Low voltage, high current systems are inefficient. Powering a high performance computer array has always demanded significant quantities of current, and powering such a situation seems to demand high voltage, as low voltage systems. Consider that high performance computers run thousands of processors, each drawing between 60 and 140 watts. Even at the low end, 60000 watts is not a small number, and efficiency should be considered if at all possible. Tesla coils provide a very smooth method of converting from low voltage to very high voltage quickly. Carefully examining the requirements of the project, we see that it pretty clearly falls into "Energy Systems" under the "Instructables Assignment" category. Arguably, it also modifies existing technology, by making extensive, creative use of a neon transformer, modding consumer electronics.
It is a bit dangerous, but with a mere 6000 volt transformer on very low current and a lot of care, nothing would have been harmed (with a possible exception of a few nerve endings or topical burns). Ultimately, Being informed 2 weeks after the fact that this project was unacceptable was a real detriment to being able to get the project into a more completed state
Right now, the current build is more or less a joke, but it runs. More or less literally. I can't figure out why it won't switch animations in and out. Ultimately, this project has taught me a lot about JavaScript that I might not have learned otherwise. Potentially quite useful, considering that game engines are starting to recognize JavaScript as a fully featured language that has wide support. HTML5 supports entire games being written in JavaScript, and Unity allows for both JavaScript and C# code to be used for the backbone of the game's object code. This is a little concerning, because JavaScript is an incredibly friendly language. Almost too friendly in many ways, it'll allow many things to run that are at best arbitrary, meaning that large JavaScript programs become increasingly difficult to debug with size. Failing silently is also an interesting issue that programmers aren't used to dealing with: in a case where your code is interpreted by a large number of different engines with different capacities in a public realm like the internet, you don't want the user knowing that some unimportant feature somewhere failed. In a game though, it becomes more important to figure out what went wrong where and why, and the policy of failing silently can make it very hard to find the problem.
JavaScript is a very useful language on a lot of fronts though despite any flaws with implementation or design. It's used in all websites. I use hundreds to thousands of lines of JavaScript with each new website I create, even when I tell myself that I'm not going to use it when I start programming a site. Last night I started in on a small social media project, and I've made use of some of the things I learned while programming this project. This afternoon, I was contacted about it by a fellow connected to a start up preparing to create a social media site. Websites are still cutting edge, and JavaScript is one of the lynch pins that holds it all in place. In any case, any project I work on will probably have some sort of blog, and being web savvy will ensure that I'll always have work to do somewhere.
How has this class granted me an insight into Emerging Technologies? I'd say it hasn't. Either this class is going to blow your mind (you're 40+ and/or live under a rock) or you spend a lot of time on the internet reading various different blogs and websites about technology. For a web developer, programmer and general CS individual like myself, this course was a pretty blatant way to demand another few thousand bucks out of students at the end of the line.
