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Education Power

High Schoolers Use Homemade Nuclear Fusion Reactor To Dominate Science Fairs (us.com) 126

An anonymous reader writes: 20 high school students gather every Friday night in a basement of a modest home in Federal Way, Washington to work on science experiments using a home-made nuclear fusion reactor. [They've also reportedly won top honors in science fairs as well as college scholarships.] This extreme science club is the brainchild of Carl Greninger, a Program Manager at Microsoft by day, scientist by night. He was concerned about the current state of high school science education, [and] lamented that the public school system does not truly expose students to the excitement of experimental discovery.
So using his own money (and one-ton of radiation shielding), Greninger "gathered some students and built a working nuclear fusion reactor in his garage."
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High Schoolers Use Homemade Nuclear Fusion Reactor To Dominate Science Fairs

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    Serious question.

  • Are we talking about a neutron source, like the Farnsworth Fusor? A good neutron source could supply subcritical fission reactions, those which operate only while the neutron source is running.

    • by Nemyst ( 1383049 ) on Saturday April 09, 2016 @02:57PM (#51875887) Homepage
      I dug around on the website and found this document [us.com] which seems to indicate that yes, we're talking about a Farnsworth Fusor.
    • I don't get what is going on here. Presumably he has a licence from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission [nrc.gov], so why the secrecy ("secret" lab behind a bookshelf)? In a residential area?? The Youtube video crapped out on me BTW, so I hope his gear is more reliable.
      • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 09, 2016 @03:44PM (#51876085)

        You come to slashdot and ask "Why behind a bookcase"? What is wrong with slashdot?

        You, dear sir, hand in your geekcard at once.

        Why? Because it is a freaking cool to have a fusion reactor in your garage in a secret lab behind a bookshelf! I cannot imagine someone on this website even has to ask that.

      • by tnk1 ( 899206 )

        I don't think you need an NRC license for a Fusor. This isn't ever going to be a power plant and the radiation threat is minimal. You probably want to protect against those free neutrons though if you're going to run it for extended periods, but otherwise, no big deal.

        • You probably want to protect against those free neutrons though if you're going to run it for extended periods, but otherwise, no big deal.
          Tell that your neighbours.

    • It's more like a Wernstrom coalitioner.

    • by tnk1 ( 899206 ) on Saturday April 09, 2016 @04:14PM (#51876189)

      If you look at the images on the site, you can see it is a Fusor. It has the wire cages and all of that.

      Fusors are pretty cool. Was thinking of building one myself. You can definitely build one as an amateur. It's like 1950's TV era technology.

      Of course a Fusor is not a power plant, but it's a decent neutron source.

      They are trying to use the same concept for an actual power plant with the polywell, which uses magnetic fields instead of the wires to provide the confinement and the charged particle acceleration.

      Since the Fusor's inability to be a power generating source is due to radiation and conductive energy loss from some of the particles impacting the physical surface of the wires, the magnetic confinement should dispense with that issue.

      The major problem is that getting the right geometry for the magnetic fields is difficult and it hasn't been demonstrated whether it is possible to get the fields to allow for this approach yet.

    • Are we talking about a neutron source, like the Farnsworth Fusor? A good neu--

      --ews everyone! [youtube.com]

      (Since I have no idea what a Farnsworth Fusor is, I'll just make a pithy cultural reference.)

  • Science fairs... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 09, 2016 @03:01PM (#51875905)

    When you use students for your pet project and they go on to win every science fair, isn't that more discouraging for the competitors who don't get free money behind the scenes? Or is it naive to think that any participant in a high school science fair is autonomous enough to produce interesting projects on their own?

    Doesn't sit well by me to see them snag a bunch of scholarships and apparently crowdfund their project (according to their website) with all that money and expertise doing (presumably) most of the work for them.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This. Every highschool-science-fair-kid that I've heard of, that got national recognition, had some pretty heavy-duty backing for "their" project. Focusing on these kids really irritates me. Many, many, many highschool kids could do this level of work if they had the money and experience that these kids had as backup.

      • In a lot of cases that's how much of real science works. Even if you have a great idea, unless it's great and CHEAP, you'll need to dig up funding or get a backer so you can make it happen.

        If you've got a good concept for a working long-range teleporter, or a way to convert sand to gold but they require access to something like the LHC, then it won't do you much good without backing to get there...

    • by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Saturday April 09, 2016 @10:58PM (#51877615) Homepage

      Perhaps Mr. Greninger should just keep his enthusiasm for science, and his willingness to teach young people, to himself. Then who would benefit?

      I didn't have the fortune of having this man in my life as a student, but I did have a retired friend in the early 1980s who was a computer enthusiast. He purchased an early Apple II, and invited me, a high school student, to come over to learn how to use his new toy. That was when I knew what I would be doing with my life.

      These students are receiving a wonderful gift from Mr. Greninger. It would be great if everybody had the same benefit, but we don't. It's too bad there aren't more passionate people who are willing to inspire high school students. Instead of complaining about those who are missing out, how about let's get up off our rears and look for ways to inspire the young people who are in our own lives!

      • by NotAPK ( 4529127 )

        Unfortunately, with today's climate of fear over child molestation, very few children have the chance to be mentored by an older man. It's a real shame, and ultimately a loss for society, not to mention a horrific bias against men.

      • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

        He purchased an early Apple II, and invited me, a high school student, to come over to learn how to use his new toy

        Did he give you candy with that?

    • It is also unfair that some kids are born with better brains than others or that rich families can hire highly skilled tutors to get their kids through the SAT process. All in all there is nothing fair at all about the educational process just as there is rarely any fairness in the legal system. As a matter of fact, the educational system totally misrepresents itself. The young are told that the schools are there to help them over and over again. The reality is that schools are a process d
  • This is likely some variation on the Farnsworth Fusor. The main dangers to the students come not so much from radiation as from working with near vacuum in glass vessels, high voltages, and explosive gases (deuterium is, after all, hydrogen).

    In my day the popular science fair experiments were also being done with near vacuum in glass vessels and high voltages, with the other danger being the emitted laser beam that could blind you (HeNe, argon) or burn holes through things (CO2).

  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday April 09, 2016 @04:42PM (#51876295)

    You do know their security and safety history, yes? I consider this a dangerous thing.

  • These kinds of fusion reactors have been around for a long time. They are fun and not overly hard to build. They are effectively little more than a big vacuum tube. Here [makezine.com] is a Makezine article on how to build one. Here [youtube.com] is a Youtube video. They are used as neutron sources, but none of these designs has a prayer of generating more energy than it requires to run. It's certainly a nice science fair project, but it's not a groundbreaking novel discovery.

  • Good thing these kids are not of Arabic decent.

    BTW... do nuclear weapons fall under the 'right to bear arms' in the second amendment of the US Constitution?

  • by tlambert ( 566799 ) on Saturday April 09, 2016 @09:44PM (#51877357)

    The article suggests that schools learn from this: it won't happen.

    This is a highly qualified person running a science club. But he does not have a Masters in Education, and therefore he is not qualified to be a teacher in most of the United States, because the teachers unions closely control entry into the field through an artificial barrier of credentials that have nothing to do with whether or not this guy is a good teacher, or the student are learning.

    This is also primarily why this situation is being handled as a "club", rather than as an education program.

    Schools can't learn from this because they do not accept volunteer help from extremely qualified individuals.

    Do you know who was not allowed to fill in for a high school computer science teacher?

    Vinton Fucking Cerf.

    IBM used to run a program where they would give a year sabbatical to any employee to volunteer to teach in a K-12 school for a year. IBM shut this program down. They didn't want to shut this program down, but it turns out that the research scientists at IBM's TJ Watson and Almaden Centers, and the regular scientists and engineers elsewhere -- no longer met the credentialing requirements which would be required to allow them to teach in public schools.

    The program lingered on for a bout two years, but it was mostly the same people who had been in it before, and who were teaching in Private and Parochial schools, rather than in public schools.

    Public education in the United States is a fucking joke these days.

    • Just about everybody who has been in college can remember professors who while knowing their subject were absolutely horrible teachers. College is supposed to be where the student teaches themselves and uses the expert for guidance. This is why college requires ZERO education experience and provides ZERO education training for professors. Children and teenagers in public schools are a TOTALLY different situation from that of even a public college.

      Anybody with experience in education should be able to info

      • The situation is entirely political, in the USA at least. One of the above posters mentioned that it seemed to them it was some sort of conspiracy amongst the teacher unions to set in place barriers to entry, when in fact, that has been the purview of the various Federal and State Departments of Education, most of which are staffed by people who have never spent a single minute teaching in a classroom.

    • Teaching as a profession has barriers to entry. These are established by professional organizations through the government because it requires people to demonstrate a minimum basic knowledge of the practices and regulations of the profession.

      There are abundant opportunities to achieve certification through legitimate pathways, usually through a small number of courses covering the relevant topics. In many states, you can start teaching in a field for which you hold a bachelor's while taking the required cou

    • But he does not have a Masters in Education, and therefore he is not qualified to be a teacher in most of the United States
      I do martial arts since 30 years.

      I'm somewhat 'known' as well.

      I teach marital arts.

      The qualification I have is: I'm in the business or hobby longer than you are.

      Who cares about the USA? I'm invited to give classes all over the world: without any formal "Master in Education". Why?

      Because I know how to 'do' stuff. If I did not know how to 'teach' stuff, no one would invite me.

      If you learn

  • I commend anyone who undertakes the project to make a fusor. It is a great technical feat.

    So far what I've seen in these projects is technical. Learning how to build and maintain vacuum systems, building and safely using high voltage supplies, managing instrumentation, running the device and collecting data on its operation to tweak and modify the operational parameters.

    I also see that success depends on access to funding or "salvage" equipment. Even trying to build a single demonstration/experimental plasm

    • by Mr.CRC ( 2330444 )

      If you are talking about undergrad. or HS, then it isn't really necessary to be forging ahead with new investigations, but rather to demonstrate and master the connection between already well understood empirical and theoretical science.

      Whereas if you are talking about advanced undergrad. or grad. students, then I'd be considering if a fusor could generate neutrons suitable for neutron activation or imaging studies.

"Yes, and I feel bad about rendering their useless carci into dogfood..." -- Badger comics

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