Another Belated Update

I’m not going to lie, I totally forgot to update this blog over the summer, but in the future I’m going to try to keep it a bit more current. Anyway, a lot of things have happened since I last posted!I am working on building a new reactor, IEC fusion reactor MK. IV, which will have not only a negatively biased cathode, but a spherical, positively biased anode around the cathode as well. I hope that this improves plasma confinement, as well as the neutron output of the reactor. The positively biased outer grid should just add to the potential difference across which deuterium ions are accelerate. The reactor MK. IV will also have a cooling jacket!Here’s a picture of the chamber (in the process of being cleaned), and a freshly machined flange:In other news, I’ve begun to collect parts for an audio modulated dual resonant solid state tesla coil! I plan to base the coil on an IGBT full bridge, which is basically a fancy way of saying I’m going to use four huge freaking transistors to change the direction of the flow of charge through the tesla coil’s primary coil thousands of times a second! Here are two of these transistors:I hope to get the coil running sometime over the summer.In other news, I did well at the International Science Fair! I won 2nd in Engineering: Materials and Bioengineering, won 1st from the Navy in Bioengineering, won 2nd from INCOSE, and I won the award given to the best project from Ohio there! I also met up with a few other amateur scientists who I’ve known through the internet, but have never been able to meet in real life. I made tons of new friends, and yet again, ISEF was a truly amazing experience!Here’s me chilling at my ISEF project booth:Stay tuned for more updates on new projects, including a TEA laser and a solar powered incinerating device!