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ruSo today was my first physics II lab. For those of you who came in late, physics II at my university basically involves things like magnetism and electricity and circuits and stuff, as opposed to "Mary throws a ball up while in a vaccum, where the ball rises to 5 meters. What is the ball's velocity when it hits the ground? Ignore the fact that Mary would not survive in a vaccum.". I hope it'll be a bit more interesting than last semester's physics I lab, where the most exciting thing we did was send cars down nearly-frictionless ramps.
Our first lab today involved drawings of a few different shapes on a grid, supposedly using a conducting paint which we then attached to electrodes. The shapes were simple--line and line, line and dot, line and triangle, and so on. I kinda wonder what was in that paint. But anyway, the whole idea was that we connected the drawings' electrodes to the computer, which then ran a program that measured the voltage coming from a probe. So when we put the probe on the paper, it'd cause a different voltage. And as you moved the probe around, the voltage would change, of course. So the object was to take this probe, pick an arbitrary voltage, and find five points on essentially the same area of the paper that had this mystic voltage. We then had to plot these dots elsewhere and then draw lines connecting these dots, creating--what do you know--lines! The point was to make several of these lines, and then using these lines, find what the electrical field is of the two objects painted out in conducting paint on this paper attached to a computer.
Don't worry, there's a point to all this.
So after we finished plotting these drawings within an inch of their carbon-paper lives, we spent some of the time trying to figure out the fields. Since we were there and all. No one, including myself, really gave much attention to the fact that the electrodes were still hooked up to the last picture(the line and triangle one). Now you have to realize--I'm a slow worker. More often than not I'm the last person to leave the lab(actually there were other groups still working today, but anyway), and today I was in fact the last person still drawing. I finished my drawings, got the TA to check them and then proceeded to pack up to go. As I was shoving my books in though, I realized that the electrodes were still connected to the picture and the box that the pictures went in was still open. Visions from labs past danced through my head, with the phrase "CLEAN UP OR WE'LL TAKE POINTS OFF" going off. In fear of this declaration, I decided it would be in my best interest to put things away like a good girl. So I reached over to unhook the picture.
Being that I'm still naive to the whole nature of electricity thing, there were some things I didn't realize as I reached over. 1.) The electrodes had been on for a while, allowing the electrons coursing through the equipment and the picture to be doing their little happy electron dance. 2.) The happy electron dance all that time was building up a nice charge. So what happened when I reached over and my pinky brushed some of that conducting paint?
ZAP.
I was instantly seized by the electrical current, went into life-threatening convulsions, and the TA had to knock me off with a broom and perform CPR to save my life!
Okay seriously, all I got was a nasty static shock. But it hurt dammit! My poor pinky has been thoroughly abused and needs to recuperate from the trauma it experienced.
The moral of this story: Don't touch pictures painted with conducting paint and connected to anything.
Our first lab today involved drawings of a few different shapes on a grid, supposedly using a conducting paint which we then attached to electrodes. The shapes were simple--line and line, line and dot, line and triangle, and so on. I kinda wonder what was in that paint. But anyway, the whole idea was that we connected the drawings' electrodes to the computer, which then ran a program that measured the voltage coming from a probe. So when we put the probe on the paper, it'd cause a different voltage. And as you moved the probe around, the voltage would change, of course. So the object was to take this probe, pick an arbitrary voltage, and find five points on essentially the same area of the paper that had this mystic voltage. We then had to plot these dots elsewhere and then draw lines connecting these dots, creating--what do you know--lines! The point was to make several of these lines, and then using these lines, find what the electrical field is of the two objects painted out in conducting paint on this paper attached to a computer.
Don't worry, there's a point to all this.
So after we finished plotting these drawings within an inch of their carbon-paper lives, we spent some of the time trying to figure out the fields. Since we were there and all. No one, including myself, really gave much attention to the fact that the electrodes were still hooked up to the last picture(the line and triangle one). Now you have to realize--I'm a slow worker. More often than not I'm the last person to leave the lab(actually there were other groups still working today, but anyway), and today I was in fact the last person still drawing. I finished my drawings, got the TA to check them and then proceeded to pack up to go. As I was shoving my books in though, I realized that the electrodes were still connected to the picture and the box that the pictures went in was still open. Visions from labs past danced through my head, with the phrase "CLEAN UP OR WE'LL TAKE POINTS OFF" going off. In fear of this declaration, I decided it would be in my best interest to put things away like a good girl. So I reached over to unhook the picture.
Being that I'm still naive to the whole nature of electricity thing, there were some things I didn't realize as I reached over. 1.) The electrodes had been on for a while, allowing the electrons coursing through the equipment and the picture to be doing their little happy electron dance. 2.) The happy electron dance all that time was building up a nice charge. So what happened when I reached over and my pinky brushed some of that conducting paint?
ZAP.
I was instantly seized by the electrical current, went into life-threatening convulsions, and the TA had to knock me off with a broom and perform CPR to save my life!
Okay seriously, all I got was a nasty static shock. But it hurt dammit! My poor pinky has been thoroughly abused and needs to recuperate from the trauma it experienced.
The moral of this story: Don't touch pictures painted with conducting paint and connected to anything.
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Date: 2005-01-23 06:36 am (UTC)