Last post of this blog.

To top of this blog, I'm going to write about energy, our last project and some of my experiences of this subject. 

• Ways to produce electricity:

There are many ways to produce electricity:

• Renewable:

1.   Eolic

2.  Tidal

3.  Geothermal

4.  Solar

5.  Biomass and biofuel

• Non-renewable:

1.   Fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas)

2.  Atomic

Renewable powers:

Eolic:

Eolic power is the use of wind through wind turbines to mechanically power generators. It uses wind mills. These wind mills have a turbine that rotates when the wind passes through them which then power a generator.

Tidal:

This energy is produced by letting the tide's currents pass

through turbines which then power a generator.

Geothermal:

This energy is produced letting water get heated by the geothermal heat that is under the ground, this water then makes a turbine rotate which later on powers a generator.

Solar:

This energy is produced using photovoltaic panels which absorb energy from the sun's photons. There are 2 types of solar energy: With photons or with heat.

Biomass and biofuel:

This energy is produced by burning down biofuels or other renewable materials. This heat then heats the water up which later on makes a turbine rotate which finally powers a generator.

Non-renewable:

Fossil fuels:

This energy is produced by burning down fossil fuels such as petrol, gas, oil, coal etc. There only exist a certain amount of fossil fuels on the world, so they'll eventually run out.

Atomic:

This energy is produced by making water heat by breaking uranium molecules. These then release a lot of energy and this is used to heat the water. The water then rotates a turbine which then powers a generator. This energy is very bad because it produces a lot of toxic gases, the system they use to refrigerate the water is bad for the fish, and it's very dangerous. Also once you've decided to make an atomic station, if you later want to shut it down you'll have to wait literately hundreds of thousands of years, so it's an irreversible mistake.

• How can I save energy?

To save energy you can:

-Turn of the lights whenever you don't need them

-Try shutting of all the extra electrical devices that you don't need

- Don't abuse warm water

-Try to install solar panels to have an own renewable electric source

-Instead of using the oven or the hob, use a microwave which consumes way less electricity.

-Use low-consumption bulbs

-Use the dishwasher and the washing machine in “eco” mode and only use it when it's full.

-Try not to let electric devices in “standby”. Just shut them down if you don't need them

-Use a solar oven or cooker.

-Instead of using the air conditioner, open the windows or go to the beach.

-Instead of using electrical heating, make fire.

-Time your long-time use devices such as your fridge, electric water heater etc. Use a timer.

• Solar oven

Our last project of the year was to do a solar oven. It consisted of heating a material inside of it only using the sun's rays. Our solar oven reached over 90ªC !!

• My opinion about technology:

I really enjoyed being part of the technology class this year. We made lots of nice and interesting things and I learned a lot. What I liked most was the activity about programming in the UIB. We had lot's of fun and I learned a lot of new things. What I less liked was doing all the blogger posts. It was quite weird publishing posts on a public page just for my teacher. I didn't find it motivating but I did it anyways as best as I could. What I'd improve for next year would be the time we get to make a project. The quality of the projects would increase and the motivation too. Which is my favourite software/program used this year? Well definitely not scratch. It contained a lot of bugs and is to simplified, I prefer using either more raw programs such as Java or more simplified but efficient ones such as Ruby.