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Events, courses, reports, miscellany...

This page contains events of interest, as well as miscellaneous data, programs and reports written by Michel Louge.

As an example of application of granular materials, here is a movie showing an innovative process for producing ultra high strength concrete pipes.


    Bill Nye's '77 Solar Noon Indicator over Rhodes Hall

Bill Nye "the Science Guy", Mechanical Engineering class of 1977, dedicated a unique clock that he donated to Cornell for the facade of Rhodes Hall at a ceremony on August 27, 2011. Beside simply telling the time of day, this clock illustrates the difference between legal and solar time by letting light illuminate a disk at the precise time when the sun culminates overhead. In memory of his parents, Bill Nye personally designed the clock and its light guide. See Bill Nye's lecture here.

In 2009-2011, Michel Louge led the group of students (Avraham Aisenberg, Erin Boschert, JB Rajsky, Steven Shine and Ian Werris) who designed the microcontroller that lets light through the Electric Time monumental clock. The microcontroller calibrates time with a GPS and opens a Solatube dimmer letting sky light shine at Solar Noon, per calculations in this worksheet.

Tamara Linsdtrom of YNN Ithaca/Cortland produced this piece on Bill Nye's creative project (August 24, 2011). Alyson Martin filed this report for the Ithaca Journal of August 24. Daniel Aloi wrote this article for the Cornell Chronicle. Channel 9 News in Syracuse posted this piece on its website. Byron Kittle, of the Cornell Daily Sun wrote this article on Bill's dedication. Joe Wilenski of the Cornell Chronicle reported dedication day in this pictorial article and posted a video of Bill Nye's visit.


  Tests March 2008  Bill points the way

   

Bill inspects the dimmer valve  Design team  Harold Evans' Chef's Table   Andrea, Bill, Harold

going up Clock insertion Closed dimmer   High Noon

 JB on the roof  JB by the clock  Solatube lens   Michel Louge at High Noon over Rhodes Hall   

Bill Nye'77 explains his parents' history

From left to right and top to bottom: Bill Nye '77 "the Science Guy" personally directs tests of the Solatube system above the roof of Rhodes Hall on March 27, 2008. The Solar Noon controller team works with Bill on October 19, 2009, and later enjoys Chef Harold Evans' table at North Star.  Electric Time and Cornell Facilities raise the clock on August 3, 2011. The Solar Noon indicator is fully-operational on August 18, 2011.  Note the contrast between the indicator with closed dimmer valve (left) and open valve (right). JB Rajsky poses on the roof and near the clock. Michel Louge shows the Solatube Fresnel lens that collects ambient light for the clock face. He poses in front of the clock on August 19, 2011 at Solar Noon. Bottom: Bill Nye'77 shares details of his parents' WWII history in front of the display case in the Rhodes Hall lobby.

    Solar energy

This workbook uses solar ephemeris to calculate the fraction of radiation collected by PV solar panels at a fixed orientation in 2014. For subsequent years, follow instructions therein after downloading the new ephemeris from http://navastro.com/downloads/catalogue.php, or look for updates on this page.

Combustion engines

This zipped document contains several Matlab and other files to implement simple models for Otto and Diesel engines. This worksheet contains a fit of the properties of water. Michel Louge currently serves as advisor to the Cornell Baja SAE team.

Chemical kinetics

Software bugs

This worksheet documents a bug in Excel involving order of operations.