Posts tagged technology
Input sought on electric-assisted bikes on multi-use paths
Aug 29th
The public is invited to attend a public meeting from 5 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 4, to learn more about options being considered for a proposed electric-assisted bicycle (e-bikes) pilot project. The meeting will be held at the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder building located at 1750 33rd St., in the Houston Room on the first floor. For those interested, e-bike users and retailers will offer the opportunity to test ride e-bikes and learn more about the technology from 4 to 5 p.m. prior the meeting.
This effort is part of the ‘Complete Streets’ focus area of the current process to update to the city’s Transportation Master Plan (TMP).
This meeting is a follow-up to an initial e-bikes public meeting held in early August. That meeting introduced the potential pilot project to the community and initiated discussions about e-bike use on multi-use paths. At the Sept. 4 meeting, transportation staff will present options under consideration for amending the definition of an e-bike and for testing e-bike use on multi-use paths. If residents are not able to attend the public meeting, the city is also collecting feedback on e-bikes with a survey available here: www.surveymonkey.com/s/E-bikesurvey. City staff will also be performing in-person surveys on multi-use paths around Boulder.
Currently, e-bikes are only allowed in on roadways and on-street bicycle lanes. The potential pilot program would allow e-bikes on off-street multi-use paths, not including open space trails.
Comments from the public meeting and other outreach events will be used to inform the final pilot proposal.
The Transportation Advisory Board will hold a public hearing on e-bikes on Sept. 23 and make a formal recommendation to City Council. Council will consider the pilot ordinance at a first reading on Oct. 1; a second reading and public hearing will be held on Oct. 22. If approved by council, the pilot project would be launched in November 2013. Based on community feedback and results from the pilot project, council would evaluate whether to continue to allow the use of e-bikes on multi-use paths.
E-bikes are part of the city’s bicycle innovations under review as part of the TMP update’s “living laboratory” concept. Throughout the summer/fall, test facilities and pilot program will be launched to better understand transportation choices and identify strategies that encourage more people in our community to walk and bike.
For more information about the TMP update and to sign up for the ‘Community Feedback Panel’ for bicycle innovations, visit www.BoulderTMP.net. To participate in the online community conversation, visitwww.inspireboulder.com.
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Boulder Tornado watch, flooding, rain until 10:00pm
Aug 3rd
By 5:00 pm yellow clouds rolled in over Boulder. Sheriffs dispatch tells Boulder Channel 1 news that “what is in the clouds is dust, humidity and low laying clouds stirred up by 70 mph winds from Weld county north east of us.
Boulder Police department dispatch then started getting calls but most of the action was in the East county. By 8:39 flooding had occurred at 63rd and Lookout Road according to dispatch. Trees were down all over county. Arapaho was closed for a while due to flooding and downed trees.. Tornado warning sirens went off in the county though no funnel clouds were seen. Dispatch told BC1 news ” there was no official weather warning but Sheriffs department was proactive since we were on the ground and could see what was happening.
The office of Emergency Management opened. At 7:30 pm Boulder OEM sent out a press release 3 hours late which would have done nobody any good. seen below:
“Are you wondering why sirens went off in the communities around Erie tonight when the tornado threat was only in Erie?
siren technology allows a specific number of programming options. Most tornado warnings are more widespread than the warning we saw in Erie tonight. For this reason, tornado sirens are programmed to go off in small regions. Otherwise, there would be a severe delay in cases where officials need to alert a handful of towns all at once.
Remember, when you hear a siren or other warning, gather additional information and take action for your safety. Weather radios, news stations and www.BoulderOEM.com are good places to seek additional information”
It is very clear Boulder dodged at weather bullet on this day. Erie, Superior, Lafayette and Louisville took the brunt of this storm.
CU engineering students are now NASA rocket scientists
Jun 23rd
The program allowed more than 120 students and educators from around the country to delve into the world of rocket science June 15-21 during Rocket Week at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. All participants — including 10 CU-Boulder students — were present for a sounding rocket launch carrying various experiments developed by students that successfully lifted off June 20 at 5:30 a.m. EDT.
Activities during the week included a “RockOn!” workshop for 50 university and community college-level participants led by Chris Koehler, director of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, or COSGC. RockOn! introduces participants to building small experiments that can be launched on suborbital sounding rockets and supports a national program known as STEM that uses classes in science, technology, engineering and mathematics to improve the nation’s competitiveness in technology.
“Working with NASA, we have developed a step approach to expand the skills needed for students to enter careers in STEM,” said Koehler of CU-Boulder’s aerospace engineering sciences department. “RockOn! is the first step, followed by RockSat-C and then RockSat-X. Each step is technically more challenging than the previous one, allowing the students to expand the skills needed to support the aerospace industry.”
The RockOn! participants built standardized experiments that were launched Thursday on a NASA Terrier-Improved Orion suborbital sounding rocket. The 35-foot-tall rocket flew to an altitude of about 75 miles. After launch and payload recovery, the participants began conducting preliminary data analysis and discussing their results.
Nine custom-built Rocksat-C experiments, developed at universities that previously participated in a RockOn! workshop, also flew inside a payload canister on the rocket, said Koehler. About 50 students who designed and built the experiments attended Rocket Week.
Also attending were university participants in RockSat-X, said Koehler. They are previous Rocksat-C participants who flew six custom-built experiments aboard a sounding rocket from Wallops in August.
COSGC is a statewide organization involving 17 colleges, universities and institutions around Colorado and is funded by NASA to give students access to space through innovative courses, real-world, hands-on telescope and satellite programs, and interactive outreach programs, said Koehler.
COSGS is one of 52 space grant consortia in the nation — including Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia — and is one of the most active, having flown scores of payloads on high-altitude balloons, sounding rockets and even space shuttles, giving thousands of undergraduates and graduate students a taste of space research since the program began in Boulder in 1989, said Koehler.
The week’s activities also included activities by the Wallops Rocket Academy for Teachers and Students, or WRATS, for a high school audience. The rocket programs at Wallops continue NASA’s investment in the nation’s education programs by supporting the goal of attracting and retaining students in STEM disciplines critical to the future of space exploration.
The RockOn! and WRATS workshops are supported by NASA’s Sounding Rocket Program. RockOn! also is supported by NASA’s Office of Education and NASA’s National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program in partnership with the Colorado and Virginia Space Grant Consortia.
For more information on COSPG visit http://spacegrant.colorado.edu and for information about NASA’s education programs visit http://www.nasa.gov/education.
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