Nerd Nite East Bay #16: Movie Explosions, Coffee Roasting, and Hypervelocity Travel
Now streaming live on the interwebs...
We plan to experiment with our first live stream this month. The live event is at:
The New Parkway, 474 24th St, Oakland
(less than half-a-mile from the 19th St BART)
EXPLOSIONS, BACKDRAFTS, AND SPRINKLERS: HOW HOLLYWOOD GETS FIRE SCIENCE WRONG by Joel Sipe
Fires and explosions are key elements in most Hollywood blockbusters, yet they are often absurdly misrepresented, much to the chagrin of fire scientists (yes, fire scientists are a real thing). The movie Backdraft is notoriously inaccurate, but finding films with correct portrayals of fires, explosions, or fire protection systems is surprisingly difficult. Spoiler alert: car gas tanks don't really explode when you shoot them with a handgun. Come learn about the real fire science behind some common Hollywood goofs.
Joel Sipe, Ph.D, is a Senior Engineer at Exponent Failure Analysis Inc. where he investigates fires, explosions, and thermal issues related to consumer product fire safety and skin burns. From an early age, Joel had an obsession with all things having to do with fire. His friends think it's more than a little suspicious that he always knows where the fire started...
HOME COFFEE ROASTING: ON THE CHEAP WITH TOOLS YOU PROBABLY ALREADY HAVE by Byron Dote
Learn about where coffee comes from and the stages it goes through before it ends as a hot beverage. We will show you how simple the roasting process can be and discuss the different methods used for home roasting. Get up close and personal with a live demonstration of roasting coffee with an electric popcorn popper.
Sweet Maria's Coffee is an online information and retail source for home coffee roasting. We are based out of West Oakland, and enjoy sharing our passion with Bay Area coffee lovers.
Byron Dote is the marketing guy and merchandise buyer at Sweet Maria's Coffee. He's been with the company for 3 years. Before that, he worked in the photo marketing and film production industries. Byron loves living in Oakland, hanging out with his dogs, listening to good music, eating ice cream, yelping Mexican restaurants and drinking excellent coffee.
HYPERVELOCITY LAUNCHERS: HOW TO LAUNCH A PROJECTILE AT 10 MILES/SECOND? (THAT'S RIGHT, PER SECOND) by Vincent Tanguay
From bows and arrows to rail guns, man has been perfecting tools to launch projectiles at ever greater speeds for tens of thousands of years. Launching projectiles at hypervelocity is routine today and these launchers are very useful for science. While they have enabled major breakthroughs (think access to space), scientists always need more speed! We'll discuss what hypervelocity is, its applications, and the various technologies that make it possible. Of course, we'll talk about their limitations and how to push the frontier of possibilities. Somehow, we'll manage to include some explosions in there -- hopefully we get it right!
Vincent Tanguay, Ph.D., has a background in explosives and detonations and formerly worked as a scientist for a Canadian National Lab. When not busy blowing stuff up, he was developing an explosive-driven hypervelocity launcher.
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