GROUPS: Plan: Schedule a group meeting with me at least once a week, 1 group at a time. Discuss progress during class. Class meetings at times to keep discussing various instruments.

1
GROUPSPlan Schedule a group meeting with me
at least once a week, 1 group at a time.
Discuss progress during class. Class meetings at
times to keep discussing various instruments.
2
Can urban canyons be used to funnel wind kinetic
energy to allow for smaller, high output suburban
wind power generators?

• Go around campus and town with the ultrasonic
  anemometer and measure winds in urban canyons.
  Compare with the UNR weather station
  http//www.wrcc.dri.edu/weather/unr.html. How
  much of an enhancement can urban canyons provide
  for wind speed? How does this change the
  necessary size for a wind power generator for a
  given electrical power need? In each case, what
  makes the wind greater in the urban canyon? What
  is the local reason for it? Is the increased
  wind in canyons just turbulent kinetic energy,
  not that useful for wind power generation?
• People in this group.Andrew Joros, Erich Uher,
  Ben Hatchett, Brian Rae, Josh Walston
• Affiliate Josh Molzan

3
Development of a rainfall rate and rain drop size
measurement instrument disdrometer.

• Use piezo electric disks of varying size.
• Impact drops on the disks. Record and study the
  electrical signal coming from drops hitting the
  piezo disks.
• Work on the best algorithm to relate drop size
  with piezo signal.
• Test the instrument with drops at the DRI fall
  tower on the Northwest corner of the building.
• Suggested group
• Josh Molzan
• Steven Gronstal

4
Development of a Lockin Amplifier with a 24 bit
analog to digital converter and USB interface.
Use it to measure the response of LEDs to light
of different wavelength (along with the
monochrometer cross over to the Optics Class).

• People for the lock-in Rachel Miller, Muir
  Morrison.People for the microcontroller
  programming and interfacing with the 24 bit a/d
  chip Michael Gallaspy.

5
Development of a Theremin An ethereal musical
instrument The true guitar!

• An optical theremin can be constructed from the
  op amp circuit we studied earlier in the
  semester, if a second circuit is added for
  optically controlled gain.
• Better solutions Build one that uses the
  electrodynamic influence of a moving hand to
  change the impedance of a coil thereby changing
  musical pitch.
• people Kyle Swanson, Daniel Hamilton, Laurel
  Hardiman

6
Development of a variable aperture sun photometer
for measuring aerosol diffraction patterns and
inferring aerosol size distribution.

• Do sun photometery as we did in class, but now
  add in a variable aperture on the inlet to change
  the amount of radiation accepted into the sun
  photometer. Do regular sun photometer
  measurements as well as those with the variable
  aperture instrument.People Matthew Wallace,
  Kyle Carpenter.

7
Atmospheric Pressure Transition from weather to
sound

• Use a relatively fast response ambient pressure
  transducer to measure the frequency spectrum of
  pressure variations associated with weather, with
  perhaps atmospheric gravity wavers, and with
  infrasound. Determine the frequency response of
  the motorola pressure transducers.
• Use the pressure transducer to illustrate the
  operating principle of a pitot tube used to
  measure aircraft speed.
• Measure resonance enhanced sound spectra for very
  low frequency in tunnels under I80 and in and
  around Reno.
• People Susan Konkol, Andrew Evans, Brian
  McLeod, Alena Voigt

8
Atmospheric Radiation Measurements Group

• Perform spectral measurements of the downwelling
  infrared radiation in the atmosphere using the
  FTIR. Observe the transition in spectrum as the
  morning temperature inversion breaks up. Use the
  spectral measurements to infer the temperature
  and RH structure of the lower atmosphere. Do
  measurements are the time of the Reno National
  Weather Service balloon soundings to help with
  the retrieval interpretations.
• Do spectral and broadband measurements of the
  solar spectrum using the spectrometer and some
  devices we have around.
• Use the solar wavelength spectrometer to measure
  the spectrum of sky light in various directions
  from the solar zenith angle investigate the
  spectrum and interpret. Trace gas detection with
  a DOAS like method?
• People Narayan Adhikari (FTIR), Charles
  Woodman, Aja Ellis
• Affiliates Ryan Baker, Frank Greenhalgh

9
Radon Detector

• On the projects web page is a schematic and
  description of a radon detector design. Radon is
  a naturally occurring radioactive gas that often
  is an issue for people with basements. This
  project illustrates a very clever method for
  measuring radon.
• PEOPLE Ryan Baker, Frank Greenhalgh