Hope is a wonderful thing....and 'Phurt' is funny!

I read Lissy's poem today......and that is L i s s y by the way!  Sorry couldn't resist.  The Hope poem very calming and so true.  We need stuff like that in our lives.

Anyway, tutorial was good today, even though I felt like a stomach ulcer coming on with the stress.  An incredibly stupid amount of work to produce in the next week or so, but felt good.  Went home and have re assesst my planting plan and have now made the changes on paper.  Just need to get the info on to my CAD drawing which shouldn't take too long as I am simplifying the annotation and hopefully it will read better.

I'll post the plan tomorrow and will photo and publish my two models which I told everyone I finished two weeks ago and still haven't put on the blog, so you'll get a glimpse of them too.  Waiting for the little people in the post still.

I was singing my baby boy a song to calm him down tonight, but I think he has finally worked out that a rasp noise is funny .......so it didn't really calm him down.  Here it is......

"There was a little fly
who flew into the grocers store.

He 'PHURT' on the ceiling
and he 'PHURT' on the floor.

He 'PHURT' on the bacon
and he 'PHURT on the ham.

And he 'PHURT on the head
of the little grocer man."

What a way to end the day.......and yes he did end the day with a 'PHURT'

Until tomorrow one and all.

Spray on Solar Cells

I came across this a week or two ago and have been meaning to put it on the blog.  Has anyone else seen this.  This could be the way forward, just think of the apllications we as designers could use this.  No more ugly panels on rooves we could put the technology anywhere!

Spray-on solar may be future for green energy

As Japan seeks to optimize its use of environment-friendly energy sources in the wake of the nuclear crisis triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, a company here may just have come up with a major breakthrough: spray-on solar cells.

Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. has developed technology that enables solar cells to be applied to buildings, vehicles and even clothing in the same way that paint is applied. The breakthrough means that the places where energy from the sun can be harvested are almost limitless.

The new solar cells utilize carbon compounds which, when dried and solidified, act as semiconductors and generate electricity in reaction to being exposed to light. Most existing solar cell technology requires crystalline silicon to be sandwiched between glass sheets and positioned on the roofs of homes and office buildings, or in space-consuming "solar parks."

Scientists have been attempting to increase both the energy-gathering efficiency of solar panels and make them easier to install and use.

Mitsubishi Chemical is the first company to create prototype spray-on solar cells, which at present have a practical conversion level of 10.1 percent of light energy into electricity.

That figure is still some way behind the 20 percent that is standard in traditional crystalline silicon solar cells, but the firm expects to be able to improve the efficiency ratio to 15 percent by 2015 and is aiming to eventually reach 20 percent.

The company said the new painted-on solar cells would be particularly effective when applied to round or curved structures, such as chimneys or the noise-reduction barriers that line many highways in built-up areas of Japan. 
It could also be applied to the exteriors of cars and theoretically used to help power the vehicle and even to such flexible surfaces as clothing.

The sprayed-on solar cells are less than 1 millimeter thick - far thinner than existing solar cell technology - and weigh less than one-tenth of crystalline solar panels of the same size, the company said.

Mitsubishi Chemical said it plans to work with domestic carmakers to build a car coated with the new solar cells with the aim of giving the vehicle sufficient power to travel 10 km after being exposed to sunlight for two hours.

The spray-on solar cells are a breakthrough concept, but other organizations are working on similar research to get the most out of energy from the sun. Scientists from The Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization, the University of Melbourne and the University of Padua in Italy are collaborating on 'printable laser' technology which could impose nano-particles onto wafer-thin panels which could then eventually be developed into into paper-thin solar panels.

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Where do we go from here?

Well a new entry as promised.  Wanted to talk about yesterdays crit.  I am feeling a huge sense of indecision and confusion throughout the group.  We seem to receive all the critique on  what is missing, what is wrong and the why is that not there and the why is that there.......what about the, that bits working, I like that......well done?????

Even though I am behind myself , certainly in the rendered art work, I felt the work people pinned up in some cases was completely different from the previous crit.  I think this is because everyones confidence is knocked a little and in doing so we leave one crit feeling that we are going in the wrong direction, so we are forced to try out something new.  Then we go to the next crit and are asked why we have changed what we are doing.  Unfortunately we don't have enough time to keep changing things and I am worried for myself and everyone else just how we are going to achieve our final work in time.

There is either far too much put into this third year or we simply are not taught enough in second year.  No-one should be worried about rendering technique in the third year, we should be merely perfecting the skill.  Afterall that is what the third year is all about in most degree courses.  We are expected to know so much and to be quite honest if another person tells us there was a book in a reading list that we could have read to solve our problems, then why didn't I just do a blummin Home Learning Degree!

Anyway it's a bit late for this rant, both tonight and for the year, lets hope we all get through this thing with a little bit of confidence and dignity still remaining.

.......Hmmm, well my efforts of returning to regular blogging has completely failed.  Sorry everyone.

Well done to everyone who pinned up today, I think we all have alot of work to do still, but we're heading in the right direction.

Anyway, across the next few days I hope to catch up.  First off I'll just round off the trip to Lille I was talking about on my last blog.  Don't worry, I'll make it short and sweet as everyone has read about this a mont ago on a number of other sites.

Initially we were put in small groups of about 5 people and were left to come up with a concept for the site.  This concept was then to be presented the next morning to the whole group and lecturers.  Assessments were made by the lecturers and then each group was twinned up with another.  We then had the delightful job of amalgamating the two concepts into one.  I actually thought this would be quite easy for some reason, but it became obvious very quickly that this task was going to be a challenge; not just for our group but for everyone!  And here lies the main objectives of the course.  Understanding, communication and comprimise.........

.....the first two fairly easy to grasp, but comprimise not so hot!!!

Anyway as this is a quick summary I will round up.  The long and short of the story is that alot of people got stressed, alot of people hated what they were doing, but in the end we all made the important deadline (even if that ment working all the way through Thursday evenig!) and then eventually were very pleased with the results.  A good experience and lessons learnt by all involved.

We had produced visuals and a 1:200 model and put together a presentation for local press and the Lille dignitaries.   The off to the pub!!!!

Below are a couple of images at the presentation .  I will blog again tomorrow.......no really I will!!