Another weekend down. Another long lists of to dos left undone. I did, however, manage to finish a couple of things. One planned. One unplanned.
I'm giving a talk at the first meeting of the Atlanta Metro Physics Teachers Network. It's a small gathering of local physics teachers to support the development of new teaching techniques and foster the appropriate use of technology in the classroom.
I'm talking about introducing computer modeling to high school students in physics classes. Python has a very nice module written for it that generates objects by simply calling those objects. The ease with which students can make objects and instruct them to obey physical laws is astounding. The module is called VPython.
I've spent a lot of time this weekend writing out an explanation of the module and how to use it. That work is almost done. I still need to go over my talk and make sure I've written all the simulations I wanted to show.
Last night, my truck stopped running. The lights went dim. The dash started flashing. And the speedometer and tachometer shut down. As I rolled into the driveway, it died. Luckily, I had made it home.
The electrical system had been giving me trouble for the last couple of months. The wipers were failing intermittently and the driver side window motor died. The battery was outputing to high a voltage when the truck was running, 22V or so. I figured the alternator was to blame, but the problems were so random I ignored them.
This morning, I tested the battery. It was low, about 11.5V. When the truck started this morning, the voltage dropped to 10V. Then it wouldn't start -- so I pulled the old alternator.
I replaced it which was an ordeal. The automatic belt tensioner on the truck is pain to reach and even harder to turn. After some grunting and yanking and some help from Jamie, I got the belt back on. I put everything back together and...
It didn't start. Jamie reminded me to jump the truck first. The battery was so low it need to be recharged by the alternator. The jump started the truck and I left it running for 10 minutes. It's running great again and no intermittent problems. The driver side window motor still doesn't work.
0 comments:
Post a Comment