SUNY New Paltz is in the process of adding Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) to their adminstrative computer systems, and I have been trying it out. This is a report on some of the things I’ve learned, such as how to get it to remember you for 5 days without having to accept all third-party cookies. Two-Factor […]
In the past few days I’ve been following the playback of the Apollo 11 mission in “real time” (delayed exactly 50 years) at https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/. Among all the news related to the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing I also found an article from NPR about about 3 different approaches to how to get […]
As we have done in past years, a small group of those interested came to Wooster Hall to observe the skylight lights cross over the staircase at Solar Noon (at 12:58:16 EDT). This year the actual Solstice (at 11:54 EDT) was very close to the same time, which is not always the case. Raj Pandya, […]
I have been collecting old pennies for a science experiment. (The composition of the penny changed in 1982, which changed the weight slightly, and I will someday have a student exercise that makes use of that weight difference. Stay tuned…) I wanted to clean the pennies enough that they were recognizable as pennies, so […]
What a difference a year makes. Last year I made a time-lapse video of the Vernal equinox in Wooster Hall by standing next to a wall and taking a photo about once a minute for an hour. This year I have a much nicer video from a raspberry pi camera which captures an image every […]
I’ve just completed building a small electronic clock from a kit, the YSC-4 kit from HiLetgo, which I was able to purchase from Amazon for under $9.1 My interest in this kit was to find something simple that is nevertheless good soldering practice for advanced beginners, and I was not disappointed. Overview The kit provides […]
I have been investigating the requirements for students to be able to weld on campus, which is needed for our Baja SAE team, for projects for our Engineering Senior Design course, and for other various engineering projects. One of the requirements is, naturally, adequate ventilation. Specifically1 Adequate ventilation providing 20 air changes per hour, such […]
A few weeks ago I visited Wooster Hall with a time-lapse camera to try to see what happens to the light from the skylight over the main staircase at solar noon on the Winter Solstice. I was a few days early, but even so, I think I uncovered the basic idea, which you can review […]
Wooster Hall at SUNY New Paltz has a neat feature: the main staircase is aligned directly North/South, and skylights are positioned above it so that at solar noon on the equinoxes the bottom of the staircase is illuminated by four columns of light which crawl slowly across the floor. It’s an exciting event on campus, […]