DIY PVC Magnetometer

MAKE
January 25, 2012 10:00 AM
by John Baichtal

DIY PVC Magnetometer

I love it when people use humble PVC as a project enclosure. In this case, Alex Avtanski of San Jose, CA, built this DIY Magnetometer to detect and measure magnetic storms.

The activity of the Sun varies on a cycle with a period of approximately 11 years. Periods of low solar activity are followed by a few years of sharply increased number of solar spots, flares, and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), disrupting Earth's magnetic field and causing magnetic storms. With the next Solar cycle maximum approaching I wanted to get on the fun too, so I set to build my own device for detecting and recording those magnetic storms, a.k.a. a magnetometer.
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My magnetometer is of a torsion design. Torsion magnetometers work as follows: A magnet, attached to a mirror, is suspended from a thread. A laser beam is reflected from the mirror and falls on a detector. Changes in the Earth's magnetic field turn the magnet and the attached mirror, twisting the torsion thread. The reflected beam changes its position on the sensor, the changes are recorded and plotted on a chart.

Electronics Science

Dr. Art Trembanis

Associate Professor

CSHEL

109 Penny Hall

Department of Geological Sciences

The College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment

University of Delaware

Newark DE 19716

http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

302-831-2498

"We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

-T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding

"Il faut aller voir" -JYC

Google Releases Pretty Earth

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleEarthBlog/~3/EbTVifR2erc/massive_google_earth_imagery_improv.html

Demonstration Sediment-Transport Applets

Came across these useful sediment transport applets again today.

http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/staffpages/csherwood/sedx_equations/sedxinfo.html

Seadiscovery.com - VideoRay Delivers Mini-ROV Fleet to Dutch Navy

http://www.seadiscovery.com/mtStories.aspx?ShowStrory=1055802084

Tidely

http://www.tidely.com/#.TyA32i8s9S9.gmail

Handy little link, thanks to my sailor Dad for pointing this out.

Professor Resigns From Stanford To Launch Online Education Project

http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/XxVQ3AZMxrI/professor-resigns-from-stanford-to-launch-online-education-project

Many improvements to Breadcrumbs

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleEarthBlog/~3/cPGNwEIMlT8/many_improvements_to_breadcrumbs.html

The Ocean Sciences Film Festival – S-Factor 2 - Aquatic Sciences Network

Looks like another great session by Dr. Randy Olson.  If you are going to the Ocean Sciences meeting please go to this event.

-Art

http://www.aquaticsci.net/?p=690

The Other Final Frontier - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/opinion/sunday/the-other-final-frontier.html?_r=2

Dr. Art Trembanis
Associate Professor
CSHEL
109 Penny Hall
Department of Geological Sciences
The College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment
University of Delaware
Newark DE 19716
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
302-831-2498
"We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
-T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding

"Il faut aller voir" -JYC

OpenROV to Perform Preliminary Dives

MAKE
January 22, 2012 3:16 AM
by Gareth Branwyn

OpenROV to Perform Preliminary Dives

As you may already know, David Lang, our Zero to Maker columnist, is involved in the OpenROV project, an open source camera-equipped R/C submersible, designed to look for water-buried treasure. They're taking the ROV prototypes up to Hall City Cave in Northern, CA tomorrow for some preliminary dives. How exciting!

Eric and I and a few others are up near the Trinity Alps, planning to go to the Hall City Cave tomorrow with a couple OpenROV prototypes. As you can see from the photo, we've hacked a GoPro 3D camera onto the OpenROV.

Biggest challenge now is the weather.

More to come soon!

OpenROV

More:
Search for buried treasure with your very own OpenROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle)

Robotics 3d camera david lang dives OpenROV treasure hunting trinity alps zerotomaker

Dr. Art Trembanis

Associate Professor

CSHEL

109 Penny Hall

Department of Geological Sciences

The College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment

University of Delaware

Newark DE 19716

http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

302-831-2498

"We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

-T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding

"Il faut aller voir" -JYC

Satellite imagery and 3D model of the cruise ship Costa Concordia

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleEarthBlog/~3/CNv-LKkzIBM/satellite_imagery_of_the_cruise_shi.html

Basic Observation Buoy (BOB) Data Portal

http://cormp2.das.uncw.edu/dev/

FieldScope Home

Neat examples of STEM citizen science water quality monitoring programs

http://www.fieldscope.org/

Dear Student: I Don't Lie Awake At Night Thinking of Ways to Ruin Your Life - Forbes

http://www.forbes.com/sites/artcarden/2012/01/12/dear-student-i-dont-lie-awake-at-night-thinking-of-ways-to-ruin-your-life/

Bursting at the seams

I guess it is a good sign of how busy and active we are but there is literally no room to move around in the lab.

GeoHab 2012 — May 2012 • Orcas Island, Washington • USA

Website for the GeoHab conference

http://www.seadocsociety.org/geohab2012/

Every Day, Army's Panopticon Drone Will Collect 80 Years' Worth of HD Video | Danger Room | Wired.com

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/01/army-helicopter-cross-eyed/

Thanks to Doug W for pointing me to this story.

Using ISS images to teach earth science

http://www.edufy.org/content/show/663

Navy May Use Mine-Detecting Dolphins In the Straight of Hormuz

http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/f41XlOKQErU/navy-may-use-mine-detecting-dolphins-in-the-straight-of-hormuz

Underwater Noise Disturbs Whales 120 Miles Away

http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/YYqJW5HGLcU/

High school students can explore ocean science at UD summer camp

Announcement about TIDE 2012 including a photo from the cruise aboard the RV Hugh R Sharp that we took them on two years ago.

http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2012/jan/tide-camp-011312.html

Dr. Art Trembanis
Associate Professor
CSHEL
109 Penny Hall
Department of Geological Sciences
The College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment
University of Delaware
Newark DE 19716
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
302-831-2498
"We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
-T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding

"Il faut aller voir" -JYC

Best Practices for Programming MATLAB

Loren on the Art of MATLAB
January 13, 2012 7:21 AM
by Loren Shure

Best Practices for Programming MATLAB

I thought I would share my top goto list of things I try to do when I write MATLAB code. And checking with other MathWorks folks whose code I admire, I found they basically used the same mental list that I use. You can find blog posts on all of these topics by selecting relevant categories from the right side of The Art of MATLAB blog site.

Contents

• My List of Best Practices
• Missing from Your List? Additions to My List?

My List of Best Practices

Clearly (at least to me), this is not everything you generally need to do. You still need to comment the code, add good help information and examples, etc. But these are the main coding practices and tools I always rely on.

1. Vectorize (but sensibly).
2. Use bsxfun in lieu of repmat where possible.
3. When looping through an array, loop down columns to access memory in the same order that MATLAB stores the data in.
4. Profile the code. I am often surprised about what is taking up the time.
5. Pay attention to messages from the Code Analyzer.
6. Use functions instead of scripts.
7. Don't "poof" variables into any workspaces. Translation, don't use load without a left-hand side; avoid eval, evalin, and assignin.
8. Use logical indexing instead of find.
9. Avoid global variables.
10. Don't use equality checks with floating point values.

Missing from Your List? Additions to My List?

What's on my list that you don't currently do? Do you have a major addition to my list (there can't be too many, or I won't remember to do them all!)? Let me know here.

Get the MATLAB code (requires JavaScript)

Published with MATLAB® 7.13

Best Practice

Dr. Art Trembanis

Associate Professor

CSHEL

109 Penny Hall

Department of Geological Sciences

The College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment

University of Delaware

Newark DE 19716

http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

302-831-2498

"We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

-T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding

"Il faut aller voir" -JYC

Seadiscovery.com - BlueView Signs Agreement with Outland Technology

http://www.seadiscovery.com/mtStories.aspx?ShowStrory=1055022056

Explore your world, start here.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/SbSV/~3/RjGGF_fu4N8/explore-your-world-start-here.html

Neural networks research led by UD's Tanner wins outstanding paper award

UDaily article about the neural network object detection work by our colleague Bert Tanner in mechanical engineering, includes mention of our work detecting subway cars and scallops.

http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2012/jan/tanner-neural-networks-011112.html

New Ways to Measure Science | Wired Science | Wired.com

http://m.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/01/new-ways-to-measure-science/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

The Challenges of Building a Mars Base

http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/HDBmbNaEKl0/the-challenges-of-building-a-mars-base

The Great Migration Game: Sea Turtle Tracking in Bonaire

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/SbSV/~3/DM5bb6sQKss/great-migration-game-sea-turtle.html

Wave mechanics in Google Earth

Very useful article for the waves lectures in my coastal classes.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleEarthBlog/~3/tCgrK4LMk64/wave_mechanics_in_google_earth.html

Where Were the Robots In Fukushima Crisis?

http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/lv3qyaNFEzM/where-were-the-robots-in-fukushima-crisis

TalkingScience » Blog Archive » Sea Grapes Google Earth Tour + Video

Great use of Google Earth tour to tell a story of marine invasive species

http://www.talkingscience.org/2012/01/sea-grapes-google-earth-tour-video/

NASA Launches Open Source Portal

http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/-YCbr_mIhhY/nasa-launches-open-source-portal

A Whale's Virtual Reality

http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/3p-v-Ege5cQ/a-whales-virtual-reality

University scientists aiding fishermen in butterfish conundrum

http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2012/jan/butterfish-forecast-010512.html

Alien world found in Antarctic deep sea - Technology & science - Science - LiveScience - msnbc.com

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45862618/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/alien-world-discovered-antarctic-deep-sea-vents/?fb_ref=.TwPvTCSp1Gd.like&fb_source=home_multiline#.TwQyxSp5mK2