lack of scientific argument or even solutions to the problems makes me as the viewer feel the talk was a little short of successful.

As my personal reflection, I think Sir Robinson brought up some prevalent issues of the educational system that we as a nation, along with the world need to address. Not everyone’s mind works the same and although the system is set up to help the majority, it is punishing the minority. And thus it limits becoming different and creative. Although, earlier I was critical of Robinson’s talk, I agreed with everything he said. But I also think to make his talk stronger, he should have proposed solutions to this issue.

This talk was relevant to one of my career options: teaching. I would like to teach science classes but I can already see that being a problem when trying to nurture creativity. For science, there is usually a right and wrong answer; there are universal facts that can’t be changed, but I think the whole learning process can be changed to accommodate creativity. For example there are always group projects. My biology professor makes us learn and memorize facts and methods, but then gives us real life scenarios to solve based on them. There is not always one way to solve problems so this lets our creative minds run. This allows us to know the material but also creatively problem solve which is exactly what we will be doing when we enter the task force. So methods like these will help in nurturing creativity in the science field.

Sir Ken Robinson provides many compelling arguments of the limitation of the educational system. He humorously and inspirationally  includes real people stories which sheds light to the immediate need for change in the system. The talk is already strong but with the proposal of solutions to the problem, it could be even stronger. Nonetheless, I completely agreed with Robinson’s message points and I agree there needs to be some changes made in the near future.

Week 7: Personal Reflection

This week has been a long one.  Even though classes are winding down and the work is decreasing, it seems my obligations are ever increasing and the time remaining in the semester is ever decreasing.  Moving, finals, and all of those other things make for a busy time.  My fun has been coming in the form of planning all of the things that I am going to do this summer.  I have so many projects and so little time.  Only 1 week left.

Week 7: Class Reflection

This week was a great way to end the class.  We got to spend the entire class solving puzzles, although it would have been better if the weather had been a lot less rainy.  We got a little stuck, and had to ask for a little help, but the other team also needed a little help.  There were even cookies at the end that the other team was gracious enough to provide.

Week 7 Personal Reflection

This week was pretty easy going for me. The most prominent problem that I had to solve was finding time for everything. I had three tests that I hadn't even looked at the material for. The way I went about prioritizing was first calculating the minimum score I would need to receive the grades I wanted in each class. Afterwards, I looked at the amount of studying I would need to accomplish that. So based on these steps I was able to deduce how much and how long I studied for each test. So far, the scores I've gotten back I've been happy with my choices :)

Week 7 Class Reflection

This week was a great way to end the class. It was nice to see how others took the challenge of creating their own puzzles. We saw the big differences in how our group worked and how the "rival" group worked. The biggest thing we learned through this was team building. Everyone had a strength and they utilized them at different stages of the problem solving process. Eventually, leading our team to win!!