SUPPLEMENTARY
MATERIALS
TO
UNIT 3 (2ND COURSE)
CONVERSATIONAL
PRACTICE
"ELECTRICITY"
I. Introductory SMALL TALK segment.
You're renting a lavishly equipped unit (flat or just room) with a lot of common electrical
appliances in.
The owner of the place kindly lets you make use of them.
Tick those you've hardly touched twice a life. Why's that? Say some words. Use the prompts:
It is money(energy, time)-consuming, I'm environment(fashion, comfort)conscious, it's a useless thing, don't go for....., an innovative staff, a rear
(exotic) product, hazardous, I'm (not) that much conservative, I'm stripped for
time to read the manual, it's a waste of money, it's might be explosive, it's
likely to be not that much reliable, to bring about the disruption of...,
the electric shock, a spark, .................
An electric kettle, a hairdryer, a TB set, a cell phone, lightning, a tram, a vacuum cleaner, a
dishwasher, a coffee machine, a lift (an elevator), an iron, an electric car , an electric motor, a copy
machine, a fax machine, a computer, an electric toothbrush, a doorbell, an oven, a microwave oven,
a shoe drier ,electric clock, welding machine, electric tools, electric-storage floor heating, an electric
screwdriver (screwgun), an electric water heater, an electric drill, an answer machine, a video
camera, an air-conditioner, various electric batteries, ...
Specify some five products you are striving to have and comment on them. Use speech paten.
I could do with an electric-storage floor heating to keep my feet warm in a
..............................................................
winter time, were it not that much energy consuming.
II. Discussion
.
and TEAM BUILDING segment.
a) Which natural phenomenon on the list do you think inspired each of the following
inventions?
termite mound
snail shell
beetle
amber
mosquito
plant leaves
boxfish
electricity
solar cells that follow the sun
air-conditioned building
body armor
super-aerodynamic car
painless hypodermic needle
harvesting water from fog
Make use of the following words and phrases to expand on the issue. Passive Voice takes
priority.
To imitate nature, the biological inspiration for the design, to investigate the property,
to use, to practice, processes, substances, devices, systems, to involve people from
a number of different subject areas, fundamental laws, to be based upon,
natural phenomena (non) ...
b) Factfull reading. Pick up appropriate words from the a)- part, fill them in to make sense.
Commemorate the facts from the electricity historical background.
Electricity would remain little more than an intellectual curiosity for millennia. In 1600, the English
scientist, William Gilbert extended the study of Cardano on electricity and magnetism,
distinguishing the lodestone effect from static electricity produced by rubbing ............ He coined the
New Latin word electricus ("of ........." or "like ..........", from ήλεκτρον [elektron], the Greek word for
".................") to refer to the property of attracting small objects after being rubbed. This association
gave rise to the English words "electric" and "electricity", which made their first appearance in print
in Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica of 1646.
1
c) Scrambled definition of electricity. Put the words in the right order, change the word forms to
make sense.
Electrons, to stand, an, the behavior, photons, of, to cause, for, electricity, charge,
electric.
Progress point.
Do you like camping? Everybody does, I believe. You are the member of the team responsible for
the "Educational break"(3-5 min. on the air) to be broadcasted on the premises once a week.
Take time (5-10 min.) to shelve the above information to get prepared for the event.
You are expected to cover:
1.We could just make a good guess how it started!
Primarily people wanted to make some natural phenomena (summer warmth, daylight,... )last
ever- and-ever ....... it brought them to the idea of.......
2.The name "electricity" originates from...... the first experiments........
3.There are some electrical appliances .....people can't survive without..... me
personally.....
III. Informative reading segment for further rendering.
Possible ancient batteries. Around 1936, archaeologists uncovered in a village near
Baghdad a set of terracotta jars which each contained a rolled-up sheet of copper which
housed an iron rod. Scientists believe that this may have been an ancient galvanic cell
(roughly 2,000 years old, though its age is still debated), and dubbed them the Baghdad
Batteries. It is believed a common food acid, such as lemon juice or vinegar, served as an
electrolyte. Modern replicas have successfully produced currents, lending credence to this
hypothesis. It is possible these jars were used for electroplating, or even to produce mild
electric shocks as a source of religious experience, although is not known what function
they served or whether they were electrical devices at all. In any case, the knowledge of
these pots was lost to history and did not influence the invention of the battery in the 19th
century.
-How seriously do you think the concept of the Baghdad Batteries is being taken at present?
IY. Briefing segment .New generation sources for electricity. Read the article and try to think of
any more unusual or uncommon sources of electricity. Specify its functions, properties,
applications. Let it be your Final paper to this Unit.
Harvesting electricity from radio waves could power the smart home of the future.
Freevolt, a new technology that harvests electricity from disused radio waves, could be
used to power wearables, sensors and beacons A new method of harvesting electricity
from unused radio frequency waves has been unveiled today by Lord Paul Drayson, the
former minister for science and chief executive of Drayson Technologies, at The Royal
Institution in London.
The patented technology, known as Freevolt, turns ambient radio frequency waves into
usable electricity to charge low-power electronic devices, such as sensors and beacons
used in smart connected homes, wearable devices like the Fitbit or Jawbone UP, and the
broader "internet of things".
Lord Drayson, who served as science minister between 2008 and 2010, said that
companies have been trying to work out how to harvest energy from WiFi, cellular and
broadband networks for many years, but radio waves only provide a small amount of
energy, so it is difficult to achieve a high enough level of efficiency.
The Freevolt harvester uses a multi-band antenna to harvest energy from multiple radio
frequency sources at different frequencies and at almost any orientation at the same time,
increasing the amount of energy that Freevolt can produce.
"It is the nature of broadcast transmissions that, when you broadcast, only some of the
energy is received and used. The energy that is not received goes to waste. It's only
nanowatts of energy, but the energy is everywhere," said Lord Drayson.
"What we're doing is using that fact to power very small low-energy devices. The radio
frequency transmissions come from wireless networks, and as our hunger for information
goes up, the amount of data that we want to transmit is going up exponentially, and
therefore this is growing all the time."
The output from the Freevolt system can feed into many energy storage devices – which
today for the majority of electronic devices is a battery, but in the future could include
other options such as a super-capacitor.
The first commercial application of Freevolt technology is the CleanSpace Tag air sensor,
which monitors air pollution (carbon monoxide) and feeds this data back to a smartphone
app, allowing users to see exactly what they are breathing, wherever they are.
The data can also be anonymised and merged with current air pollution data from static
sensors installed around the UK, to create a detailed map of air quality all over the
country, and identify the cleanest routes and areas available.
Cleanspace Tag and app
"Recent news reinforces what many of us have been saying for a long time – air pollution
is a critical concern to every individual’s health. Now, more than ever, people want to
understand the state of the air around them," said Lord Drayson.
"Information on air pollution is available, but many people don’t know how to access or
use it. People are demanding more immediate and localised data on the quality of air that
surrounds them. They will trust information that they collect and interpret themselves; this
is what CleanSpace, and the CleanSpace Tag, provides them."
Cleanspace is currently being manufactured in the UK and is available for purchase for
£65 through the Crowdfunder website. This includes a £5 donation to a CleanSpace
charity partner – British Lung Foundation, EarthWatch or Sustrans.
However, Drayson Technologies does not intend to keep Freevolt to itself. The technology is
available for licence globally from today, and a developer competition will follow shortly,
giving other companies the opportunity to incorporate it into their products.
Lord Paul Drayson Photo: DAVID ROSE
The launch of Freevolt was attended by senior figures from Vodafone, Hailo, Apple and
Morgan Stanley, among others, suggesting that some of the world's biggest companies
recognize the potential of the technology.
While the Cleanspace Tag is about the size of a Smartphone, Lord Drayson said the
technology could be made big enough to cover an entire wall in a house, or small enough to
fit into a wristband or be integrated into fabrics – although the bigger the rectifier, the more
energy it can harvest.
"You could have a smart label in your jacket powered by Freevolt, and a wearable device
in the collar that is measuring biometric signals – these are all things that require small
amounts of power," said Lord Drayson.
"As electronic circuits are becoming more and more efficient all the time, the amount of
power that they need to work is going down, so the sweet spot for us gets bigger."