Research Project-Aftermarket air intake

For my project, I went through many different ideas. After deciding I probably shouldn’t try and make a video camera. I decided to do something car related. So I have heard a lot about after market intakes but personally have been very skeptical. I decided to buy one and try it out. See what I think of it instead of listening to other people’s opinions online. There are two types of aftermarket intakes available, Cold Air Intakes (CAI) and Short Ram Air Intakes (SRI). I chose an SRI, mainly because they are cheaper haha. After ordering an Injen brand SRI from my local tuner shop (Tru Motorsports, I highly recommend them), I went home to research some more about them. I have researched intakes a lot, but this time I was going to go in depth a little more. I found many people that hate aftermarket intakes, and many that love them. All of the companies that make intakes claim gains up to 12 horsepower and 11.5 foot-pounds of torque. I was getting excited to see if my car would gain power. After receiving my intake, I quickly installed it. I started up my car and didn’t notice any Check-Engine lights or anything. So I grabbed my little brother and took it for a test drive. I was pretty happy with the results. Right away I noticed the gas was much more responsive; when I got onto a straightaway I gassed it and was very happy with the power and most of all the sound. It made the car sound very aggressive. After owning it for a little while I have also noticed that my gas mileage has gone up, I average 2-3mpg’s more than I did without the SRI. I haven’t gotten my car dyno-tested but I know that it has more power than it used too.

So next thing I wanted to know was, why does this intake make a difference? Here comes some research. I found a pretty good explanation of why it makes a difference. Stock air intakes on cars are designed mainly to silence the car. They basically choke the air supply to the engine so that the car isn’t loud. Aftermarket intakes don’t care about sound and only car about performance, so they open up the intake and allow the engine to breathe better. So, more air to the engine=more power. Pretty simple, so basically the stock air intake is like breathing through a straw and the after market intake is like breathing through a paper towel tube, its not all the way open but its pretty close.

So that is my research!

Source's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_ram_air_intake

Countless blogs and forums

Fear Project

So for my fear assignment, I tried to think of many different ways of experimenting. In the end I found out that I didn't have some fears I thought I had. What ended up happening was that both of my cats (one of which has three legs) escaped. When the first one escaped, I didn't handle it too well. I was not only upset about the cat leaving, but I was upset that I didn't know where she was or what has happened too her. She was gone for 2 1/2 days and my older brother ended up finding her in the front yard. When the second one escaped, I found myself handling it better than the first one. There were a few times when it got hard, but I overall was much stronger through the whole situation. We ended up finding her in 2 days. I know I sound like a terrible pet owner, but they escaped from freak circumstances. One of them escaped when my brothers cat opened the back door to get inside, and the other escaped from one of our garage doors being messed up. Through both of them I found what upset me the most was the fear of the unknown. I didn't know where they were or what had happened. If one of them would've gotten hit by a car or something, I would've had closure. If one of them disappeared without a trace, I would have had no idea what happened. So in the end I found one of my worst fears, the fear of the unknown.

Reaction

I came in to class not knowing what to expect. Lots of interesting things happened haha. I think that one of the most memorable things that happened was the tarantula. Somebody brought a tarantula out of nowhere and scared the crap out of some of the class. I didn't really know what happened, I just heard screams. It startled me though. That is what I mainly remember.

Stuffed Animal Thing

Ok, so for my stuffed animal thing, I decided to take my Fiances stuffed Dinosaur, and edit it into Jurassic Parks Famous "When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth" still frame. So that's what I did. With my actual free time that I had, I decided to paint my cars brake calipers. And like everyone else I'm sure, I relaxed and enjoyed some time with nothing to do...For about 5 mins, then I started on a speech I have to give.... yeah...

Heres the dino pic




And here's the calipers!





They look orange in the pics, but they're actually red, my car is orange though haha

Process

Inspiration-Idea-Concept-Trial-Refine-Product is the format that Professor Lykins. I would say that mine is a little different then this. I am a video production major so I am on a little bit of a different side when it comes to art anyway. I would say my process is more like this Idea-Inspiration-Concept-Trial-Refine-Product. Although similar, it is very different in the start. I start out my process with an idea. I have an idea for a movie or some type of video that I want to do, and then I go out and see who else has done something similar, how they did, was it affective? Everything like that. So I somewhat get inspiration from other videos that are close to my idea before I start to create the concept. Other than that step, all the others are pretty self explanatory, I just wanted to clarify what I meant by having the idea before the inspiration.

I really enjoyed going through the tour of the other half of the IT building. I thought that the 3d room was awesome. The tour was a little dry at times, but there was a lot of material to cover so I really can't complain too much. Overall it kind of made me question what I wanted to do with my degree... I have had a lot of doubt's lately anyway. I just kind of pushed them back and didn't really think about them, but for some reason this tour kind f made me dig deeper. Which is a good thing. I think that I have been getting incredibly bored and frustrated in my major classes for a lot of reasons. I have not enjoyed certain professors very much, and feel that they don't treat me fairly on grading. I think that the tour made me want to try a little harder and kind of show professors what I'm really capable of. I think that everyone questions their choices for their major every once in a while, and I think that it is very healthy too. If we just went through life never questioning or critiquing our own decisions, then what would that make us?

Anyway, this is my blog entry, leave me a comment if you have felt the same way with your own major at all...

Rule Breaking

There are many rules in the video field. They are very confusing though. Every time a professor or professional talks about a rule, they end the sentence with "But you can break it if you have a good enough reason." Anyway, I decided to break the 180 degree rule. I wanted to break it with a reason though. I broke it with no reason at first, and it just made the video look confusing. When I came up with the reason to break it, it made since however. If you ever need a scene where you have a split personality character in it, this rule break would make since. I filmed my little brother having an argument with his second personality, and with the rule broken, it made sense! Pretty cool. Unfortunately, I have not had any chance to edit/upload the video. This semester is my busiest semester yet. Anyway, that is the rule I broke.

Class 1/31/2011

Well I actually wasn't at class on Monday, but I will describe what happened. I woke up Monday morning with a headache, I went to my video class at 12. After the video class my headache clearly was getting worse. I went home. It took me 3hrs to get rid of that headache. Burring the video class, it turned into a migraine. I didn't have a very fun day.