Science – Page 2 – The Lighthouse

Crash Course in 3D Printing

April 4, 2025 thelighthousetve

How does one start 3D printing? In this article you’ll learn the basics of 3D printing, and where to start.

Picking the Printer

There are three main types of 3D printers: FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) uses a spool of filament and prints molten plastic in layers, SLA (Stereolithography) uses a laser to cure resin for each layer, and SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) uses a laser to fuse powder together to create layers. We are talking about FDM printers as they are the most common desktop 3D printers and are the easiest to use. This is about FDM printers specifically, so information may differ if you are using another type of printer.

Types of 3D Filament

3D filament ranges in color, materials and uses. Some common materials are PLA, PETG and TPU.

PLA has a lower melting point and is easier to work with compared to other materials but is not ideal for outdoor conditions.

PETG is better suited for outdoors and has a higher melting point. It is also more suitable for bigger objects and mechanical parts but can be a little bit harder to work with.

TPU is a flexible material allowing you to make parts that need to deform but is a difficult filament to work with.

3D Models

The 3D printing process starts with a model. You can either make the model yourself or find one online on sites like printables.com or thingiverse.com. If you want to make a model yourself, there are multiple great programs to do it in.

Tinkercad is free and is used for 3D modeling electronics and coding well-being beginner friendly.

Blender is a free open-source program that has a wide range of uses from 3D modeling, video editing to even making movies though it has a steep learning curve.

Slicers

A slicer is a program that converts a 3D model into something a 3D printer can read called G-code. Slicers also allow you to adjust every aspect of your print from size to print speed, infill and supports. One great slicer is Prusa slicer which is free and open-source.

Infill is a trick that is added in the slicer and is used to save filament and reduce print time by making an object hollow and filling the inside with a support structure. There are many types of infill ranging in look and density depending on what is needed.

A 3D printer cannot print in midair so when an object has parts that cannot be printed because there’s nothing to print on, that’s where supports come in. Supports are plastic scaffolding added in the slicer designed to be removed after the print finishes. Supports are an essential part of 3D printing though if they are not necessary it’s better to not have them.

The Finished Product

Finally, you get to print the object. This is usually the final step as post processing is not common when using FDM printers. 3D printed objects usually are strong and can be used for a wide variety of uses. Examples of uses range from miniatures to parts for mechanical objects, but the sky is the limit when it comes to 3D printing.

News, Science

Yosemite’s Fall of Fire

March 7, 2025 thelighthousetve

by Layal Hilal

Have you ever seen a waterfall on fire? If you have, you’ve probably been to Yosemite and seen Horsetail Falls in February, where the waterfall “lights on fire” a few times every year. The illusion of it becoming a literal “river of lava” is caused by the sun setting at the right time in the right place, and it has attracted hundreds of visitors across the country, including me and my family!

Facts about Yosemite’s Horsetail Waterfall Firefall:

Horsetail Falls, a waterfall on the eastern side of El Capitan, literally attracts thousands of visitors from all over the country coming to see the fake “volcano eruption”. Of course, the waterfall doesn’t actually light on fire; it’s just the sun’s rays hitting the falls from the perfect angle at the perfect time that causes the illusion.

From mid to late February, this amazing phenomenon occurs in Yosemite National Park about ten minutes before sunset every day.

It is known as the ‘firefall” and visitors travel thousands of miles to capture it on camera.

The first person to ever take a picture of this was a man named Galen Rowell, who happened to be driving through Yosemite Valley in 1973, glanced up, and saw a lava waterfall.
- Galen Rowell was born in 1940 and died in 2002.
- He was a well-renowned American photographer, climber, and mountaineer and took the first shot of the firefall occuring, becoming the man who made it famous.

For the firefall to happen, the water has to be rushing down the cliff, there has to be a clear or mostly clear sky with few clouds, the sun has to set at just the right angle, and, of course, it only takes place in about the last two weeks of February.

If you decide to visit this waterfall in the last few days when you can (or you can just do it next year!), try to go on a weekday, since you need reservations on the weekend, get there really early, bring a lot of snacks, have a plan for what to do before sunset, bring a really good camera or your phone if you don’t have one, do your research to try and get the best viewing spot, and set up your blankets, chairs, and camera where you’re viewing the falls about two to three hours before it starts, because yes, people come that early

DISCLAIMER: No matter how many videos and photos you see, nothing will prepare you for a tiny, almost invisible waterfall to turn bright orange in the time before sunset. Your breath will still be taken away, you will still scream, ooh, and ahh, you will still take millions of photos in the hope at least one will do it justice, you will find yourself scared to blink, for fear that it will end in the moment you close your eyes, and you will be filled with a consuming disappointment as it returns to its normal color.

Go to Horsetail Falls. Watch it turn orange. Take a million videos. Revisit the memory in your dreams. Wish it lasted longer. If you can’t go this year, go next year. Even if you watch it from your car, parked illegally on the side of the road because you came too late, starving because you forgot all your food, with trees and clouds partially blocking your view and your camera forgotten at home, you won’t regret it. And if you do…keep going until you don’t.

Science, Student Life

The Psychology of Stress

March 7, 2025 thelighthousetve

by Lucas David

Understanding stress is very important for a number of reasons, especially for teens, who experience comparatively high amounts of stress in their daily lives. For one, stress has a direct impact on your mental wellbeing, as it can cause you to feel overwhelmed or anxious, as well as causing difficulty concentrating, memory problems, and sleep changes. For another, it can affect your physical health by damaging your heart’s functionality, causing digestive issues, weakening your immune system, making it more difficult to sleep, and much more. It is also important to understand stress because it helps allow you to identify stressors in your life, recognize your bodies reactions to them, and develop methods to cope with them and manage your stress levels before they begin to affect your physical and mental health. Recognizing stress early on can help prevent you from developing health issues, and make them significantly easier to manage if they arise. This can lead to improved mental wellbeing, enhanced decision making, healthier relationships, greater productivity, and an increase in happiness overall.

So far we’ve talked a lot about what stress does, but what is stress, anyways? Stress is a natural response to threats or challenges that involves both the mind and the body. It can help prepare you for the future, but too much of it can negatively affect your health. Stress is caused by significant events such as moving to a new home, beginning a new job, going through trauma or an onslaught of homework or illness. Very often, it is helped along by a perceived lack of control, a feeling of social isolation, negative thoughts or beliefs or poor coping mechanisms.

However, not all stress is bad for you. Good stress, or eustress, is a short term challenge that can motivate you to succeed and help you develop as a person by building resilience, developing life skills, helping to focus your energy, improving your performance and enhancing your sense of accomplishment. Bad stress, also called distress, is long term and can damage your health by creating anxiety, confusion, worsening your concentration and lessening your performance. To help monitor your stress to make sure that the majority of it starts with an eu, we need to talk about stressors. Simply put, stressors are stimuli that trigger a stress response in an organism. By monitoring which stressors cause distress, and which cause eustress, we can develop coping mechanisms to help alter our stimuli to suit our needs.

Coping mechanisms are behaviors or strategies individuals use to manage the negative effects of spending time in stressful situations. Some common examples of coping mechanisms include exercise, relaxation techniques such as deep breaths or meditation, social support, positive thinking, journaling, and focusing on what you can control. Most types of coping mechanisms can be sorted into one of two categories: Problem based coping, which involves trying to sort out the real-life source of the stressor, and emotion based coping, which involves focusing on dealing with the emotions that spring from the situation. Perceived control can also have a huge impact on a person’s ability to cope with stress because when a person believes they have agency, or the ability to affect a situation, their ability to cope with stress from that situation increases significantly.

Managing our stress is one way that we, as humans, attempt to chase happiness. What is happiness? Happiness is a feeling of joy, contentedness, satisfaction or well being. It is a complex, multi-faceted emotion that is influenced by many factors, including social and cultural norms, and is highly subjective, meaning that what makes one person happy may not make another person happy. Flow, and whether or not a person regularly enters what could be considered flow, can also have an influence on a person’s happiness because it is a state of mind in which a person is fully immersed in an activity, and highly focused and enjoyable.

For teens, Psychology Today offers some tips to keep stress levels low. For one, it states that having smooth communication with parents can make a large difference. That means being open and honest with your parents about your life and emotions. It’s also important to set realistic expectations for yourself, knowing that not only is it ok to fail at things, but it in fact provides opportunity for growth. Personally, I suggest setting and enforcing your personal boundaries with yourself and others, to help keep you from being pushed too far from your comfort zone.s

In conclusion, we covered a range of topics relating to stress and mental wellbeing, including stress itself, good stress versus bad stress, flow and the pursuit of happiness. We also learned that managing stress and understanding your stressors can be vital to helping to keep from becoming overwhelmed, as well as how our use of various coping mechanisms can have a significant impact on our daily lives. Many of us, as teens, are often heavily exposed to all kinds of stressors, from social situations to academics to family issues, and we must be self-aware to stay happy and healthy.

Arts and Culture, Science

Concorde: A Pinnacle of Air Travel

February 7, 2025 thelighthousetve

By Hudson Ebach

The Concorde was a supersonic jet airliner, manufactured by Aérospatiale, British Aircraft Corporation, Sud Aviation, and British Aerospace. It was made in 1976 and was retired in 2003.

About The Concorde.

The Concorde went speeds up to Mach 2 (over 1500 MPH), making it the fastest airliner to have ever been built. It was so fast that if you left London in the afternoon and flew to New York, the passengers would see the sun rising again! It flew faster than the earth’s rotation!

The engines, Rolls-Royce/Snecma Olympus 593 (Thanks google!) were turbojet engines. These engines (turbojet type) would eject a high energy gas stream from the engines exhaust nozzle. They were placed on the back of the Concorde’s wings.

The Concorde’s wings were different from the ones you would see today. Most airliner wings don’t connect through the whole fuselage, however “…the Concorde’s wings were triangular. And there was no space between the fuselage and the wing of the Concorde as there was in a standard passenger airliner. The Concorde’s wing was called a ‘delta-wing’ design and did the following: Reduces drag by being thin and swept back (55 degrees with the fuselage) [and] provides sufficient lift for takeoff and landing at subsonic speeds.” (courtesy of HowStuffWorks). So, just like any other plane, while unique, the Delta Wings were an important part of the Concorde.

Another thing that made the Concorde unique was its landing gear. The landing gear was standard, similar to other airliners which only have three landing gear parts that come down. However, on the Concorde, there were four separate parts, two on the side, one on the front, and one on the tail. The reason for the “Bumper” landing gear was because the Concorde landed at an 11-degree angle, caused by the Delta Wings.

With the Concorde landing at an 11-degree angle, the pilots couldn’t see the runway while taking off and landing. To fix this issue, the nose of the Concorde would move down at a 5-degree angle during takeoff and a 12.5-degree angle while landing. This movable nose (Called the Droop Snoot) was one of the most well-known things about the Concorde. The Droop Snoot is one of the things that make Concorde one of the most well-known airliners today.

The Downfall of the Concorde.

Remember how I said, “the Concorde went to speeds up to Mach 2.”? Well, a plane that goes Mach 2 is expensive. Not that expensive, only about ONE BILLION DOLLARS. A standard A320 Is only about $10,000,000. But not this beast, you could probably fill a whole Olympic swimming pool full of Peanut Butter with One Billion Dollars. Maybe 2 pools. But the big whammy was a thing that would guarantee it shutting down.

The End of the Concorde (and Hôtelissimo Les Relais Bleus)

It’s July 25, 2000 and Air France flight 4590 is about to taxi onto Runway 26 from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Just before that, a Continental jet had just taken off or landed, and during that process it lost a titanium alloy strip, leaving it on the tarmac. Flight 4590 lined up on the runway with 2645.55 pounds of taxi fuel left, which was supposed to be burned off before takeoff. At this point, there were lots of red flags but ATC gave Flight 4590 the clearance for takeoff and started taking off. Everything was going fine, until one of the Concorde’s tires ran over the titanium alloy strip. The tire then exploded, shooting a piece of rubber into a fuel tank. Unfortunately at this point the leftover taxi fuel exploded in a fiery mess. The landing gear got stuck and being past the takeoff bail mark, the pilots had to take off with a fireball on the rear of the plane.

Image from Google images, believed to have been licensed to the Associated Press

So, at this point the flight is in bad shape and unfortunately it is going to get worse. Flight 4590 then tried to get to a high enough altitude to land the plane. They only got so high and then started descending, right into Hôtelissimo Les Relais Bleus. 103 people died in the plane. Four died in the hotel. This was a major cause of the downfall of the Concorde.

The Concorde had its last flight on November 26, 2003.

Should they bring back the Concorde?

In my opinion as an Avgeek, yes. But as a person who thinks “normally”, no.

The Concorde cost way too much and was a ticking time bomb. Any plane that needs a nose that moves to see the runway seems like a bad idea.

With that said, the Concorde was just a glimpse of what aviation is. Just to show what humans can do. In closing, I, Hudson, want to state, bring it back! We can make it safer and better!

Science

Learn About Your Body – The Skeletal System!

December 6, 2024 thelighthousetve

by Aleena Haimor

Wow! We’re already three systems in! Next up on our list of the body’s systems to learn about is the skeletal system. The skeleton is made up of bones, which act as the body’s support system.

Here are some of the most important bones in your body:

Skull – Protects the brain and sensory organs (eyes, ears, etc.), making it vital for protecting the central nervous system.
Spine (Vertebral Column) – Protects the spinal cord, allows flexibility, and supports the body’s weight. It is crucial for movement and posture.
Femur – The thigh bone is the longest and strongest bone, supporting much of the body’s weight during movement, walking, and running.
Pelvis – Supports the upper body’s weight while standing, walking, and running, and protects vital organs such as the bladder and reproductive organs.
Rib Cage – Protects the heart and lungs, two of the most vital organs for survival.

The skeletal system is super cool! Some facts about it are: as a child, you have around 270 bones, but as you get older, some of them fuse together to get 206 bones. Another fact is that there are different types of bones, including Long bones, Short bones, Flat bones, Irregular bones and Sesamoid bones.

In the end, each body system makes its own contributions to the body, and the skeletal system is no different!

Science

What is a Good Game Engine for Beginners?

November 1, 2024 thelighthousetve

by Camden S.

What is a game engine? A game engine is a software that is essentially a framework that can be used to create video games. It can help you create a video game by providing tools that make the process easier. There are many game engines, and a lot of them have a very high learning curve. Here are some recommendations of game engines for beginners:

Scratch is a free 2D game engine designed by MIT, and was created as a nonprofit game engine. It is a very basic game engine, but can be a great introduction to video game development. Scratch uses a block system to code and is better at creating smaller games. Because it is nonprofit, they do not let you sell anything made on Scratch.

GameMaker is primarily a 2D game engine, but can be used for some 3D games. It has a free version, but if you plan to sell your game you will have to purchase the game engine. GameMaker has their own coding language, but they also have an intuitive visual scripting system which does not require coding knowledge. This game engine has a decent sized community, an asset store, and free tutorials for you to use. You can publish your games almost anywhere, including consoles, and there are no royalty fees. With the free version you can still upload your game to GX.games.

Construct 3 is very similar to GameMaker, and is considered a great alternative. Like GameMaker, it is primarily a 2D game engine, but has limited 3D as well. It includes a free trial, but to sell your games you will have to pay for a subscription. Construct 3 uses JavaScript, but it has a very good and intuitive visual scripting system. Construct 3 has a smaller community compared to GameMaker, but it has a great asset store, and the free tutorials are well made. You can publish your games almost anywhere (except consoles), and they do not have royalty fees. Also, you can publish games made on Construct 3 to their arcade for free.

Which one is best? It really comes down to personal preference. You may like one game engine better than another. Since Scratch is so simplistic, if you are planning to make a polished game, it is probably better to find a more advanced game engine. You might even find that as you get better at making games, game engines like GameMaker and Construct 3 do not have the features you might need. There are many other great game engines that have more features and have better 3D capability. Some more advanced game engines are Unity, Unreal and Godot. Keep in mind that some game engines like Unreal are known to have a high learning curve.

Different game engines are better suited for different types of games. Try experimenting with multiple game engines to see which one works best for your project. There is no wrong choice. It just depends on which one you like best.

Science

Learn About Your Body – The Digestive System!

November 1, 2024 thelighthousetve

by Aleena Haimor

Our next body system is the digestive system! When you eat food, your body has to turn it into nutrients to keep you going. The nutrients are energy for your body. This is all done by your amazing digestive system!

Here are the steps to digesting food:

Ingestion: Food enters the mouth. You chew the food, mix it with saliva, and swallow it.

Propulsion: The food moves down the esophagus.

Stomach: In the stomach, the chewed food is mixed with stomach acid which breaks the food down further. This is called chyme

Small Intestine: Chyme moves into the small intestine, where nutrients are absorbed from the food.

Absorption: Nutrients are absorbed through the small intestine’s walls via villi and microvilli into the bloodstream.

Large Intestine: The leftover undigested food and waste products move into the large intestine, where leftover liquids are absorbed, and the remaining material becomes feces.

**The Digestive System.**
Source: k8schoollessons.com

The circulatory system contains many interesting secrets and facts! Did you know that in its entirety, the adult digestive system stretched out would be about 30 feet long? Also, did you know that it takes about 24 to 72 hours to digest food?

Overall, the digestive system is a very interesting part of the body. It is important to help us take in nutrients. Wow!

Science

Learn About Your Body – The Circulatory System

October 5, 2024October 6, 2024 thelighthousetve

by Aleena Haimor

Have you ever wondered how your body works? How your heart beats? How your brain controls your body? Well, you’re in luck! I’m starting a new series on how the body works! Every publishing, I’ll dive into a different body system. Let’s begin!

First up is the circulatory system! It is one of the most well-known body systems. The circulatory system’s job is to transport blood and oxygen throughout the human body. It also helps get rid of waste, including carbon dioxide and other unneeded substances.

The circulatory system functions using blood vessels such as arteries, veins, and capillaries. There are seven steps:

The right ventricle is one of the heart’s four chambers. Located on the lower right of the circulatory system, it sends to the lungs blood that is low or out of oxygen. Blood travels through the pulmonary trunk (which is the main pulmonary artery).
The blood cells pick up oxygen from your lungs.
Pulmonary veins carry the oxygen-rich blood from the lungs to the upper left chamber of the heart, also known as the left atrium.
The left atrium sends the blood into the left ventricle, which is just below it. From there, it gets pumped to the rest of the body.
The blood collects and drops off nutrients, waste, and hormones throughout the body.
Veins carry oxygen-less blood to the heart once again, and it gets pumped to the lungs.
The body gets rid of the leftover carbon dioxide waste when you exhale.

Wow! That’s a lot of information!

News, Science

Monarch Butterfly Life Cycles!

May 4, 2024May 4, 2024 thelighthousetve

by guest author Ayah Haimor

Butterflies are amazing creatures. They do so much for the earth. Today I will be telling you about Monarch butterflies. Let’s get started!

First I will tell you about one type, or species, of butterfly. There are many different kinds of butterflies, but today I’ll tell you about the monarch butterfly. Monarch butterflies are so cool. They have cool designs and patterns on their wings.

Today, I will tell you about their life cycle. There are 4 steps. First, a monarch butterfly lays an egg on a milkweed leaf. Second, the monarch butterfly’s egg hatches into a caterpillar, which then eats the milkweed leaves of the plant that it’s on. Third, after it gets big enough, it comes out . And it’s a beautiful butterfly!

But wait, the wings on the butterfly are still wet! The moisture comes from the butterfly dries its wings in the sun. When the wings are done drying the butterfly flies away and goes to collect nectar from flowers. If you go close to a butterfly it will fly away. Fun fact you can get a monarch butterfly to come to your backyard if you plant a lot of flowers. Monarch butterflies can’t fly that high like, for example a monarch butterfly could not fly to space because the monarch butterfly’s wings would freeze and it wouldn’t be able to fly because it’s freezing up there.

I hope you enjoyed learning about butterflies! Bye!

News, Science

The Resent Total Solar Eclipse

April 24, 2024 thelighthousetve

by Lucas David

Last week, I flew to Texas to see the total solar eclipse, only to find the sky obstructed by heavy clouds that blanketed most of Texas. The forecast showed the possibility of blue sky in a couple different directions, hours away from us, but we couldn’t know for sure which of them (if any) would have a clear view of the eclipse. So that morning, my family and I picked one at random, and got very lucky. Only two or three clouds thick enough to obscure the sun actually passed over it during the eclipse, and none of them during totality. As the moon covered more and more of the sun, the sky darkened as though there was a sunset on all horizons, and the dazed and confused crickets began to chirp.

Once the sun was completely obscured, we could take off our protective glasses and see the eclipse without any layers of separation. The sun was blotted from the sky, the dark cavity in its place haloed by the sun’s corona. The corona itself looked about two and a half times the diameter of the sun (864,575 miles) in length, which means that that halo was really about 2,161,439 miles of plasma flying from a ball of gas 333,000 times the size of the earth and into an endless void.

Having tasted a total eclipse once, I’ve concluded that I’ll have no choice but to go to Egypt in seven years to witness the next one, hopefully with a recording device capable of giving a detailed view of the eclipse this time.