h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

To recotd the river height every day, we placed a data logger out on the bike path. A data logger is a nifty little tool, a computer attached to a sensor. It can record temperature, resistivity, radioactivity, or in my case, pressure. We used the pressure sensor to get the height of the river above the device. We're going to compare this to discharge, and hopefully be able to fit a curve to find out how much water is going through the river each day at that point.

Well, there were some doubts about whether it would make it through the flood without getting washed downriver. I couldn't get out to it because the trail leading to it was entirely underwater, so I had to go on faith that it would still be there.

Isn't it nice to be right for a change? I made up a song about it on the spot, sung to the tune of The Star Spangled Banner.

Oh say can you see,
That blue bag in the tree!
Containing the power
of Tom's engineering!

The sensor below,
the computer above,
the height of the river
it has been recording!

And suburbian lights
Through the storms and the nights
Gave proof through the flood
That my logger's still there!

Oh say does that computer chip
still record the data,
of the height above the sensor,
on the Cuyahoga River!

*bows*

oh! so talented!!!!

Traveller in Time on top
"As a rocking scientist you would know where to place it!

Does it contain enough data to make a graph ? "

That was very inspiring *sniff sniff*

It was actually my advisor that placed it, but it was a relief to see it still hanging there!

The bad news is that we might have to go out tomorrow, with the more cumbersome equipment. I had a bit of a problem out there with the velocity meter. I was lowering it into the water, when I suddenly heard an odd clunk and watched the weight on the bottom of it detach itself and fall into the swirling Cuyahoga at station 12 on my profile! This means that it's not going to be much use.

We might go out if the guy shows up with the equipment. And it rained pretty heavily today, so if we do, we need waders. And there's only one pair...

*crosses fingers*

Traveller in Time calculating
"How much velocity is needed to deattah the weigth? (should be in the manual as max velocity)"

Poetry is definatly catching, the muse has settled on so many hootooer's recently

Well done Scan, send it to the Post

Well, the thing is, there isn't a manual... the instrument is proven, but the rig it's on is a prototype. And the velocity had nothing to do with it. The weight dropped off because a set screw holding the bolt on either unscrewed itself or sheared!