Hello Team Terror!
As squirrels frolic on the roof above me, I wanted to let you know about this week’s Tech Terror’s adventures…sadly we were missing 3D Mike at this session… but a small car entertainment system was sacrificed in his honor. 😉
I focused primarily on Tech Autopsies this week (it’s just not the same without Mike, so wanted to keep it simple and make him feel as guilty as possible…we miss you Mike!) and it got messy fast…colored toner, laptop keys and screws galore…we even had a couple of autopsy related cuts and bruises…I have to say, I’ve got so many nicks and cuts from doing this stuff that I think I’m immune, but I do want to make sure nobody gets hurt… so, I’ve reminded the Terrors that there are gloves and glasses available amongst the Tools of Terror if things get hairy…speaking of which:
A number of our intrepid Terrors were “grossed-out” by the amount of dust that accumulates in a lot of these old electronics and so I started wondering…Why do electronics get so dusty? Why do they seem to attract more dust than other things around the place. The answer is either, “because nobody ever cleans them” or… it’s a great excuse to go atomic!
Everything in the world is made up of atoms. Atoms are themselves made up of even tinier things, called electrons, protons and neutrons. If an atom has more protons than electrons the atom is said to be positively charged, if it has more electrons than protons then it’s called negatively charged… finally, if all the protons and electrons are equal, they cancel each other out and the atom is called neutral. Once an atom or a group of atoms (a molecule) has a positive or negative charge you can call them an ion… and sound like a real scientist!
Like everything else, dust is made up of negative and positively charged particles. Negatively charged particles attract positively charged particles and vice versa. Negatively charged particles repel (push away) negatively charged particles and positive ions repel positive ions… simply put opposites attract & likes repel…just like the North and South poles of a magnet.
Now… back to our dusty electronics equipment! All that electricity running through electronics creates negative and positively charged areas which as we know, become very attractive to their opposites… in this case oppositely charged dust particles!
Electricity creates heat…especially when forced through the tiny paths in electronics, and that heat can literally cause them to melt down and stop working…so we need them to chill out! For some electronics, just designing cases to have good air flow and using vents, is enough to keep them cool. But in other cases… certainly in the case of the super cool gaming PC our PC modders have just re-built, they need a more active cooling system. They need fans to draw the cool air in and blow out the heat…if that air has dust… which air generally does… it’s going to stick around!
Back to our session! I had the Terrors focus on their Autopsy victims:
Our giant 3 color laser printer is still offering up it’s tech treasures… and a ton of colored toner… and the hunt is on for the laser hidden deep within!
A multi-CD and tape deck system, which initiated the discussion about dusty electronics has been reduced to few electronics boards and some cool looking motors.
An old in-car entertainment system has been taken apart and it’s little monitor was last seen heading for the library.
Video Vida was also back at his fabulous game recording… I’m assuming that vast amounts of YouTube money is going to start flying in any second now! 😉
And we’ve had a breakthrough with our Plant Drive initiative….I planted a few clippings in used nespresso pods for the plant drive and figured I’d get the Terrors to design a basic 3d printed plant holder for them…
Turns out I was thinking WAY too small!? I’ll let the Terrors walk you through their diabolical schemes!
(The video is public, but I made sure to crop out faces in order to protect the perpetrators! 😉
I believe that next week may be the end of this Tech Terrors season, but I’d love to do at least one more after that… if only to make up for the snow day… will have to see how that works with the Frankland schedule.
Next week, for our (hopefully NOT) final Terrors session…. we’ll be having a Robo Disco!
As always, any questions, concerns suggestions about The Tech Terrors and their evil deeds, or advice on squirrel care and feeding (don’t)…feel free to get in touch…and I’ll continue to look out for more cool things like this laser-wielding Snake Robot that can cut a nuclear reactor to ribbons!