FIRST LEGO LEAGUE

FIRST LEGO LEAGUE


What is First Lego League?

First Lego league (FLL) is a competition in where lots of teams try to win, doing the best robot and the most original project of the competition.  There can be a big number of teams, but it’s around twenty teams at the first call.
First Lego League is an international competition for elementary and middle school students; this competition is organized by FIRST and the most collaborated is LEGO.
The team work out solutions to the various problems they are given and then meet for regional tournaments to share their knowledge, compare ideas and display the robots
In 1999 “First Lego League” inaugurated the first international competition, but until 2004 there wasn’t celebrated in Spain because the government hasn’t promoted this competition.


Where is celebrated?

Each team participates in his provincial capital. The team who win participate in the Spanish final. The best Spanish team must choose go to the Europe final or American.
In Catalonia the classificatory it celebrated in Barcelona, Lleida, Girona and Tarragona. The Spanish final location change every year.


How is the competition?

Every year First Lego League launches a new topic that based on a real life problem.
The court evaluates 3 parts:
-The values First Lego League
-Development of the robot
-Scientific project

The values First Lego League:
In that part the observation judges watch at all times the behaviour of the team and evaluate her enthusiasm, respect and knowledge.

Development of the robot:
The robots are the most beautiful part of the competition; the teams made her robots, which robots are autonomous and complete missions on a board. The robot then has two and half minutes to complete the missions. Each mission has its own score.
The teams can change all the parts of the robots; these robots can be more efficient and competitive.
The robot programme is the most important part because the robot missions depend for this programme.

Scientific project:
The teams have to search information and develop one project related to the topic of the year. The court evaluates the originality, the search and the application in the real life.

I think that “First Lego League” is a way to motivate students as this may provide many improvements, but Spanish government don’t take advantage of these young talents. The government can help the young talents because they will be the future of Spain.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hp6fGC2i2w

Peak oil (Guillem Coll and Mario Georgiev Valov)

Peak oil

Why did we choose this topic and what are you going to see in it?

We choosed the topic of the peak oil because we think that is very interesting and it’s something that all the society has to think on.Lots of people are speaking that we  have to protect our enviorement that we don’t have to use so much our cars,motorcycles…..,and all this kind of things,but in the next moment you can see the same people driving a car to their home whichis near to their job for example.We also think that the society has to start to do something and not only speaking.In this project we are going to explain you what is the peak oil,why is it happening,how it affects us and can we prevent it.

What is it?

Peak oil is the point when the extraction of petroleum reaches the maximum point , after which the rate of production is expected, the extration is condemnated to enter in a terminal decline. Since 2005 global production of oil has started going down , but since 2009 the levels of straction rebounded, and in 2011 the level again has started to decrease. There is an active debate as to how to measure peak oil, and which types of liquid fuels to include.

How it affects us?

The princial affectation that the peak oil can cause in our lives is the rising price of petroleum and   consequently the price of the whole

We have to remember that the biggest part of energy comes from the fossil fuels like diesel,natural gas... and our society isn't prepared ,in this moment ,for living in a world without petroleum because the society can became very instable and the economy will be very heavy afected.

Why is it happening?

Since the disocvery of the the  petroleum the humanity started to explote it with very fast temps  without thinking of the consequences which can produce that rapid explotation.It's clear that in the years when the petroleum has been discovered,new technologies have been discovered and lots of factories started producingPeak oil is determined by the observed production rates of individual oil wells, projected reserves and the combined production rate of a field of related oil wells. In order to understand physical peak oil, the growing effort for production must be considered. Physical peak oil occurs earlier, because the overall efforts for production have increased, expanding production.

The aggregate production rate from an oil field over time usually grows until the rate peaks and then declines—sometimes rapidly—until the field is depleted. This concept is derived from the Hubbert curve, and has been shown to be applicable to the sum of a nation’s domestic production rate, and is similarly applied to the global rate of petroleum production. Peak oil is often confused with oil depletion; peak oil is the point of maximum production, while depletion refers to a period of falling reserves and supply.

M. King Hubbert created and first used the models behind peak oil in 1956 to accurately predict that United States oil production would peak between 1965 and 1971. His logistic model, now called Hubbert peak theory, and its variants have described with reasonable accuracy the peak and decline of production from oil wells, fields, regions, and countries, and has also proved useful in other limited-resource production-domains. According to the Hubbert model, the production rate of a limited resource will follow a roughly symmetrical logistic distribution curve (sometimes incorrectly compared to a bell-shaped curve) based on the limits of exploitability and market pressures.

Some observers, such as petroleum industry experts Kenneth S. Deffeyes and Matthew Simmons, predict negative global economy implications following a post-peak production decline—and oil price increase—due to the high dependence of most modern industrial transport, agricultural, and industrial systems on the low cost and high availability of oil. Predictions vary greatly as to what exactly these negative effects would be.

In 2008 oil prices reached a record high of $145/barrel. Governments sought alternatives to oil, particularly the use of ethanol and biodiesel, but that had the unintended consequence of creating higher food prices, particularly in the developing countries.

Optimistic estimations of peak production forecast the global decline will begin after 2020, and assume major investments in alternatives will occur before a crisis, without requiring major changes in the lifestyle of heavily oil-consuming nations. These models show the price of oil at first escalating and then retreating as other types of fuel and energy sources are used. Pessimistic predictions of future oil production are that either the peak has already occurred, that oil production is on the cusp of the peak, or that it will occur shortly. The International Energy Agency (IEA) says production of conventional crude oil peaked in 2006.Throughout the first two quarters of 2008, there were signs that a global recession was being made worse by a series of record oil prices.

Can we prevent the finishing of the petroleum?

 It's very clear that the petroleum is finishing, we know that,but we don't know when it will finish.It may finish tomorrow or 1000 years later it's not something  endless.It's probably happening because of the fast extraction which we think that it wasn't necessary.So as you can read in the previous paragraph the finishing of the petroleum is something that we can’t prevent and it’s 100% sure that it will happen some day and we don’t have to think how to prevent it, we have to think about alternative sources of energy, and we also have to think how to reduce our dependence of the petroleum.Reducing our dependence can be expressed in using more public transport,recycle all the plastic,glass….waste, using as little as possible a car or a motorcycle.

Com hem dit al principi hem triat aquest tema perque creiem que es bastant important i sobre tot interesant investigar-ho i tambe creiem que cadascu de nosaltres esta afectat per l’acabament del petroli, tambe creiem que hem de trobar unes font’s d’energia  altrernatives(ja existeixen bastants que son molt efectius ,ecologis i sobre tot no s’acaben).I com que avui en dia la situacio mundial en general es bastant dura creiem que trobar una solucio de l’acabament del petroli perque pot ser que no ens afectara a nosaltres pero pot afectar als nostres fills o nets.

MIQUEL POYATOS INTERVIEW

Now a days, Miquel Poyatos is a university teacher in Barcelona.

He studied the geology career in the Autonomic University of Barcelona. The career was for four years (2004-2008). After finish, he got a grant for to do a master during one year and oriented to the oil industry, managed by most important public universities in Barcelona, and which name was Geology and exploration of sedimentary residues. It’s a master oriented in a doctorate. To ending the master, he must do a finishing work related with which he had studied in the doctorate; so he chose a kind of sedimentary rocks which were formed in a fossil delta.  He had been searching interesting places and he finally started working in Ainsa (Osca).

Now, his work is related with the investigation of (talussos) which appear on the roads. But it’s not a stupid task. When he finishes his work, he notice different people from Arabia or Mexico about what has he found. It seems that in both countries to extract oil is very complicate because rocks which contain oil are behind the sea and that’s a trouble to study exactly where they should dig.

So Miquel’s work helps them to establish precisely the location where it’s better to extract the most quantity of oil and gas. As well you can see, it’s an essential task.

He has explained us, the methodology of extraction of the oil and gas few days ago, but now a day, there’s an important change, as more demand, more budget to waste in extraction. Technology advances seems to had found a very successful method called frakcing which help companies to extract non conventional oil and  gas.

SO, WHAT’S FRACKING? It’s a kind of way to extract hydrocarbons that consist into fracture the underground stones which are believed to contain oil. Then, they inject fluid  at the highest pressing to perforate the stone. The other part of the methodology is like the conventional way.  They make buit

Va estudiar la carrera de geologia  a la universitat autònoma de Barcelona. És una carrera de quatre anys (2004-2008). Després li van donar una beca per  fer un màster d’un any orientat a la indústria del petroli coordinat per les dues universitats de Barcelona i que té per nom Geologia i exploració de reservoris sedimentaris. És un màster orientat a un doctorat. Per a finalitzar el màster, tenia que fer un treball que estigues relacionat amb el doctorat i ell el va  estudiar unes roques sedimentaris que es van formar en un delta fòssil. La seva zona d’estudis va ser la conca d’Ainsa (Osca)

La seva feina consisteix en estudiar les roques que surten als talussos de les carreteres i

explica-s’hi als geòlegs que treuen petroli a Aràbia  o al Golf de Mèxic, ja que allí les roques no afloren a la superfície, estan al fons del mar, però estan formades de la mateixa manera, la diferència es que les  roques d’aquí no tenen petroli. Per tant,nosaltres tenim la avantatges de poder-les estudiar. Ells fan estudis sobre les propietats físiques i el  formació d’aquestes, on es possible que s’hagués contingut el petroli.  Per tant, ells elaboren un projecte i un estudi i els hi venen a les empreses petroleres. Aquest procés es poc conegut a España, ja que som un país on no hi ha molt petroli.

Al Pirineu i altres zones de España, empreses Holandeses y Alemanyes van finançar estudis de recerca per obtenir petroli, però això va ser als anys 70 on es treia petroli de forma convencional,  però ara les reserves del món es van acabant, i cada cop hi ha més demanda. Com a conseqüència, el  preu de petroli augmenta, i ara que es paga tant car el petroli a les empreses els hi surt a compte  finançar projectes per intentar treure el petroli de les roques, ja que el preu del petroli de allí, et surt a compte fe la inversió. Però quant s’acaba el petroli convencional, el petroli que està posat entre mig de les roques, s’utilitza una nova manera d’extreure el petroli anomenada fracking. El fracking s’utilitza per hidrocarburs no convencionals. Per a extreure la roca, es fractura per on es creu que hi ha la reserva de gas o petroli i s’hi injecta un líquid a molta pressió, i al fracturar-ho, creues un buit i el petroli es xucla. Aquets fluids tenen propietats cellants, lubricants.. per tant aquí tenim el problema del fracking, els fluids que són molt tòxics i contaminant. Això pot modificar el sistema freàtic, cabdals públics.. etc. Per tan hi ha països que esta totalment prohibit el fracking.

España esta prohibit? No ho han acabat de permetre, però tampoc està prohibit.

Penses que el fracking es bo? Des del punt de vista ecològic, modificar l’estat d’un ecosistema es  totalment  perjudicial. Per moltes regions el fracking es la última opció de intentar donar-li al terreny un rendiment que de una altra manera no se li podria donar. 

En negreta està tot el que ens va explicar an Català, i a la part superior traduït al Anglès amb les corresponents preguntes. Està bastant escursat perquè la entrevista és llarga. Encara queda bastant a fer! 

LAIA I XÈNIA

Ötzi, the iceman

In 1991, two alpinists found at south Tirol the body of a person. Firstly, they thought that it was the body of a recently accident, like 200 years after, but when the Scientifics studied the body of the man, they realized that it was a very important and successfully found.

Ötzi was a man who lived at the Neolithic times; it means that the body is 5000 years old, and was correctly extraordinarily good preserved because of its location, that was in a glacier. Another thing that is important is that around of the body, the police found a lot of tools, like arrows, a knife, some pieces of wood, and others. What’s more, they found some hair that help to know his DNA and of course if there is someone who nowadays is descendant of Ötzi. The bad side of its location is that during the rescue the body suffer some blows, and some of its bones had been broken. Another thing that happened was that some persons of the rescue team and the police robbed some things of the tools of Ötzi, because of this the place of the discovery was damaged but fortunately they had taken photos after touching anything.

Before the first Scientifics studied the body and realised that Ötzi was from the Neolithic, lots of other Scientifics have been interested in to study the body, because of this there are lots of hypothesis for the causes of the death of Ötzi. The most important are two

1.       The first one says that Ötzi was trying to escape from a group of people that were trying to kill him. Unfortunately one of the can hurt Ötzi with an arrow and some hours later he die into this glacier.

2.       The second one say that Ötzi was a farmer or a hunter that had been lost and a big storm did Ötzi hid into this place and after some hours he died by freezing at the glacier.

The universe and his misterys.

What is the future of the univers?

               

According to the new theory of universes that continue, the world will not die but will repeat. Or maybe it will be a cold, dark universe, as galaxies and stars are separated from each other and its light and heat are lost in darkness forever expanding and cooling down to a state of absolute cold, where molecules have no energy to do any movement? Or is a universe that, after expanding, reach a point where you begin to collapse in on itself and then the problem will be the reverse? Lately there are other theories that talk about a Big Rip, in which the rate of expansion would be so tremendous that groups of galaxies, stars, dark energy and everything else would become a kind of cloth that is stretched to tearing.

Are there alternative universes or multiple?

One theory posits that there might be an alternative universe of dark matter while this, but we could not reach. The best way to imagine it is to think of a double glazed window with a fly in the middle. The fly can not cross from one side to the other, as we can not cross from one universe to another. These two universes would be drawn to each other by the force of gravity and eventually collide. Doing so would create a huge explosion. This would imply that things are happening right now that will help create another universe in the future.

On the other hand, there are several hypotheses of multiple universes in quantum physics and cosmology, in which the physical constants and the nature of the universe are different. For example, the "bubble universe" is an infinite series of open universes with different constants.

What is the black matter?

It is a hypothetical form of matter that has more mass than the visible matter, but unlike the latter does not interact with the electromagnetic force. Scientists infer their presence because gravitational effects on visible matter. For example, the rotational speeds of galaxies, orbital velocities of galaxies in clusters and the distribution of gas temperatures of galaxies suggest that there has to be something more. There is more material in clusters of galaxies than we could expect from the galaxies and hot gas we can see. Apparently, 30% of the universe is composed of dark matter. Discover your nature is one of the most important goals of modern astronomy.

Santiago Restrepo Arango

Science curiosities: How these names are chosen?

Sometimes archaeologists, biologists, astronomers and researchers use their findings to satisfy their caprices or fads. For example, a zoologist after discovering a small parasite which make their nests  in the gills of fishes decided to call them Carolina, in honour of his mother in law. Also, the naturalist Linnaeus chose the name of an athlete, Siegesbeck, to name a weed which he called Siegesbeckia shamelessly.

Jean-François Bouvet tells the story of a romantic love with an English palaeontologist named Ella. Bouvet called ellaquismus to a trilobite which he had discovered. The word  sounds like “Ella kiss me”.

 Another place full of references and tributes is the sky. Stars, asteroids and minor planets have been named like artists of rock (Zappa); comic characters (Castafiore, from Tintin) and historical characters (Cleopatra). The actor Harrison Ford also had his moment of glory, but instead of naming a star, his name was used to define a type of spider, the Calponea harrisonfordi.

This an adaptation of this article: http://www.muyinteresante.es/cultura/arte-cultura/articulo/el-lenguaje-cientifico

The Llenes Cave

Good morning everybody! How are you? Let me introduce. My name is Bernat Torres and I’m a begginer archeology. I’m part of an amateur archeology group called, the Tritons and we investigate this cave since 2009 / 2010.

Studies and excavations began in this cave few years ago, by the famous archeologist, Mr Maluquer de Motes, finding in it 10,000 years ago subtraction facts from the bronze age.

But for a long time, the cave remained in hiding obscured under the leaves of an ancient tree.

So today, we are going to look the entry of that. So keep calm, and walk on.

The Llenes cave it’s located in the gorge of Erinyà.  Basically formed by limestone rock, it has a really peculiar form, thanks to the water action.

If you watch to the ground, you can observe fosil rests. How can that be? Because milions of years ago, all of you can see from here, was a big ocean and that fantastic gorgeous was submerged in that.

Here, we start the aproximation to the cave. This it’s a delicate passbecause we need to employ our knowledges of rappel and climbing. In this zone, there’s sliding stones.

And now, at the end, here is the entere of la Llenes, the most beautiful cave in the whole world. How many misteries this cave hides? I don’t know. By now, we founded some ancient tolos and really ancient bones of disappears animals. It’s important to know the misteries about the humans, because if the statistics are fulfilled, this could be the oldest human subtraction facts of the Pyrenees.  

Bernat Torres

PD: Aquest és el text que comentaré durant l'ascens a la cova.