User:JackApplegarth/ENES-100/project 0

My Instructor's course page which points to this.

Project Preference

 * Electronic Music Interface
 * MakerBot PLA Material
 * Autonomous Power Wheel

Problem Statement
''In one or two sentences, describe the project that your group will be working on. Identify what CDIO phase (Conceive, Design, Implement, or Operate) your group will complete in this project cycle.''

Project Plan
Briefly describe your group's plan for the next 4 weeks, including major tasks that will be completed each week.

Week 1 Narrative
I started with two separate test cups, each cup was covered, contained 1 bead, and a 1/4 cup of water. I placed one cup in direct sunlight, and the other cup in the basement. There was no noticeable difference between the two beads. Using the knowledge from my previous experiment, I started incrementally adding beads into a 1/4 cup of room temperature water with a cover to ensure there was no evaporation. First I added 6 beads, after 4 hours I checked on the beads. They had absorbed approximately 1/7 of the water. Even though the beads had not reached full capacity, by comparing them to the size of the first bead I tested, I knew they were not going to get much bigger. I added an additional 20 beads, after 2 1/2 hours I checked on them, they had absorbed about half of the water. I decided to add 11 additional beads, and let them sit for 4 1/2 hours. When I checked on the beads they had absorbed almost all of the water. There was about somewhere between 1/16 and 1/8 of an inch of water at the bottom of the cup. I noticed that a problem had arisen, the beads at the bottom of the cup had absorbed most of the water lifting the beads on top of them out of the water preventing them from absorbing any more water. Considering that the beads sitting out of water had not absorbed very much water, I figured if I removed the full beads from the cup and let the smaller beads sit in the water that they would absorb the remainder of the water. 14 beads remained in the cup of water, I let them sit for 8 1/4 hours. There was very small amount of water left, I added 4 more beads and let them sit for 3 hours. When I checked back on the beads all the water had been absorbed. The final count was 41 beads to absorb all the water. I think took a fairly logical approach to the task, although I wish I would have taken more precise measurements instead of eyeballed estimations. I think the next step will be working a method of re-using the beads into the solution.