Have you ever seen such a thing?

 

Our very own Jordan Pfost in an engineer in the making. Most of you when you see a picture like the one above, your not to sure what to think; well Jordan looks and sees beauty. Jordan's plan? Turning a normal AC window unit to an "Ice Bear" when the energy usage is at its peak. Now whats an "Ice Bear?" An "Ice Bear", well in Jordan's terms, is a contraption that takes a normal window unit (or any AC unit) which is hooked up to a chest freezer so that at those peaks of high energy usage the AC switches from using a compressor/ condenser to moving the refrigerant through a large block of ice to cool the air.

While Jordan is still in phase one of this project (research and planning) she has completed a very important portion. The picture above is the basic layout of Jordan's "Ice Bear", which was drawn after weeks of studying the workings of a basic AC unit. Next she will be working on a prototype, testing only the air cooling properties of ice.

A diagram drawn out by Jordan showing the way energy  moves inside an AC

Nothing like a finished product!

As all of our various projects finally get completed, you can't help but sit back and admire the hardwork that we have all put in. With blood, sweat, and biodiesel, we have done our part at making the island we call home a better place.

While Mary and Logan finish up their locksmithing skills, our class room becomes a safer place. All of our chemicals now have a home. Their goal now is to get locks on all of the chemical drawers and cabinets.

Shenasae, Jack, Joanne and Brandon work on a new planter box to use the drippage from the school air conditioning system to water our plants. Pouring concrete takes some serious muscle and elbow grease, but hey, somebody has to do it.

Eva and I have finally completed our ever so lovely mural on the side of our biodiesel room. It's not Di'Vinchi status, but we think it's pretty good!

Lauryn and Reid continue to work on finding our class grants so we can continue to do what were doing. Applying for these grants is not easy, it takes a lot of time to find grants that we qualify for, and then we have to compete to get them.

The car crew has done an amazing job on our biodiesel powered Mercedes. Fresh paint job, fresh inside. The crew has big plans for this vehicle, and we're all so excited to see what they have planned.

Big thanks to John Key at NAPA and Phil at Home Depot for their help and support!

The Unsung Hero - Joey Mercurio

All the projects here in Biodisesel 2 are not only worthwhile and energy efficient, they are also messy. The left over paint from the Painter Girls, the shovels and concrete from the Hole Diggers, and the debris from the Engine Spliters all collect over time during our work. But who will be the one responsible for helping each and every team with their clean-up methods? That would be Joey Mercurio, our one-man waste management team! He is the man behind the mess, the guru of garbage, and the titan of trash! He is not afraid to confront ANY messy situation! He dives into the disgusting world of chemicals and dirt for the good of our class and this blog is the ultimate shout-out of appreciation!
Throughout the course of working on our Biodiesel projects, Joey has encountered and tackled many cleaning projects that most would turn their nose away from; this includes cleaning oil from buckets, de-clogging a sink, and getting on his hands and knees to clean the floor. How many people do you know that would do that for NO pay? In this day and age, probably not many. That is the reason why Joey is getting such recognition. He is a brave man and we thank him for everything he does. Thank you Joey!

When Micheal Angelo meets Destiny's Child!

Now that our biodiesel projects for this semester are coming to a close and we are soon to return to stinky physics, groups are starting to dive deeper into the abyss of biodiesel projects of delight.

This is the tale of three painters:

Once upon a time, in the biodiesel class

Three painters were singing and shaking their ...

Among them was Taylor, Alexis, and also JT

Painting the mural of biodiesel bulshizz including

solar panels, beakers, and a tree.

What was once hard to look at will soon be a treat,

Of 42' by 31 1/2' feet.

What would seem like work, has turned into a game

While singing 90s hits like, "Say My Name".

It took them a week to draw up their plans,

The following duties left them callused hands.

While scraping by hand has made their arms rather sore

When the final projects reveals itself its sure to be a SCORE!

We are so excited to see,

What will be,

From Taylor, Alexis and JT.



It's all about togas.

Okay, so let’s talk about togas. Last Monday was the long awaited senior toga day at our school and we’re all getting in the toga spirit. This “toga” was a simple drape of material that was worn diagonally across the body and held in place on one shoulder by some type of broach. Some form of toga was always worn in public during the early republic days. As the imperial period progressed, togas became strictly for important ceremonies and events. Attempts were made to simplify the toga so it was more comfortable to wear on more social occasions. Because the toga was not worn by soldiers, it was regarded as a sign of peace, as well as social status in the Roman times. A civilian was sometimes called togatus, or “toga-wearer”. Looking around our campus today the senior class as a whole can be classified as “togatus”, sporting our togas and showing our Conch Pride.

And The Fun Continues !

We are sorry about such a late posting! Blog Spot hasn't cooperated with us lately.
Anyways! Here is a quick update:
On Wednesday, November 10, 2010, the Transformer's had a meeting with a company willing to meet with them regarding their robot project. J-Tech Computer Repairs has agreed to be the middleman for the biodiesel robot project. "The meeting went very well," accroding to John Leonard, "a bit of an obstacle because they want a deposit before an order while the school wants the product before they make a payment." While the school sorts out the details regarding the product-deposit situation, the Transformers will be creating a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet will consist of 10% work and 90% planning. Otto Irwin stated, "our next step is to the find our parts. This must be done all at once due to the schools demands." Since the guys have such high standards for their robot they are under extreme pressure trying to make this perfect with their budget of one-thousand dollars; two-thirds of which will go to electronic equipment.

Our golf cart team is also making some progress in their attempt to convert a golf cart to solar power. As of right now they are making a model of a solar panel portreying light energy to mechanical energy. The team has talked to Frugal Dougel's Solar Accessories about possibly purchasing a solar panel kit for the golf cart. Most kits specify what type of golf cart it can be used on; but the type of kit the "Golf Cart Girls" are looking at is flexible for any type of golf cart, including our E-2 36V golf cart that our administrators use.

The companies that cooperate with our biodiesel project-teams all know about our limited budget; however, for their cooperation we not only sponser them but we give them publicity! So if you are a green-friendly company reading this blog right now, who would like to help bring some earth-friendly dreams to life in return for some company realted publicity, you should contact Josh Clearman at bio-diesel@keysschools.com. :) Thank you!

Senior bio-naut Bertrum is quite a trip. Indeed he is a class clown, but he always gets the job done. Here he is displaying his "African Dance" that has Key West High buzzing with laughter. Alway fun and games in Biodiesel, but when you work hard you have tons of time for silliness. 

Classmates Eva and Lauryn fly a kite while another classmate, Arielle, films. The girls built the mechanism from a school newspaper, straws, and twine. Students are always learning and gaining knowledge in Biodiesel class, all while having fun. 

Clearman rallies the troops! While the projects are all done by students, we still need a guiding hand from Mr. Clearman. We may know a lot, but he's still much more savvy than we are.... For now....

Bring my creation to life!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The wrecked planter box is well on its way to being back in commision. Our crack team of builders are bringing the poor box back to life. Their prognosis: it will live a long and healthy life, though it may have some partial numbness.

I'm still so proud of our locksmiths. They got the project done, and the file cabinet is secure once more! Never underestimate the power of a bionaut! Let's keep this pace up, and have this building shining and secure before the end of the school year.

Computer team spreads the word. Even though our blog has gotten 76 hits recently, it's not quite enough. We're spreading the word, and these two are hard at work, making sure as many people as possible (who are worth telling) are told about our blog, and our cause. Let's hope these efforts become fruitful!

And our mechanics fueled up the car to take a spin- er, I mean, get the car running again. Even though you can't see their faces, I can almost promise that they were smiling and thanking me and calling me awesome and- well... Maybe not all that... But they weren't particularly UNhappy. Maybe I'll catch one of them smiling next time.

Who needs Megan Fox to be a Transformer?

Here in Biodiesel 2 we not only dig holes, scrape paint, and clean gutters; we make robots.
A couple of our intelligent students have taken on the job of transforming a electronic, toy car into a fuel combusting robot. The robot will be used to ignite three different fuels, (biodiesel, gasoline, and kerosene). It will be designed to gather and collect data about each reaction. According to the "Transformers" the purpose of this experiment is to find the flashpoints of each fuel, record how much light each fuel produces while burning, and how hot it gets as it burns. They are interested in including an infrared-thermal camera on the robot as well as an arm that will be designed to hold the torch to light the fuels and possibly record temperature. Don't worry everyone, the Fire Department will be involved!

Here are two of our Transformers checking out the car they may use for this experiment.

Oh the concentration of our young scientists!

Even a cool guy can be an intellectual!

Have you ever wondered what the inside of an engine looked like? Well biodiesel 2 students sure have. As seen in the picture below, one very muscular group of young men have taken it upon themselves to cut an engine of a lawn mower perfectly in half. When they succeed, we will be able to see exactly how an engine works. What goes where, when fluid X enters into chamber Y.

Can they do it? I think yes :)

But don't let me fool you readers, cutting an engine in two is not the only new project our class will be working on. It's not even the only meeting that we need strong young men to accomplish. Our predecessors put up a wind turbine, and as lovely as it is, and grateful as we are, and left it unfinished. They left out the ever so important sign. But never fear, the newbies are here. Three young men must dig two holes 36 inches deep to put the sign deep into the ground.

So readers see, we are always up to something in KWHS's 2nd period biodiesel!

As work continues on the Key West High Biodiesel car (sometimes called the Bio-Car), more and more parts are taken out, cleaned, repaired, or even replaced every day. On today's list of parts, the air-filter stood out among the other parts as being beyond filthy. It had to be sprayed down with a degreaser, scrubbed clean, and even sanded down before it was looking like it belonged in the car. Each day the mechanic team working on the car finds more parts to bring to working condition, and do a great job of doing just that.
Here's hoping they don't find anything much worse!

Another group, composed of volunteers, worked on beautifying our work area by removing paint from one of our many doors so that it may be repainted. The group scraped paint for nearly the entire class period, all so it can be redone to look as god as the pretty blue one next to it (you can see it in the side of the photo). Their hard work is actually to help reduce the energy our building uses. By painting these doors light colours, we can own some control over the natural heat-flow of the room, and use that to our advantage.
Plus, it's more fun than watching paint dry!

Bio-naut Clinton began work on the broken power washer. For reasons unknown (or at least untold) the old power washer just doesn't want to work. Mr. Clearman started the class with a bribe of chinese food to the student who could get it working. Many students jumped at the idea, but Clinton was the lucky volunteer who got to go to work on it.
It takes a real power-player to fix a broken power-washer!

And our up-and-coming locksmiths, Mary and Logan, work to installing locks on the "mysterious cabinet of destruction!" (also known as the old cabinet in the back of the class). Their project started quickly, and has kept that starting pace since then. It doesn't look like it'll be too long before they can work on another project! Their speed and gusto in completing their project is an inspiration to all the other groups to keep up the good work.
They found their target, and just LOCKED on!

Hello fellow followers :)
New school year, new senior class, and new bloggers for Mr. Clearman's second biodiesel class. While his first class has been the first to blog, that's because we have been hard at work. After the first couple weeks of cleaning his room its time to conquer the projects we've set for our selves.

After deciding upon which projects we wanted to take on, we took a short trip to the local Home Depot. Upon arrival our class was on every aisle learning what supplies we will need and to pick the brains of the helpful Home Depot employees on how we could complete our tasks.

Two ladies learning which tape will be best when working with electrical wire. They plan on turning a normal battery powered golf cart into a golf cart ran on solar panels. 

These two cousin's will work together to paint our biodiesel room. Not only to make it pretty and relay our message but to keep the heat out by painting with light colors.

Biodiesel is love.

Did you know that using biodiesel reduces emissions by 78%? When reading the article "School Children Endagered by Bus Emissions,Study Says"( which you can find at http://chalk.richmond.edu/elements/articles/bus_emissions/index.html ),According to the Union of Concerned Scientists studies of the effects of diesel emissions on children's health, "diesel school bus emissions are contributing to the deteriorating lung capacities of children, as well as increasing their risks of ashma, heart disease, bronchitis, lung cancer,allergies and premature death." Statistics show that ashma is currently the most prevalent cause of absences in the state of New Jersey, where the study was taken. The UCS stated that recent studies have found that polluted air can concentrate inside school buses and cause the 16,000 New Jersey children riding the buses to breathe air that is nearly 10 times more concentrated with particules and soot than they would inhale standing on the side of the road. With biodiesel these emissions would be signifigantly reduced, helping to better the health of these students, as well as students around the country.

Even a B5 mixture of biodiesel reduces emissions by 10%, which is showed in the graph above.

First blog post of the year? Arielle and T.J reporting for duty. We are Seniors this year and our Biodiesel 1 class at Key West High School is so excited to begin the projects we have lined up for this year. Some projects we have this year include: Fixing up an old 1985 Mercedes that has been converted to run on pure biodiesel, fixing various planter boxes for shrubs and other small plants, building a stand for our turbine sensor that the biodiesel class last year built, putting locks on our chemical drawers, running pipes through a cistern to water all of our newly fixed planters, and last but certainly not least, writing and completing a grant form so we can win the money to pay for it all. During all of these projects T.J. and I will be here to keep you posted as we make our little island a better place to call home, a cleaner more environmentally friendly home.

 Price comparing cement for our various projects!

 James and the crew looking for supplies and comparing prices.

Lauryn having some fun in Home Depot!

Well I guess this is good bye...

The school year is finally over, and unfortunately that means this will be the last blogpost before the summer. In a few days this biodiesel class will be graduating, and come the fall a new group of students will be stepping up and joining biodiesel, including a new writing team. I wish the new blog team as well as the rest of the class good luck. Goodbye.

Tallow Masters to the rescue

The Key West High School Alternative Energy Center has recieved so much grease in the past few weeks that we have just too much to process. While we are pleased that the community has supported us so well, something has to be done about all this excess grease. Once again local company Tallow Masters has saved the day by hauling away our unusable grease. Our sincere thanks goes out to them for continuing to give us their services at no cost to us.

Oil from Louisiana platform explosion to effect Florida Keys

As many of you know, on April 20th, an oil rig 50 miles off the coast of Lousiana exploded and then sank, leaking an estimated 700,000 gallons of crude oil into the water. Now any oil spill anywhere in the world is worrisome for the members of the Alternative Energy Center, but this spill is particularly troulesome to us. While the accident is being called the worst in the decade its ramifications will soon be hitting extremely close to home. According to reports from the NOAA, all the oil from the spill is heading directly for our island. If this oil reaches us, it would be nothing short of disastrous; The oil would destroy what makes Key West beautiful, its reefs and wildlife, and the hit that our tourist-based economy would take could take a long time to recover from.

Biodiesel wins Sunsmart E-shelters Grant

Today the Key West High School Alternative Energy Center recieved news that it has earned yet another grant, this time from The Florida Solar Energy Center. The grant is worth at least 50,000 dollars and was written by students Cole Acevedo and Zack Harden.
This money will be used to install a large solar array on the school grounds, making Key West High School the first school in the state to have such a setup.

Students replace filter

Today, students changed out the filter on the biodiesel car. Pictured is the old filter as well as the remnants of what it helped clean out from the engine.

The biodiesel serves a dual purpose, while it helps keep the enviroment clean, it also helps keep the engine clean by getting rid of much of the excess material conventional gas has left behind.

Working Hard

Some of the hardest workers in during these series of projects is the group digging the hole in order to place the sign next to the turbine. Digging the hole under the hot sun is difficult work but the group is persevering and plans on having their work done soon.

Back to work...Again

The biodiesel portion of this class has come around again; this session will focus on finishing projects that were started earlier in the year, including:

Work on the biodiesel car

Finishing the houses that will be used in an experiment to test the efficency of the new "Peel and stick" PV sheets verses traditional bolted solar arrays

Finishing the walls that will surround both the gas pumping station as well as the grease storage area

Additionally,a few new projects go along with the one of the centers lessons:that green energy can also be beatiful. A few of these projects are:

Continuing to beautify the front of the biodiesel building by staining the concrete

Making a sign to thank the State Farm Youth Advisory Board for their grant

Turbine Officially Running

Key West High School has officially become the first high school in Florida to have a grid connected turbine following the opening ceremony on Saturday, March 20th. After the ribbon was cut, tours were given of the biodiesel center, and lunch was served in view of the turbine.