Zoology Project Ideas

In most simple words zoology is the science of study animals in their natural environment.
Nervous System:
1.Detail study about the role of each and every component of nervous system.
2.Design nervous system computer animation which shows function of each and every part of this system.


Reptiles:
It includes tortoises, turtles, snakes, lizards, alligators, crocodiles, and extinct forms.
1.You can conduct study on any of the above reptiles about their habitat, movement or classification.
2. Kids below 5 can also build paper reptiles to understand the basics of designing and movement of reptiles. For ex. If they build snake they need to build its tail in series with combination of rings fitted into one another to make a flexible ligament so that it looks and move like snake.

Animals:

1. Do animals have memory, smell senses or color distinguishes capabilities? Do some experiments to find out that and record your findings with data.One of the best way to do it is by constructing maze.

2.Study Animal's Populations in different environment and what are the reasons for their population growth at one place more than other place.Moreover, you can also study whether population growth depends only on availability of food or their are some other factors involved in it.

Hydraulic Clock

In the fast moving world where new products launch everyday, things looks obscure and understanding technology behind it looks out of reach and complex.Take an example of digital clock, we all use them but never bothered about how they work and technology used in building them. Today we are going to discuss project which is not only interesting but has its own significance in a journey of innovations. It will help students learn basics of hydraulics and fluid mechanics.  I have seen this project title at one education site and find it interesting enough to discuss with you.

What is Hydraulic clock?
It is water clock also known as "clepsydra" in greek means water. Water is the only source of energy other than gravity which keeps this clock moving.According to my knowledge first hydraulic clock was build by Chinese scientist Yi Xing in 1088 C.E.
How it works?
 It works on the concept of Hydraulics and often powered by Gravity. Its accuracy depends upon the inflow and outflow of water. Though it seems simple but to make it accurate is a mammoth task.

Is their any other alternatives ?

Yes they do, if you don't want to use water as its power source you can use human power and gravity together to construct your own mechanical clock. Concept of this clock would remain same with only thing changed is that, now you need to pull up some mass for gravity to attract in a controlled manner. Moreover, you need to pull this mass up whenever it gets grounded by gravitational force.

What this mechanism called?
It is known as  escapement which according to wikipedia is a device in mechanical powered clocks that transfers energy to the timekeeping element and allows the number of its oscillations to be counted.If you want you can Read More about escapement here. 

Spherical Solar Energy Cells

The biggest hurdle in the use of clean energy is their costing which is far more than traditional sources. We at Projectideasblog.com always try to bring you information about the latest technologies and innovation and this article is one of those posts where we will not discuss about idea but technology which in future has potential to change our lives.Scientist around the world are working day and night to make it cost effective.Batteries and Material cost are two main reasons for its high production cost. We can bring down its cost in two ways; first by reducing the price of storage that we discussed in our last post and second by improving the efficiency which we are discussing today.

Today we will discuss about the new solar cell developed by Barcelona scientist Andre Broessel which can significantly improve the efficiency of existing cells. It is with solar energy is its low efficiency. German Architect Andre experiment seems to be solution of this problem and it would improve its efficiency by 35 percent.It is based on the concept of focusing sunlight to one point. Founder of this technology claims that it will not only improve efficiency of solar power plant but also produce electricity when sunlight is not widely available i.e. night.Moreover with the help of spherical cells we can produce solar power 24x7 which is itself a revolution and launchpad for future ideas to blossom.

Helpful links:
Spheral Power
Rawlemon Solar Devices

How it works?
It catches sun rays from all directions and concentrate this rays(moonlight or sunlight) on one point.Biggest advantage of using this technology is that It concentrates light by 10,000 times.

Important Links:

Rawlemon Spherical Solar Energy Generator 

Quinone Battery to make solar and wind power cheaper

We all know that biggest hurdle for solar and wind energy popularity is their cost of batteries.If cost of storage becomes cheaper by some innovation in battery manufacturing, renewable energy can become great competitor for traditional sources of energy such as coal.


Why storage of electricity is important for renewable energy and not for conventional energy?
 With conventional sources, we get constant supply of electricity and because energy source can be supplied as per need but in renewable energy, energy source is not in our hand and can't be supplied constantly and that's why storage plays very vital role in renewable energy. To understand its importance more, we can also take example of wind farm, which generate electricity 24x7 while we require more electricity at the day time in comparison to night. So, extra energy generated at the night time can be stored and supplied latter when required.

What is the solution?

Harvard University researches developed new type of battery with the help of organic material Quinone on the negative side and bromine which is toxic in nature on the positive side. Now scientist are finding ways to replace bromine with some other form of organic material. Quinone can be synthesized from the plant called Rhubarb.Moreover, once functional, these new batteries will reduce the cost of batteries by 2/3 of their current cost well below the $100 per kilowatt-hour benchmark set by United States Department of Energy.

Hand Gesture Controlled Robot

Gesture is a way to express our ideas using our head or body.To build a hand gesture robot we will build a system using which our robot can recognize any gesture with the help of its camera,afterwards classify this gesture with the help of some algorithm and respond accordingly. To make it simple, You can understand working of this robot in following steps:
1. Send Signals using Remote Device(Your Hand, Face, Body or remote)
2. Robot receive Signals using Cameras on-board.
3. Use Algorithm to decode signal
4. Match that signal with stored signals
5.If match found then follow instructions as specified.

WiiRobot: In this project,students of Brown University build a simple and reproducible gesture based robot controller.It consists ofWii Remote,Asus eeePC,  Ubuntu Eee(as Operating System), USB Webcam,USB Bluetooth Dongle and other components. To recognize gestures, team of wiiRobot used two algorithms:
1.K-Nearest Neighbor and
2.Sum of square differences

Wireless Gesture Controlled Toy
The objective of this project is to build a toy car that can be controlled by gesture wirelessly. User is able to control motions of the car by wearing the controller glove and performing predefined gestures.
This project provides a basic platform for many potential applications such as wireless controlled toys racing games, gesture human-machine interfacing, and etc.

How it works?



More info at Cornell University Page

How to build one ?
Complete details about Gesture Controlled Tank Toy

Useful Link :
Wireless USB Gesture Input System
Related PDF:
Real Time hand gesture Tele robotic system using Fuzzy Logic (pdf)

Related Video:

Hydraulic Disc Brakes

Hydraulic disc brake uses brake fluid ( Ethylene Glycol HO–CH2CH2–OH) to transfer pressure from controlling mechanism to braking mechanism. It was first used in 1914 for racing cars.It is based on the principle of Pascal Law which states that "The pressure exerted anywhere in a mass of confined liquid is transmitted undiminished in all direction throughout the liquid".
It consists of pipeline containing fluid. One end of which is connected to the master cylinder fitted with a piston attached to the brake foot pedal and other end of the pipeline is connected to the wheel cylinder having two pistons attached to the brake shoes.Area of the cross section of the wheel cylinder is greater than the area of the cross section of master cylinder.

Why we need disc brakes?

Though both systems use hydraulic brakes but in drum brakes, braking system started to fade because of servo effect, this problem has been greatly reduced in disc brake.Moreover, their are other problems within the assembly line which cause braking strength weak.

How it works?

It works on the very simple principle, when force applied at one point, it is transmitted to another point using an in-compressible fluid.When the brakes are applied the foot pedal is pushed due to which pressure is exerted on the fluid in the master cylinder.This pressure is transmitted equally and undiminished throughout the fluid and to the pistons of the wheel cylinder, therefore pistons of the engine pushed outwards and the brake shoe get pressed against the rim of the wheel due to which motion retards and vehicle starts to slow down.

Related Projects:
Design of Mountain Bike Hydraulic Disc Brake System (HDBS) Uncertainty Analysis
Optimization of Mountain Bike Hydraulic Disc Brake System

Related Posts:

Hydraulic Projects
Automobile Engineering Projects

Candle Light Powered Fan

Candle light fan use technology which converts heat directly into electricity using a effect called Seebeck. The only problem with these fans is their efficiency which is lesser than 10 %. To use this technology we need thermoelectric materials such as Bismuth Telluride(Bi₂Te₃) or Lead Telluride (PbTe).

Is their any difference ?

Yes, it is very different technology and unlike Dynamo (First Electric Generator, it is most commonly used for bicycle headlight),their is no moving part involved in electricity generation with thermoelectric materials.

What is the use of this project?

It helps you to understand basic concept of thermoelectricity which is used in spacecraft as Radioisotope to convert the heat released by the decay of a suitable radioactive material into electricity and in automobiles where it helps to reuse waste heat from Internal Combustion Engine.

How to Build this?

You can find complete instructions about this fan here.