Hawke’s Bay Branch of the Royal Society’s End of Year Event

Caring for our coastal waters: the appliance of science

Tuesday 12 December 2017 at 6pm

Hawke’s Bay Regional Council
Cnr. Dalton and Vautier Streets, Napier

Under the chairmanship of team leader Stephen Swabey, three scientists from HBRC’s Coastal Team will present talks of 20 minutes each:

Anna Madarasz-Smith                The rise and fall of the Ahuriri Estuary
Shane Gilmer                                Jump in! Recreational water quality in Hawke’s Bay
Oliver Wade                                  Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Using new technologies in Science

Please then stay for some conviviality: we will lay on the nibbles, cake and a glass of something to celebrate the end of a very busy and successful year for the HB Branch of the Royal Society!

ABB visit – review

A group of 30 members were hosted by Scott Styles and Nick Elliott to a visit to the impressive- looking building on the grounds of Hawke’s Bay Airport. The interior is even more impressive. Over 130 people are employed there and the company’s products, automatic voltage controllers and power supply stabilisers are exported globally.

Scott gave us a “101” on electrical power supply stabilisation and later sent us the following links:

Why is my laptop on https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/03/why-is-my-laptop-on.html

Energy for dummies is linked inside the aforementioned document.

https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/03/energy-dummies.html

ABB Videos from the presentation.

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQEsr8f1opU&t=137s

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXutErdUoso&t=17s

Scott briefly touched on arc-flash with the tour group. This is quite a scary subject.

This is why you might see the local linesman getting completely kitted up in a ‘bomb-suit’ before operating switchgear https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P35HRYHFz7c

(people continuing to search or watch video’s on youtube autoplay should be warned that there are some gruesome injuries as a result of arc-flash.)

Scott thinks that we have a problem in society with poor energy literacy combined with extreme energy dependence.

This might be part of addressing this

http://www.theperfectcurrency.org/main-energy-currency/energy-currency

And last of all here is the sole remaining video (transferred from VHS) of the model solar car that Scott built with some friends in 7thform in 1993. Had he not entered this competition Scott doubts he would have become an electrical engineer.

https://www.facebook.com/scott.styles/videos/10151698169052831/