User:Akshay
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General Info
Hey! My name is Akshay Gupta. I will be a senior (FINALLY) at Sachem East HS. I like to think of myself as a lazy, boring individual, but others often accuse me of being diligent and fun. I enjoy indulging myself in a myriad of torturous AP classes including Statistics, Calculus BC, Physics B & C, English Language & Literature, Biology, US History, Economics, and Chemistry. I am in a science research class in which I investigate and understand cosmic rays (or at least I try to). I am in a bunch of afterschool clubs. I am the captain of the math team and the president of the physics club. I am the creative mind behind our popular math team shirts. I also play tennis (I make Federer look like a chump). I love my family and friends.
What is a cow's favorite subparticle? a moo-on
Use of an Electrometer to Measure: Atmospheric Electric Field and Their Relation to Clouds
I am in the process of constructing an electroscope in an attempt to measure the electromagnetic fields in the surrounding atmosphere. I've built a circuit board that attaches to a metal sphere made of 2 salad bowls. I have discovered how a circuit board functions and what the purpose of resistors and capacitors are. This instrument has great importance in linking the association between cosmic rays and and electromagnetic fields by observing if there is an unusual fluctuation in both the cosmic ray scintillators and the electroscope simultaneously.
This week I connected input of the circuit board that I built to the salad bowls and the output to an oscilloscope. I tested the effectiveness of the instrument by generating static electricity with a glass rod near the detector and observing any fluctuations. After tweaking the controls and adjusting the settings for optimal performance, I saw that the instrument functioned properly.
I made another circuit board for a second electrometer. Additionally, I screwed together my own bowls and sealed the gaps with conducting tape to improve contact between the bowls for better conductivity and more precise measurements. I should be collecting good data very soon. On a side note, I've been working on a card game called Hadron Hold 'em which resembles the poker game, Texas Hold 'em, that focuses on educating students about elementary particles.
I added a switch to the circuit board. Also, the board was shortcircuiting which caused the batteries to overheat. i adjusted this by strengthening the connection. Additionally, i created a more effective grounding solution. As a result of these alterations, the readouts improved a lot.
Click here for more information on Mariachi's progress in electrometers.
Hadron Hold 'em
Hadron Hold 'em is a card game that combines the classic game of Texas Hold 'em style poker with key concepts of particle physics. This game is a great way to teach particle physics in an enjoyable manner especially to high schoolers who lack a long attention span. This game is also ideal for those late nights of fun among physicists. I helped contribute to this project by writing the rules of gameplay.
Research at BNL 2007 Summer
July 12, 2007
I'm almost finished building the circuit board for the electroscope. Its construction is based on Richard Hull's article, "An Experimenter's Electrometer" and the circuit boards previously built by Chris and Josh. I just need to attach a R1(10megaohm resistor) and a Cin(10 pf disc capacitor) to the 6th leg of the I-C1 (LMC 6081). This will be the input to the circuit board.
July 13, 2007
I added on the input by coiling the Cin around the R1 and then soldering this to the I-C1 thus completing the circuit board. The input of the circuit board attaches to a metallic sphere consisting of 2 salad bowls. The output leads to the oscilloscope through a bnc connector.
I intend on building another electrometer for which I will need several more parts.
- R3 - 10K ohm potentiometer linear tape (pc type)
digikey: 3296Y-103LF-ND
- C1,C2 - .22 ufd 50 volt mylar capacitors 10%
digikey: 399-3535-ND
- I-C1 - LMC6081 integrated circuit
digikey: LMC6081-INND
July 19, 2007
The input broke off. To make sure the chance of this incident wouldn't occur again, a less rigid connection was made with flexible wiring. I tested to see if the electrometer reacted to differences of electromagnetic fields in the vicinity. I generated static electricity with a glass rod and the readings on the oscilloscope fluctuated indicating that it works. I was given a lot of assistance by Bob Warasila.
July 23, 2007
I participated in helping to create a card game that involved fundamental particles and how they interact. It's called Hadron Hold 'em. The game mostly revolves around the same rules of Texas Hold 'em except for several variations such as a 3 card dealt hand and the goal being to build the best particle using the cards.
July 25, 2007
I made up the rules with Peter for Hadron Hold 'em. I won every game we played. I also tested out Candice's game that resembled rummy which i won in as well.
July 26, 2007
With the efforts of Helio and Peter, we drilled holes in the salad bowls and screwed them together. We applied this process to two pairs of bowls, both pairs being different sizes but the same shape. The bowls must have good contact with each other in order to increase the validity of the measurements. Therefore, we put 8 screws around the circumference of the bowls.
July 30, 2007
Updated list of needed supplies:
digikey: LMC6081IN-ND
- BNC (output)
July 31, 2007
With the aide of Helio and Joe the oscilloscope was helped to be configured to show any disturbances in the electric fields of the atmosphere. We encountered a problem where there was a steady pulse of ups and downs on the oscilloscope's read-out, but it was eventually realized that the cause for this predicament was the placement of the power cord near the circuit board. When the wire was moved away, the read-out was steady unless the nearby electric field was altered.
August 1, 2007
I added a switch to the circuit board as a way to prevent the batteries from being used unnecessarily. I created a wiki page for Hadron Hold 'em as a guide for others on how to play the game.
August 3, 2007
I replaced the old, inefficient batteries with new ones and tested out the electrometer. However, the batteries were overheating due to shortcurcuiting. I resoldered the wiring and the problem was resolved.
Mariachi Summer 2008 Workshop
The purpose of this workshop is to go over the basics of cosmic ray research as well as any advancements made recently.
Summer Workshop 2008
July 7, 2008
Today was the first day of the workshop. I had returned once again for this fantastic workshop that I've been looking forward to for the last year.
- We had a historical introduction to cosmic rays as presented by Helio
- Discovered by Victor Hess in 1921
- Curie, Rutherford, Millikan, Anderson, and Auger all made major contributions to our present knowledge of cosmic rays as well
- We learned about the capabilities of tablet pcs by the lead of Graham Glynn.
- Rich Gearns showed us how to edit the Mariachi wiki page whose efforts are evident in this amazing webpage
- Cosmic Chris Activity: We designed a simple experimental setup to see differences in cosmic ray counts of Cosmic Chris at different locations and in different positions
- We concluded that there is a greater frequency of activity in the vertical direction as opposed to the horizontal direction and there was not enough data to conclude if location had an impact
| Trial | Location | Position | Counts per 5 min |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Horizontal | Basement | 9320 |
| 2 | Vertical | Basement | 4702 |
| 3 | Horizontal | Vault | 8302 |
| 4 | Horizontal | Top Floor | 10780 |
| 5 | Horizontal | Top Floor | 9923 |
July 8, 2008
- Gearns taught us many interesting features in using Excel
- Rich Lefferts gave us a cool demo on liquid nitrogen
- TIme Activity
- Subodh showed us our lacking ability to completely synchronize time
- Time synchronization is key because we must know the precise time of any cosmic ray event for accuracy in analysis
- The atomic clock is the closest to such time precision
- Octagon Activity
- Gillian Winters helped us design an experiment that observed whether the angle of the setup influenced the rate of coincidences
- In our setup we kept the octagon at a constant 45 degrees to the ground, but rotated the system around a vertical axis in increments of 90 degrees
| Position | Degrees | Trial | Counts per min |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | 1 | 168 |
| 1 | 0 | 2 | 170 |
| 2 | 90 | 1 | 210 |
| 2 | 90 | 2 | 207 |
| 3 | 180 | 1 | 191 |
| 3 | 180 | 2 | 225 |
| 4 | 270 | 1 | 185 |
| 4 | 270 | 2 | 196 |
- Radio Antenna Activity
- Bob Warasila discussed the uses of the radio antenna instrumentation for detecting meteors and ultimaely cosmic rays
- We observed the effects of adjusting the radio wave frequency from 60 Mhz to 75 Mhz on Rs, Xs, and the Standing Wave Ratio for configuration A and configuration B
- The graphs presented a correlation that in my opinion was too insignificant to make a conclusion
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- We divided into 2 groups to work on the Mariachi books, my group's focus being fiction
July 9, 2008
- Winters taught us how to analyze raw cosmic ray data
- We analyzed the cosmic ray coincidences over a certain period of time from various schools
- We graphed the frequencies of coincidences against pressure to determine the equation of the trendline
- We then graphed the residual graph count rate during the time of a solar flare occurring to observe if there was an impact
- Pressure had an inverse association with cosmic ray coincidences
 Bayshore Counts v. Pressure |
 Bayshore Residuals |
 Sachem Counts v. Pressure |
 Sachem Residuals |
 Shoreham Counts v. Pressure |
 Shoreham Residuals |
 Smithtown Counts v. Pressure |
 Smithtown Residuals |
 Suffolk Counts v. Pressure |
 Suffolk Residuals |
July 10, 2008
- We finished up our data analysis from the previous day and discussed our observations and inferences from the data
- There a good possibility that the solar flare had an effect on the coincidences but the variation could have just be the result of insufficient data
- There was a fluctuating curvature present in the solar flare residual graph
- Dave Meisel from the American Meteor Society gave us a lecture through video conferencing on meteor showers and ways of detecting them
- Referts gave us a tour of the van de graaf machine
- He also gave us some wise words of advice
- Twinkle twinkle little star, Volts = I x R
- Splishy splashy in the sea, Power = I x V
July 11, 2008
- Today was a chill, relaxed day
- I discuseed with Helio and Kevin about what direction to take my project
- I am planning on building a cloud charge detector
- I need to buy this integrated circuit
- I got 3rd place in the wiki page contest and 1st place in the t-shirt contest (click here to see my design)
- ka-ching! I won $65 for iTunes for my efforts
Week at Stony Brook
July 14, 2008
- I got some samples of the circuit to be delivered to bnl soon
- Glen tried teaching me the R computer language because I want to apply it in correlating my sets of data
July 15, 2008
July 16, 2008
- I started working on my circuit board design using pcb123.com
- Helio gave me a small oscilloscope-like device to use in collecting data off the cloud charge monitor
