Week 2 Year 2

“When in doubt, take more time” - John Zimmerman

It was another wonderful week of research this week at UNH.  This week I was able to finish the specimen I will be testing, become more familiar with some of the things I will be doing on Excel, and test a dummy specimen to prepare for testing next week!

As the week began I had a few more steps to complete my specimen in preparation for testing.  It is important for me to take care in following each of the steps of the procedure so that my specimen will meet the specifications needed.  Monday I completed the cutting and coring steps.

Setting my specimen up to be cut.

These steps required some safety equipment so as instructed I outfitted myself in rubber boots, a work apron, rubber gloves, safety glasses, and ear plugs.  (I wish I had gotten a picture!)  Once ready the graduate student who is helping explain the process involved in asphalt research to me, Dave, began to explain the coring process.  Basically there is a big cylindrical drill that comes down and cuts through the middle of the compacted piece of asphalt to create a new piece with the correct dimensions.  Next was the cutting.  The specimen has to be particular dimensions before it can be tested.  The cutting process creates a smooth top and bottom for the load to be applied as well.  After Dave showed me, (I was a little nervous) I used a big saw to cut through the asphalt! 

Getting a dry weight.

At that point the asphalt was wet so I had to wait until the next day to check the air voids.  This process I had done before so it went fairly quickly.  The last step was to glue the piece in which the sensors will connect to onto the specimen.  After the glue was dry I was ready to start testing!

Gluing the brackets to the specimen.

This finished product!  Ready for testing!

The rest of the week Dave showed me how to look at some of the data and we used a “dummy” specimen to practice putting on the LVDTs which are the sensors that read the deformation.  The LVDTs are in two pieces and must be handled with care as they are very intricate.  The bottom piece plugs into the machine and connects to the bottom bracket which I glued on earlier this week.  This is attached using a small set screw.  Then you must take the top piece which has small wire on it and place it into the hole on the bottom piece.  This also connects with a set screw.  The plan is to start testing Monday if everything goes well!  Keep your fingers crossed for me!

This week during some “down time” I was also able to take a look at some ideas for bringing this back into the classroom.  Once the testing is done a large part of what I will be doing is looking at the data.  I think it is here that I will probably focus my lesson.  As I looked at the common core standards I found one of the Statistics and probability standards that I may focus my lesson on:

8.DS.2 Know that straight lines are widely used to model relationships between two quantitative variables.  For scatter plots that suggest a linear association, informally fit a straight line, and informally assess the model fit by judging the closeness of the data points on to the line.

I am excited to see the ideas I have for this lesson form as I learn more!

Chocolate asphalt with the KEEPERS!

Chocolate mixed with the "aggregate"

Testing the finished product.