Project Blog - Thermos Challenge - (3/6 - 3/10)

This was our first prototype.

	Glass jar Without materials	Glass jar with materials
Start	80 at 8:37	74 at 1:51
5 min	76 at 8:42 -4 degrees	70 at 1:56 -4 degrees
10 min	69 at 8:47 -7 degrees	65 at 2:01 -5 degrees
15 min	64 at 8:52 -5 degrees	60 at 2:06 -5 degrees
20 min	60 at 8:57 -4 degrees	60 At 2:11 -0 degrees
25 min	54 At 9:02 -6 degrees	60 At 2:16 -0 degrees
30 min		60 At 2:21 -0 degrees

This is our table where we collected the information from our experiment.

Summary:

During this project, I learned about conductors and insulators. A conductor is a material that allows heat (or electricity) to travel through it. Have you ever touched the metal handle on a hot pan, and felt how hot it was? That metal was hot because it allowed heat to easily travel through it. A very important conductor of heat or thermal conductor is metal.

An insulator is a material that does not allow heat (or electricity) to travel through it. This means that it is the opposite of an insulator. Have you ever wondered why thermoses trap heat so well? This is because thermoses are made of good (and tested) thermal insulators. Some other examples of insulators are rubber because it does not allow electrons to move around easily and polystyrene also known as styrofoam, which is a good thermal insulator because it contains gas bubbles which don't allow the warm air to go out.

There are three different types of heat transfers that allow thermal energy to move from one object to another. These heat transfers are called convection, conduction, and radiation. Convection is a heat transfer that happens when thermal energy moves from one object to another with the movement of a fluid or gas like air and water. The warm fluid moves away from the source of heat, carrying the heat from one object to another. Conduction is a heat transfer that happens when thermal energy moves from one object to another with direct contact. You might get heat transfered to your hand with conduction if you touch a metal spoon which was in hot soup. Have you ever felt the sun's rays shining on a really hot day? That was the last heat transfer, known as radiation. Radiation occurs when thermal energy moves through electromagnetic waves. Another example of radiation is a microwave, which heats your food up with radiation.

Backward - Looking: What process did you go through to produce this piece?

There were many steps to complete this assignment. Without all of these nine steps, it would not be easy to finish the project in time.

To produce this piece, we went through this process:

1. Learn about conductors, insulators and heat transfers. This was the step where we researched about which insulators to use and which conductors not to use. This was also where we learned about the heat transfers and how they work.
   
2. Test glass base. We wanted to test the glass jar we had so that we could compare it to our first prototype. Comparing it would help us figure out if the materials made a difference to thermos or not.
   
3. Make a first prototype drawing. This is where we made a drawing that we thought would work well to lead towards our final thermos.
   
4. Build the first prototype. For this step, we had to collect all of our materials and build the thermos that we drew in the last step.
   
5. Test first prototype. In this step, we used the prototype that we built in the last step. We inserted hot water into our first prototype and kept track of the temperature of the water every five minutes.
   
6. Make second prototype drawing. We based our second prototype of of our first prototype. We added a few changes that we thought would make a difference in the temperature.
   
7. Build the second prototype. We build our second prototype from our model. We used some of the same materials from the first prototype, but some of the materials were different.
   
8. Test the second prototype. Our second test was to test our second prototype. This test showed us that the changes we made from the first prototype did make a difference in the temperature every five minutes.
   
9. Build final thermos. Our final thermos was very similar to the second prototype but was slightly different. This was the thermos that we chose to use for the challenge and compete with.
   
10. Complete final wright-up. The final write-up summarized the whole project and what we did to complete the project. It also talked about the things we learned and the process we went through to get our final thermos.

Inward - Looking: How do you feel about this piece of work? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What did/do you enjoy about this piece or work?

I feel good about this piece of work because we took a lot of time on it and it was not easy to do. I like how we were allowed to use any materials and any base because it made it more challenging to find the base and materials that we would decide to use. I also liked how it was a challenge and we were competing against other teams. I think that the best part of our thermos is how it has a lid that is easy to open and close. I do not dislike anything about this project or piece of work because it was a fun project that we learned a lot from.

Outward - Looking: Did you do your work the way other people did theirs? In what ways did you do it differently? In what ways was your work or process similar?

My team did our work similar to other teams because most of the teams did the same process to produce this piece. Some teams decided to use the same materials and base that we decided to use from our research. Some other teams used different materials and had a different order of materials that they thought would work better, but most teams used the same and most common insulators for their project.

Forward - Looking: What would you change if you had a chance to do this piece over again?

If I had a chance to do this piece over again, I would spend more time on the prototype and testing so that it would be easier to make the final product. I would also try to find a base that was a little bit smaller so that less heat would be lost and more would be trapped. I feel like we took our time on this piece and did our best work on it so I would not change anything else to this piece if I had a chance to.