So, Barry, in a nutshell, what is your research about? Yes, so my research was looking to see if there were patterns or there were rules that particular genders tended to take on in particular activities within the group work setting, in the sciences in particular, and both formal and informal settings within the sciences space. So formally, group work tends to take place in the labs, so students will conduct group work in particular experiments, for example, and then following on from that then there might be some sort of write up associated with that as well. So within those formalized settings in the lab and also then in the report writing element, did particular genders take on particular tasks regularly and consistently within that? And then also in formal spaces as well, true track with students, did they notice themselves when they were just walking in groups, studying in groups, for example, informally, did particular genders take on particular tasks within those spaces as well? So the idea behind this, I suppose, is if we can identify the patterns, we can maybe try to understand those patterns, and then if we can understand those patterns, we might be able to take a look at trying to develop a set of considerations for people just to think about, you know, from a staff perspective, but also from a student perspective about how they might make the learning spaces, whether they're formal or informal, a little bit more equitable, a little bit more balanced, a little bit more fair for all the genders and none, so that everyone gets a fair chance to learn in a space in the place that they feel they can do best in. Well, that's interesting. I mean, there are many interesting and pressing issues and problems in science education. So what prompted you to choose this topic for your fellowship research? Yeah, for me, it was kind of a trifle, I suppose. Firstly, I've been teaching labs for quite a long time now over a decade now in different institutions in Ireland at different levels on different programs. So kind of a wide range of experiences. And I suppose going back a little bit further in time, I was one of those students once I sat at lab benches in a group doing group work as part of my undergraduate qualification. I sat in very frustrating group right up sessions after a lab pulling my hair when I had hair out. And I maybe developed a worldview around my personal experience. So from looking from the top bench, looking down at the students as an academic and also from sitting at the lab benches, looking up at the academic, I kind of experienced both of those. And then more recently, I suppose for me, as I continue my professional development throughout my career, I've gotten involved in things such as a tennis one within our university. And that's really opened my eyes to appreciate other people's perspectives. So we're looking at the same thing, but we might be experiencing it totally differently based on my gender or my worldview or my skin color. So it really got me thinking about, I need to think about things a lot differently.  I need to think about what do other people experience and how does that affect their learning? So, true for all, I suppose, my own, when I was a student, when I was an academic and then the things that I'm doing now at the moment around the university have really got me thinking about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. And maybe I could do it a little bit better. And maybe it's just not me. So maybe I can help others if I can do a little bit of research and find the evidence, maybe then we can start a conversation and raise awareness. That's great motivation. And I always find it fascinating that our research tends to be prompted by our own personal experiences. But why does this topic matter to other people who learn and teach and lead across the higher education community? Yeah, like I am one of those people in that community. We all are, I suppose, anyone who's listened to this podcast probably has an interest in the community. And for me, it's two perennially challenging topics, group work and then gender and put them together and you got a real perfect storm. So there's lots of things in there to try and unpick lots of things in there to try and understand and even if all they achieve out with this is a little bit more of an awareness amongst more staff and more students about the possibilities, even the considerations if they don't get enacted in every classroom in every lab every week. It doesn't really matter. It just means that people have started thinking about these things and started talking about these things that's not been swept under the carpet anymore. And no, really, the considerations are all about developing an equitable environment for the most productive learning for staff and for students. So it's a win-win for everybody if you can get it right. So for the learners, this group work activity that we ask students to take part in regularly is quite divisive. Students either love it or hate it. It's marmite. Some students really get out in groups. They really love it. They really enjoy the social side of it. And some students just hate it. They can't deal with the need to work with other people. They're lone wolves almost and perform better as a lone wolf. So within this project, it was definitely co-created with students as partners all the way through from an initial idea all the way through to project execution and the considerations that are coming out of it are all molded by the students that were involved, various different students of different types got involved in this. So it's a student voice loud and proud is where it's coming from for the teachers then. It's practice. You know, this will hopefully inform and shape what a staff member will do in a classroom environment, in a lab environment. And it's not just in sciences. You know, you could think of an engineering design lab. You can think of an architecture studio. You could see how this practical side of learning can be transformed if you consider a few very simple considerations and just think about them and say, have I done this as good as I could do and just know what to think about. And from the leaders perspective, you know, it's all about the agency of the student and the authenticity of the research that it is grounded in the student voice. So it's a way to connect the leaders to the learners. So sometimes there's a bit of a divorce between those at the top of the totem pole and those at the bottom of the totem pole. So hopefully this is a connector that will allow that voice to raise up and be heard to those up at the top. And really, if we listen across all those levels, there's something for everybody and everybody should benefit from all of it. I love the way you talk about involving students and not only are you listening to the student voice, but you're getting them involved in designing the research as well, which I think is a really good thing to do. Now, how gender and group work are both really hot topics in higher education research so much so that I know there's been previous research in both those areas. So what do we already know about this topic from previous literature? We know an awful lot and we know very little all at the same time, if that makes sense. There's been a lot of research, you know, in the last decades in particular, focusing around gender representation, trying to balance the gender representation, but also maximizing the benefit of having a mixed gender society, you know, in terms of innovation, creativity, productivity, particularly in complex science systems. It's a really other benefit to have a mixed gender set up there. Now, there's still issues and, you know, they've been categorized as opposed into access, not the pedagogy, the nature and culture science as well as identity. You know, and these are all seen as still barriers, despite lots of research being carried out, lots of policy being put in place, lots of awareness raising being put in place. We still haven't quite turned the corner, I don't think, but at least the conversations are happening more regularly, more fluidly now than they were in the past. From a pedagogical perspective, lots of research has been done on this, and really, if you're to sum it up in a nutshell, it would be if you create an inclusive learning environment, it benefits everybody.  So an inclusive learning environment is a good thing to have. And with that, then, you can develop a sense of identity, you know, for scientists in particular, this is quite important, and a sense of belonging within the scientific community. So in Ireland, we have, you can't see it, you can't be it as a phrase for, you know, trying to encourage girls to get into sport.  So it's about raising awareness and it's about developing a sense of identity. From the group book perspective, group book has been researched for as long as group book has been in existence, I think, and you can look back through the literature and there's, there's, there's eons of, of information there in the peer-reviewed databases. And, you know, it's a really good thing for active learning. It's, you know, great for collaboration, great for communication development, you know, just the softer skills of social identity development and developing your belonging and discipline. So again, it feeds back into this idea of belonging and identity. But with group work, there's a massive risk of marginalization of those within the group. And that marginalization can be broken down on, you know, many different factors, gender, socioeconomic background. So the intersectionality is really important here, I suppose, and trying to unpick that intersectionality is, is, is quite tricky. And then I suppose with group work, you know, group work for learning is, is, is kind of understandable very easily, you know, you get together, you discuss and you chat and you figure things out. Group work for assessment is really where the, the rubber hits the road as the saying goes. And, you know, around that is assessment, how do you fairly assess within a group when you have three or four or five students working together? How do you fairly assess those three or four or five students on all aspects of the group work? So the process as well as the product, you know, social skill development, if you are looking at that as an important learning outcome. So really for me, what came out of reviewing the literature is this idea of a need to support both staff and students in this particular aspect. So group work and group work with mixed genders, if you have a mixed gender class environment, how can you support both the staff and the students to maximize their, their teaching or their learning depending on what they are? So really, if you can figure out a way to optimize that, it benefits everybody, both the staff and the students. So the literature is there. There's loads of evidence there. And really what I'm trying to do in this case is to put an Irish higher education perspective on that international awareness that we have in the literature. So we know lots. But we don't know everything is what I'm trying to say. Indeed. I mean, everything you said just demonstrates what a challenging area this is to research. So how did you go about your research? Yeah. So I took a mixed methods approach and the mixed method approaches where you kind of combine number data with word data. So qualitative and quantitative. So the number data came from an online survey that was posted through social media, through social networks that I have within universities in Ireland. And targeted primary science students, both when word got out other students said, well, could we take part as well? So I now had two research populations, the non, as I categorize them, the non science students and then the science students were the broad disciplines within the sciences and the physical and life sciences. So the survey was was was the primary quantitative data collection method and then qualitative data collection was collected through and semi-search interviews. So I interviewed five purposely sampled students and the gender breakdown was one he, him, six she, her. And then we had a design thinking workshop where again we brought the students back in a different cohort of students back in again. And we had staff in the design workshop as well. And we kind of probed and asked questions around the tricky areas that emerged from the quantitative data and the qualitative data before that were issues lay around how to best carry out group work in a mixed gender setting and then asked the participants in the design thinking workshop, well, how might we do this better? So how might we deal with conflict better? How might we raise awareness of the benefit of having a mixed gender group? So the design thinking workshop was the kind of the point of the pyramid where all the data underneath was informing what was discussed at the design thinking workshop. And yeah, it allowed for frank conversations around very pointed things as opposed to just a generalized chat. We went in and we had an hour. We had four things to talk about and we got both a staff perspective and a student perspective. And I kind of stood back and let them bounce off each other and out of that then the considerations came, you know, what what practical things can we do to help in those four, four key areas around conflict gender representation in the curriculum? How to deal with assessment as well as learning in the group and then how to raise awareness of the benefit of having a mixed gender group. So people will actually seek a mixed gender group because it's better to have a mixed gender group than not. So collectively, numbers and words kind of came together and then, you know, the task was was to decipher those words and numbers and make sense of them. And with the students all along the way, they helped me understand, you know, from their experience in the trenches, what's it like as opposed to me with my rose-sinted view of student life? You know, they were telling me really the raw version and with that then with that kind of authenticity and agency it allowed me to kind of put a little bit of synthesis on their words to bring it together and then we came up with those four considerations. That sounds like a really rich design. So what are the key initial findings from your research? So the initial key findings were surprising for me for a start. I kind of came in thinking, oh, we're going to have lots of debate, lots of discussion, lots of argument, but the trends kind of came out and were kind of kind of aligned, just independent of whether there were science or non-science students, first of all. So a big thumbs up for group learning. That was a big trend. Students really enjoyed the group learning. A big thumbs down for group assessment. So it was almost like two populations and the two populations spread, you know, one really positive, one really negative that in terms of assessment, the assessment was seen as not as positive as the learning because of all these issues we discussed before, you know, the fairness of assessment, the laggard in the group, you know, how to deal with conflict. So all these things that are in the literature and raised their heads again, I suppose, in this research. From the quantitative point of view, most of the students that took part in the survey were honor's degree, most of them were in university setting. The responses were across all the years and most of the students, you know, 98% of the students were full-time students. So within that, there is a certain story to be told and there's a certain story not being told.  So we're not hearing their voice. So really the voice we're hearing here is of a particular type of student. And from the qualitative data then, the big things that came out then were, you know, clumping together into kind of teams where the roles carried out, the skills carried out and the mixed gender group work itself and then the lack of gender patterns as opposed to gender patterns. So the key thing that came out of the interviews and then the design thing in the workshop was gender doesn't seem to be as much as an issue for the students today as what I perceive it to be or what I experienced when I was in undergraduate days. And we kind of explored that a little bit more and there's a big emphasis being put on mixed gender schools at second level and primary level as a way of kind of breaking the mould that students don't see gender as a thing. The students have issues with other students in terms of group work but it's not based on gender, it's based on skills or ability or commitment. So if the student is not pulling their weight independent of gender, that student is not seen to be a very productive group member. So for me, you know, it was an interesting find in itself to realise that the students of our today are really savvy around gender and really able to speak up for themselves. You know, I asked a few questions. If this happened, what would you do? And every single student respond, I'd speak up, I'd say, look, this isn't appropriate. So they're articulate, they're aware and they're very happy to work together in a mixed gender group. Only problem is when students don't pull their weight and that is independent of gender. So for me, the big findings and there's a little bit more of work to be done in terms of digging out all the information out of the data that reflects so far, but that's a big thing that, you know, learning is good, assessment isn't so good. And then gender isn't the big issue that I initially thought it was. That's really interesting, encouraging in many ways, but I think it uncovers some other interesting questions as well. So you said that result surprised you. Was there anything else that surprised you in your research that you want to talk about? Yeah, the big surprise was that that lack of a pattern now within within the kind of self reported self efficacy in group work function, there was there was five areas at the genders. There was a statistically significant difference in the gender responses. Everything else, you know, 20 odd questions were all pretty much didn't matter whether he, her, she or he, him, she, her, you were kind of given the same response. And so the ones that did differentiate them were, you know, group work function, problem solving and analysis. Now, that's how to say he, him were better than she, her. It's just that there was a difference in their responses. You know, leadership output in a group, they were all pretty much in the same thing. And there were certain trends, mega trends, I suppose, where all the genders said the same thing. And one of the biggest trends was ability to deal with conflict. They're really struggled with conflict, how to resolve conflict. I think the big problem lies when we chat a little bit more in discussion groups.  I don't want to be kind of rocking the boat in second year. And then I'm working with this person again and in four chair. But I don't know how to deal with doing that. And then in an equitable, fair, transparent, I get my point across way and not annoyed at other person. And that was the same for both genders. And it was really low in terms of self efficacy. Like they were well, well below the average for all the genders. So there's a need to help students develop those skills. You know, we can't just throw them in the groups, say, away you go, figure it out. We need to help them to solve those issues when they do arise because they will arise. And that was part of the designing and workshop. How can we do that? And, you know, some of the suggestions came back around allowing the students to space in the place to talk about the process issues, as opposed to the group work issue, you know, the deliverable, the report, whatever it is, take that aside and get them to talk about what how are we going to do group work? You know, what was our formula going to be? Are we going to have a contract that we're going to do certain things? We're going to meet on certain days. So the process, as well as the kind of thing they're going to produce are differentiated. And then they can discuss issues over here in the kind of process chat that won't affect their ability to write up or get a good mark because the mark and the process seem to be intertwined. And that's where tensions really come flare up because everyone wants a good mark. But sometimes the tensions kind of can fray a little bit there at the edges. So separating those two out was a suggestion from the students themselves. If we could just have someone to help us understand what we should do because we're new to this, you know, you guys as academics probably know a bit better, help us to develop our process and then let us add the group work activity, but we need to figure out how to do it properly first. So yeah, the lack of a pattern and then when there was a pattern, it was a very obvious pattern.  It was very obvious that students were crying out for help in certain areas. And that conflict resolution obviously has big implications for life beyond university as well. 100%. Yeah, it's more than just getting the report in on time and getting a good mark. It's a bigger picture thing you're developing with the students. If you can get them to maybe not be perfect at it, but at least when they go to the workplace, they've got some of those skills in their back pocket that they can pull out when they are met with a manager or, you know, in a group situation where the dynamic isn't quite right and they don't feel comfortable. How can they speak up or how can they articulate if they develop it in a safe space and university when they go to work environment, they should be able to hopefully translate that over. Yeah, absolutely. So just to finish up with them, what do your initial findings mean then for higher education policy and practice? Yeah, there's there's several fold, I suppose, but not to labour on the point. I've broken them kind of down into the National Forum Student Success Framework and picked out a kind of one or two key headings to kind of just give a bit of context of what could be done. What's an easy win, I suppose? What's a low hanging fruit? What can we do here? And I suppose the first one is under the enabling institutional capabilities heading and evidence based decision making within this research, there is now clear evidence that students need support and assessment if it's part of a group or environment needs to be carefully considered within an integrated learning and assessment strategy can't just be stuck on at the end because, you know, you've run out of time or you've got too many things to correct. You want to divide it by four by having groups of four. So we need to think about how to support staff and thinking strategically in terms of assessment strategy for a semester for, you know, even across the program, for example, if a program team could come together and then the support for students, how to deal with a group or environment that will be assessed, how to, you know, maybe divorce the thing from the process and allow them to figure out their process force and then let them come in and do their thing. And the same for the staff, you know, so support is a big thing there. And this leads into the second point is structured and well resourced profession development and staff, you know, are becoming more aware of gender in our lives exposed to initiatives like Athena Swan and so on. And how best can we translate that awareness raising at that level into our teaching practice? So can we, you know, bring our Athena Swan hat with us and bring it into the lab with us and try and translate some of the stuff that we're discussing them or the initiatives trying to do at a university level into, you know, a classroom level or into a lab level. And the same for the students, you know, could those students be exposed to more Athena Swan like initiatives at a student level, as opposed to just been done at the university and they're part of the university, but they're not really part of the Athena Swan process. And I suppose from enabling practices perspective, under the assessment of feedback, it's quite obvious, you know, the assessment was not really liked in terms of group perspective, but maybe that's that's an opportunity. You know, if we look at our previous work for the National Forum of Foreign as Learning Assessment approaches, with support would allow the students to see the reason behind doing a group-based assessment. A lot of time from the focus groups and interviews, the students were kind of saying, I don't really get why we're doing this in a group, I could probably do it on my own. And that's probably poor design from the assessment perspective, and also poor communication. You know, here's the reason why you're doing this in assessment, it's the group as opposed to doing it on your own. And again, focus on key things like conflict resolution, you know, coordinating resources in the group, you know, focusing on the output. And as you said before, this is definitely a set of transferable skills that are going to be great for winter in university, but even more important when they get out of university in the big bad world. So, you know, agility, resilience, adaptability, all these things are important for the students to be able to call on when they need it, and where they develop that, but in a safe space, like in a university setting. So, and beyond that, I suppose, from the sector perspective, I suppose, I really lent on a national community of practice, the shore network to the science under budget research experience network, I'm part of that network, and it allowed me to connect into other academics that were kind of friendly to this type of research, and then students within those institutions were, and were contactable in a much more efficient way than me just kind of shouting out from behind the screen and hoping that somebody would listen to me and allow them to put a face to a name and a reason to take part in this survey and broaden the base of that target of population, those science students. And it allowed me to get students from across the higher education sector in Ireland. So communities of practice are really cool things to be involved in. They're great sound boards for crazy ideas that you do have sometimes that someone needs to temp you down a little bit, but give you no encouragement to do it, but kind of calm you down a little bit. And so I really think if we could develop, you know, we have one in science, the science under budget research experience is quite productive and quite busy at the moment, but there's certainly other areas in higher education that don't have that community, that national community to draw people together to be sound boards for each other, to be support for each other. And so if we are really going to do cross, cross island, you know, north and south of Ireland research, we need to have those communities to allow people to connect. And if we're going to get in touch with students as key stakeholders, as key partners in our research, we need to have a way of connecting to those students as well. So those communities of practice think are really good. If we can keep, take a look what we've done, keep doing that and do a bit more in places that don't have anything that'd be really beneficial for the sector as a whole as well. Hmm, couldn't agree more. Well, I think this is a really thoughtfully designed study. I think it's it's answered some questions and raised a whole lot more. I found it fascinating that the students were so savvy about being able to distinguish between group workers, a learning experience versus group workers, an assessment experience. And I think the light that you shed on assessment just reminds us that it's assessment that matters most to students, I think, in the university experience. But it's often something that academics just don't pay enough attention to. So I think that you've certainly uncovered some very interesting findings that should inform policy and practice and I think open up a whole new area for further development and research. So I hope that you'll continue to do work in that area. And thank you very much for everything that you've shared with me today. Thank you, Marnie. It was great to chat and great to share. And hopefully this is just a start of a conversation with others in Ireland and beyond. And as you say, this is just shining a light on a particular area, but there's other areas that we need to shine light on as well. So to start with something big, we hope.


And he'll protect you We ask ourselves, where is Allah? Where is Allah? But the question is where are we?  Allah is evident in front of us at all times فَإِنَّ مَا تَوَلُّوا فَثَمَّ وَجْهُ اللَّهِ Everywhere that you turn, then there is the countenance of Allah كَمَا يَلِقُ بِجَلَالِهِ As is appropriate for His Majesty Allah being outside of space and time But Him, we find His support We find Him as a support, as a reliance When we guard the bounds of Allah And then He continues The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam continues to Arab and Abbas Again speaking on the idea of support وَعَلَمْ No Recognize أن الأمة Had the entire ummah The entire nations Whether it be the ummah of the da'wah Or the ummah of istijab Or the ummah that has yet to become Muslim Or the ummah that has accepted Islam لو اجتمعو اين اجتمعو على ان ينفعوك بشيء لم ينفعوك إلا بشيء قد كتبهم قد كتبهم الله لك That if the entire ummah The entire nation Whoever it may be All the creation had gathered To benefit you by a single thing They would not be able to Benefit you except by what Allah has already decreed for you وَإِنِجِتَمَعوْ على أن يضروك بشيء لم يضروك إلا بشيء قد كتبهم الله وعليك And if they had all gathered To benefit To harm you by a single thing They would not be able to harm you Except by what Allah has already written out To be رُفِعَتِ الْأَقْلَامْ وَجَحَتِ الصُحُفْ That the pens have been lifted And the pages have dried Allah has written out the decree And it's not going to change The final decree The du'az that we do Can change what we know of the decree What may be perceived Perhaps to the angels But what is the final decree Is set with Allah And this often puts us in despair We ask the question Are you saying that there's nothing I can do And the answer that yes There is nothing that you can do In one way Can lead to despair And in the other way it leads to what At least there are lines That Allah has already decreed My risk Allah has already decreed my provisions Allah has already decreed Where my wealth comes from Who my family is Allah has already decreed these things What do I have to do to worry about it That Ibn At-Tahla As-Kandari One of the great Unama of this tradition He says That Allah hasn't asked you for tomorrow's ibadah He only asked you for today's ibadah He hasn't asked you of that Why are you asking for Allah For tomorrow's provisions Allah hasn't asked Hasn't charged you To do tomorrow's ibadah To do tomorrow's responsibilities Why do you ask Allah For what he is going to give you tomorrow That Allah has already guaranteed us That our risk is going to come And not a single morsel of food Nor a single drop of water Nor a single emotion The emotions that are our risk Nor a single ibadah The ibadah that we do The worship that we do Is the risk The provisions that Allah gives us The spiritual sustenance that Allah gives us Nor any happiness or any smile Nor any sadness It's all written It's not going to change But this does not excuse us from what Allah has promised us From taking our ibadah Because there's the ultimate reality Of what Allah has already decreed But there is the experience That we have in this world Where we are asked to act upon What we experience That in that sense We do have that will We do have that free will To act upon what Allah has These situations that Allah has manifest That there's the choice of Do I want to get up and pray Do I want to take this bite Of food or not And that is what is asked of us To act on these asbab To ask on the means That Allah has placed in this world Without ever affirming Any effect of these means themselves That we believe wholly That Allah is the one Who is in control But Allah is taking us into account For how we interact with the means And how do we show our conduct With ourselves And the rest of creation Allah, Allah, Zawajal And that is where our responsibility Comes in We want to be people of Tawakul People of trust Of reliance on Allah If we don't find ourselves Understanding that Allah is going to give us What he has promised us And Allah is going to not give us What he hasn't promised us What Allah has decreed Is going to happen And what Allah has not decreed Is not going to happen Even if the entire ummah And beyond Were together to change This particular thing It wouldn't be possible Until we understand that reality It's hard to have trust in Allah Because we give too much to ourselves We give too much credit to ourselves In that sense where we think If I do this and I do that And I do this And eventually this other thing will happen And this isn't to say That we shouldn't be taking our means Just as we take our means Sometimes we take these sort of statements To drop our responsibilities One of our teachers said If you want to drop your responsibilities With this believing that If Allah decides that he is going to Make me pray Then Allah will make me pray And I don't have to do anything And if Allah decides That he's not going to make me pray Then he won't do that He said you know When people say things like that You should ask them to do the same With their food And with their sleep And with their water And say if Allah is going to Say shayat me He'll say shayat me And if Allah won't say shayat me He won't say shayat me They shouldn't bother To eat their food Or drink their water Or take a nap And they're tired Or whatever it may be And this is the type of games You play with Allah He plays games with you You know If you play games with Allah It's not It's not a There's no There's no winning that game And until we recognize That this deliberation That we do in our actions Is not going to bring us Anything except what Allah has already decreed We won't find comfort in our lives And Allah will make you appetizing for this And the ones who are Muslims Will be appetizing That is the most merciful Who is the most forgiving In the name of Allah Praise be to God In the name of Allah And peace be upon Him And peace be upon His Messenger And his family And his companions And his companions Imam Mustafa Yaquman Sharif Says that One of the Scholars of the last 150 years or so Says that If you want to relieve yourself Of anxieties and distress put yourself in a position where you don't depend too much on yourself and recognize your dependence on Allah because either you're going to stress and have anxiety and be anxious over fulfilling the means that you have already seen in place and then worry too much about the results and either what's what you're going to do is going to occur or not occur so before you do the action there's the stress and then after the action whether according to the result there's also stress or lack of stress that if you don't find what you wanted to occur what you wanted to occur if you don't find it to occur then you have double the stress because you think to yourself I've done all this effort and I have you know put in my whole entire I did everything right this is the eye if there's always there's always the Anna then the me the eye is very little room for Hua there's very little room for he Allah and when we put ourselves in that sort of situation where it's always the eye what did I do then we find ourselves disappointed by our actions and our means that we took and then we're also disappointed by the result but if we see it as Allah has enabled me to take these means and whatever the result happens that's up to Allah then the worry of the anxiety the distress that we are we are putting ourselves in when fulfilling these actions is lifted to a considerable degree and then the result we know is with Allah so whatever happens we are thankful that Allah either rewards or punishes according to the intention that we had and whatever happened after that's in the hands of Allah and it's not up to us and so we ask Allah that he makes the people who are not people of anxiety and people of anxiousness and people of stress and people of deliberation we ask Allah that he makes the people were complete complete trust in him we ask Allah that we are people who have trust trust in the Sharia that he sent down and the trust the problem in trust in the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that he sent down we ask that we have complete trust in the means that he has given us knowing that they come from him and not trust in them in any other manner we ask Allah that he makes the people who are trusting in his plan we ask that we are people who have who are trusting in his bounds that people who regard his bounds we ask that we are people who are protected and protected by Allah we ask people we We ask Allah that we are people who are, find Allah in front of us, we ask Allah that we are people who are benefited only by what He, by recognizing that we only are benefited by what He decides to benefit us with, and we ask Allah that we are people who are only harmed, who only see our harm coming from Him, by what He decreed to harm us. We ask Allah that He remove us from the harm of stresses and emotions that come when we leave our alliance with Allah. We ask Allah for relief from those anxieties. We ask Allah for complete solace and complete serenity and complete peace in Him, so He say, Allahumma anta al-salam, wa minka al-salam, tubar al-tayyad al-jalali wal-ikram, hayyina wa dikhilna dara al-salam, rabbina aatina fi al-duniya hasana wa fi al-aafdina hasana wa qinata bannar, rabbina hablana min az-wajina wa dhurriyatina qurrata a'yuni wa ja'nna limuttaqina imama, we ask Allah to bless our teachers, particularly our first teachers, our parents, rabbin hamhumaa, kuma rabbia ni-saghira, rabbin hamhumaa, kuma rabbia ni-saghira, rabbin hamhumaa, kuma rabbia ni-saghira, We ask Allah to recognize that Allah and His angels send the benedictions and salutations on the Prophet ﷺ, and we're asked to do the same.


Santa knows where all the best toys are, and this December many of the hottest smartphones are just a penny with service in Appalachian Wireless. Stop by your local Appalachian Wireless to check out all of the great smartphone deals that consistently top the nice lists. Ho ho, this Christmas is truly going to be bigger and better than ever. Better service, bigger savings, that is. Ho ho ho ho ho ho! That's today's Appalachian Wireless! The Christmas Light Display at Archer Park in Prestonsburg has been drawing thousands into the star city of Floyd County from miles around. One family from Moorhead made the trip for another reason. My daughter made this ornament. We brought it here to put on the board for fallen firefighters. I don't want people to forget the fallen firefighters. My husband was killed on April 6, 1999. It was Kevin R. Smith. It was a forest fire that had stemmed from someone burning some brush the night before. I just don't want people to forget. Although Kevin Smith never got to meet his granddaughters, they still know who their papal is. Well, it's fun for them to come and see all the lights and ride the rides, but it's important. They know who their papal is. They see his pictures every day and talk about him every day. It's important to them already without me having to teach them anything. They were happy to be here. There are other displays where visitors can hang ornaments in honor of fallen veterans, police officers, coal miners, and those who have lost their battle with cancer. The park welcomes visitors to see the lights from dark until 10.30 each night. Coming from Prestonsburg for EKB News, I'm Shawn Allen.


So Anthony, I have a question while we're gathering those. Santa Cruz is a coastal county and one of our concerns as planners is sea level rise. So can you talk about how that might affect our future transport network and maybe what the rail network would do to address that? Well the good news is that you don't have a lot of tunnels on your line. I think the places that are going to be really hard hit by climate change superstorm type effects will be places like New York City and others that have a lot of underground electric railroads. You know, there's still one tunnel between Manhattan and Brooklyn that's being rebuilt and the line is closed from the superstorm Sandy I think that was two years ago now. When you have a coastal rail line that's above ground well you may have washouts and bridges to worry about but those can be re-put back into place actually more easily than highway redevelopment. Rail infrastructure is pretty resilient because it's usually got a narrower footprint. It isn't fully sort of concrete. Some of it might be but the less concrete you have to replace on the system the more it's about gravel and wood trestles and that sort of thing. The easier you can put it back as and when you get sooner or later one of those big climate events that happen. But we're all going to be struggling with this. I live one meter above the water level in Vancouver and I wonder some of my architect friends tell me that new buildings that are going to be designed high-rises all of the electrical and service infrastructure is going to be five stories up in them. They're not going to put them at the ground level or in the basement anymore. I imagine there will be design adaptations for infrastructure that will also allow it to be flooded without it being completely destroyed. Thank you. Questions are rolling in here. With short haul between stops and no high-speed rail potential which I think maybe you might question how do we adapt existing railroad to support short haul commuting? Sure. Well, those blended networks are able to mix short trains that serve local stops and trains that go through at higher speed. That's going to be part of the innovation that the Caltrain part of the high-speed rail is going to develop. Figuring out how to run their electrifying the Caltrain between San Jose and the Trans Bay Terminal and they're going to run even more frequent Caltrain services which have local stops that would be similar to what your distances are in this corridor as well and they're going to figure out a way to thread the high-speed rail service at least every 15 minutes for an hour through that corridor as well. That's going to be an innovative approach with infrastructure and operations. We're going to learn how to do that whether you would transplant that directly to the line that you have here in this county, I don't know. But I think that you should definitely be starting to build local rail service with frequent stops that can go at least to a connecting point to start so that you've got the opportunity to connect in with that network. You have the chance to get your local rail going at least as far as Gilroy, hopefully, where the Caltrain service currently goes. That's the first sort of connecting aim you should have, whether people will ride it all the way up to San Francisco or not is another question. But you'll be able to get all sorts of trips from this county into Silicon Valley through that option. Okay, we've got quite a few here. Do you think it is likely that federal regulations will change in the near future to allow shared use of light rail type DMUs with occasional freight on regional rail lines such as ours? Well, the current solution to that, which may or may not work for you here, is known as temporal separation in New Jersey and even down by San Diego, there are light rail, diesel light rail, and electric light rail operations, transit operations that use these tracks and at night in the off hours is when the freight operates. That might not thrill people who live along the rail corridor to have freight trains running at night, but that's the easiest way to start doing this. If you're going to run the trains at the same time on the same tracks, I think you're going to have to spend more on equipment that is crash worthy, that can handle withstand higher impacts. You know, those Japanese trains, there's a reason why they've had zero fatalities. They never crash into each other because they're all going the same speed and they don't have freight trains that they're going to crash into either. My best hope is some of my work in Washington showed that there is research going on that the U.S. government is supporting on so-called crash energy management systems so that you don't have to add tons of steel to just make the train sort of crash-proof that it can sort of hit a very heavy object and not be deformed at all. That requires a lot of weight. But the crash energy management option might say, well, you have crash zones at either end, the vestibules, the washroom, you don't want to be in there at the wrong time if it's a crash zone. But there are ways to sort of take parts of the train and have them sort of take the brunt of that kind of impact. That might be if the engineering designers out there come up with good crash energy management zones, that might be the solution to allow lighter weight passenger trains and freight to operate. But that's probably about five years away. Okay, here's one that we get asked often. I think you did start to address it towards the end of your talk. But how does Santa Cruz County population density compared to other communities with passenger rail service? Well, as I showed you, compared to that French town of about the same size, you're half the density. So that means that you're going to need to do some development. But the good news is that trains tend to be place makers. Unlike airports and highway infrastructure, people actually don't mind living close, like within walking distance of a train station. So as you develop this rail corridor, and as long as you have the land use right around the stations, you will increase density. It's just a law of nature, if you will. Wherever you've developed rail, one of my students went over to Japan and looked at how they do rail-oriented development. And he came back and said, there, that's the norm. Any time they expand or enhance the rail system, they just have more development around those stations. So I think that your development efforts of this rail line will actually build the density that could then take you to the next level with more intercity and higher-speed trains. Okay. You touched on this this morning. Talk about China's maglev train. Is it the future of intercity rail? Well, the Chinese took every technology they could get their hands on and bought it and put it on their test benches and reverse engineered it to see what they would work with. And those 1,000 to 1,200-mile runs from Beijing to Guangzhou are not maglev. They're being run with conventional rail. The Chinese figured out a couple of things. The maglev has got about a 50% energy penalty. When you double the speed, when you get up to sort of aviation-style speed on a maglev, the biggest problem is air resistance. And unless you're going to go even wilder in your engineering fantasies and create sort of vacuum tubes that those trains can go through, you're going to spend most of the energy that's being used, just getting through the atmosphere at ground level. There's a reason why planes like to go as high as they can. It's thinner up there and they don't use as much fuel at high altitudes. Maglev will be elevated, but it's not going to be elevated that far to get rid of that. And even in China, some people say, well, they're able to just tell people what to do and build things whether people like it or not. Even they found when they built their maglev link from Shanghai Airport to Pudong, which is about halfway into the center of Shanghai, they could not take something like that and bring it into the heart of a central city because people on an elevated platform... Imagine it would be like an aircraft coming by at, you know, 12 or 20 feet above the ground. The noise is unbearable and the wind and air effects are too much as well. So the Chinese figured out that maglev was just an energy hog and unsuitable for being built around built-up areas unless you put it all in tunnels along the way. So they decided not to go forward with maglev and build those high-speed conventional rail lines, which are at 186 miles an hour able to handle these long-distance trips, as I suggested. Okay. This is relevant, I think, to our branch line. Does the high number of trestles, grade crossings and shared road rail right-of-ways limit the potential for high-speed rail? Maybe it does. I mean, the more crossings, the more sort of interaction with the road and other people wandering around, you know, biking and walking along the tracks, the harder it's going to be to run more trains faster along it. So the question is how many crossings and which sections can you work with? Is it possible to consolidate? You don't need an entirely sealed corridor like the Japanese model if you go for the blended system, but the higher the speed, generally, the fewer interfaces you're going to want to have with other modes of transportation. So that you kind of have to build into your medium-term plans as you expand the speed and or throughput on this. But those are trade-offs that can be managed incrementally. You know, you can sort of start at one speed with one set of crossings, and then you can work your way up over time if it seems appropriate. Okay. Don't the huge distances in the Central U.S. preclude having a real national rail system? Well, certainly not for freight, but I think if you meant passenger, you know, again, the Chinese are looking at two-day trips from China to Europe going through, you know, Mongolia and the Central Asian Republics, and they're looking at two-day trips to go from the west coast of the U.S. to China.  I'm not saying that should be the priority. It depends what you think the future is going to be like. If you think that we're going to, you know, perfect hydrogen fuel cells or cold fusion and have unlimited energy or biofuels will work for aircraft, then maybe we don't need a plan B for a national rail passenger system. The more you think that energy and climate is going to need more efficiency in moving people in freight without oil, as the book suggested, the more you want to keep those options open. So Amtrak from San Jose North to Seattle is horribly slow. We talked about this this morning, I think. Yes. How can this be improved? Is it necessary to go with high-speed rail? Would it be cost-effective to build passenger-only lines that are not slowed by freight? Well, it's about figuring out how to expand the track capacity. You know, maybe it's not going to be the Chinese style bullet train. You know, it would be maybe five hours from here to Seattle if you did the full Chinese style or the dedicated corridor. But you could add more tracks for conventional rail and have the ability to sort of speed up the existing trains in rough proportion to that investment. That's why I said the solution is really figuring out a new model to build tracks in this country. I mean, the Merced to Bakersfield trunk of the California high-speed rail that's still being fought about, if it's built, that's going to be the first passenger rail track, new passenger rail track in this country for intercity purposes that's been built in over a hundred years. We just haven't built any for a very long time. So it's time to start thinking about other places to build that and how to do it. And that's why having a model that's invented here will spread if it works, I think. It'll spread to other parts of California. It'll spread to the West Coast, and I think other places will want to follow California's lead like they have in many other innovations in the U.S. Would a light rail system like London Docklands, driverless and partially elevated for level crossings, et cetera, work for us here? What about privacy concerns for adjacent residents? Sure. This morning I mentioned the scene from the Blues Brothers movie where they're next to the Chicago L in that apartment and it comes by on the bedshakes and the whole apartment is disrupted. That's what people think about when they think about elevated rail going by. And it isn't quite that bad, but those issues do exist. Vancouver has an automated light metro system, too, the SkyTrain, and it's all elevated because there's no driver, so you can't have people wandering in front of the train. So there's no crossings. It's totally separated. And those areas that the train runs along are dead zones. People don't want to develop and live along those elevated tracks. The station areas get development. People are happy to be walking distance from the station, but we haven't figured out a great use for the land under the tracks or next to those tracks. So I would say that keeping the trains at ground level has its advantages, even if you still have to have drivers. That's good local economic activity. You can't outsource the drivers, and the money that you spend on them will stay in your local economy, I think. Okay. Does the auto industry fight this resurgence of rail? Didn't they buy out trolley cars early on? Well, the auto industry certainly had a history of misbehavior in transportation policy. The first class that I always start my students with in transportation 101, and I showed them the Who Framed Roger Rabbit movie, and the question I asked them is, why is it that Americans can only discuss these issues in the context of a fictional cartoon setting? Why can't we sort of look more coldly at what really happened? There were some bad things that went down with taking down the interurban and the streetcar systems. I think the auto industry has its own problems right now. They've been bankrupt recently, and some of them aren't doing so well again. So I don't think they're quite the monolith that will steamroll any developments in this area the way they did, say, in the 1950s. Can we protect trains from serious earthquakes? Well, the Japanese, again, perfect safety record and even more earthquakes than here, unfortunately, for everyone. They've had terrible tragedies because of earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan, but there was no fatalities on their high-speed system. There's sensors in the ground, and there's enough time, not much, but a few seconds.  Since it's an electric system, it's very easy to do unlike an independent diesel system where every operator would have to shut down. They just pull the switch, the power goes off, the train stops, and then the tracks shake and wiggle and stuff, but the trains aren't moving fast when that happens. So that would be something you would definitely... I'm sure the high-speed system in California will have that type of sensor technology built into it to automatically stop the system. And if you do that right, it's quite safe. Would you speak about the utility transportation concept including electricity, water, fiber optic, et cetera, within the rail corridor? Well, sure. Cariders are extremely valuable for multiple uses because it's so hard to make more of them out there. I mean, anytime you try and build high-tension wires, pipelines, anything in new build situations, you're going to get years of times, decades of protests, legal challenges, et cetera, out there. So you have this rail corridor and you're looking for money. Where's the money going to come from to redevelop it? Well, if you can find people who want to move electricity, water, other fluids through pipelines underneath it, you've got a way to raise revenue to help rebuild that infrastructure. I was saying to one gentleman before the lecture, this could be a way to get a free electric rail system. We're going to need, if we have a smart grid system, there's going to be need to have more capacity to move electricity efficiently around the U.S. and the U.S. electric grid needs a lot of upgrades that way. I think it would be a lot easier to electrify your rail corridor by having some electric utility build the transmission lines and then just have a step down line, which they build for free along the way for your trains to run on and maybe give you a break on the power as well. So you could imagine things like that happening and you should definitely be thinking about multi-use. The more you can put into that corridor that's compatible and safe, the less you're going to need to tear up your open spaces in other parts of the county to put in that infrastructure. So it's another way, it's a bit like density and development. By having the density concentrated around train stations, you're preserving open space in other places rather than spreading it evenly everywhere. So same thing with these utility corridors. Okay. Two class questions. Did you say that 130 miles of high-speed rail track can be built in the Central Valley for 5.8 billion? That's what the current budget is. And of course the longer the usual suspects tie it up in court, the more the inflation factors will kick in. I think they're counting on tying it up long enough so that it's hopelessly over budget along the way. But yes, 130 miles for 5.8 billion is the current plan. That's to build the electric infrastructure. That doesn't include the trains that would run over it. But that's the plan. And what's the annual cost to taxpayers to subsidize Amtrak? It's in the billion dollar a year range, give or take. And, you know, Amtrak's been around a while now, and I wrote a book before this one called New Departures, where I called Amtrak a name that not everyone liked. I said it's a policy blocker. Amtrak was never really designed to solve a problem. It was kind of designed as a stopgap to avoid solving a problem because people couldn't agree on what to do about the decline of the passenger rail system. They still can't agree, so Amtrak is sort of chewing that billion up every year. And it's added up. I mean, you actually could have built some high-speed rail in the U.S., but that would have involved letting go of a lot of other train operations. But as long as the debate every year is about, do we keep Amtrak or do we get rid of it, we'll never get to this new model railroad because that's what really is the alternative. You need, instead of having all Amtrak or no trains, the future, I think, that California might show people as well. You can have a better train model that works, and then we can sort of evolve Amtrak. Amtrak was meant to last five years. That was the original design life of the organization. It was supposed to be a transition mechanism. It wasn't supposed to be here, and it really has struggled, and we've all paid for that one way or another. Funding question. Can Prop 1A funds pay for a spur from Santa Cruz to Gilroy? I'm pretty sure that they can't. There's not going to be enough of that money to build even the parts that they said they wanted to between Southern California and the Bay Area. But I think, again, talking about leverage, it's getting the sort of close by infrastructure that those billions and federal money are going to go into. And the big question would be, you know, sort of connecting up with it. Maybe you won't be doing it with a bullet train initially, but more like a light rail connection, and then sort of see where that goes over time. And one last question, Anthony. Save this one for the very end. Okay. Did you have model trains as a kid? I've never been that dexterous with my hands, and I tell people that, you know, well, that's why I was always interested in the real ones, because it was sort of a scale that I could handle working with. So that's my story, and thanks so much for coming out, everyone. All right. Thank you.


I am a little nervous to play this because now not only do we have to worry about granny But we have to worry about grandpa. Oh my god. Yeah, I know, right? Okay, so let's begin. Okay, so normal both medium I'm gonna go with normal because it's my first time playing this so let's go over here. Okay be quiet granny Here's everything grandpa doesn't hear very well, but he hits hard Okay, press and hold to remove the yats remove yourself from the bed trap hide under beds and or wardrobes You have five days use headphones for best experience. Okay, so it seems like grandpa is death, but he can see okay That's a little interesting. I mean he's old Day one. Okay, so I have like the same intro like the day one day two. That's pretty cool Okay, the music is way different as we can hear it has a little creepy eerie feeling to it Okay, I'm digging this we started the same old beat-up room what like in a beat-up room as in granny one And let's see what's up over here What do we got going on? Oh, what is that? What is this right here the door lock? Look in this piece for I don't know man. Let's open this door What dude, what is this?  Okay? What's down here? Where does this take us? My god granny got a major update on her house y'all Okay, what is that thing dude? I saw some tentacles come out of the water What okay, let's not go in the water. Oh, um, can we drive this boat? Nope. I need a boat steering wheel Okay, uh, apparently we need a boat steering wheel without doing either gasoline and a spark leg Oh, what is that? And here is a crowbar. Okay, what is this? We need a padlock key So let's take this crowbar. Oh That is not good granny's gonna hear that. Why don't you so many footsteps you guys Okay, we're safe. Nice. Hey, what is this box? Oh, okay? We got that out of the way Oh, I'm hearing a lot of footsteps. Yeah, I'm a hi Well, we're gonna hide because I know we have to worry about granny and grandpa this time Which can be a little more difficult But I do have a taser, but I only have one shot.  I don't want granny to get me Granny go away.  He's on the ground Okay, I think it's safe to go outside Okay, where did you place your trap? You gotta be kidding me granny. Oh, that's where the thing goes Okay, so let's get out of here. Let's see what's up with this house. Oh my god Can we legit hide in here? This is a shower It's a little musty and nasty in here. I don't know if I want to be hiding in here, man It's a little smelly Okay, I know granny heard that for a fact because I mean it was a painting Play hide-and-seek. Oh my god. She's on us. Yo, granny's right there. Hello grandma Do what she just print Okay, whatever granny. I think granny went downstairs. So we should be good up here It's issues right up behind us to the pianos plane. Is somebody playing the piano? Granny is jamming out on the piano. I would have never imagined that in my life Hey, but the real question is where is the old man? I Have not seen that old man Okay, so that's the steering wheel to the boat. We need to get that down there ASAP to the boat So we could get out of here on the boat. Oh my god. Okay. Nice He's back to me.  All right. I deserve that for being sneaky sneaky up there Dude, come on.  Oh My god, I should have reacted quicker and shot him with the taster No, okay, whatever they were on day two. We're doing good so far and let's grab this crowbar You know what? I don't think we need that for now Let's get both of the old folks down here Dude, we can head up the upstairs and grab the steering wheel. I'm gonna bring the steering wheel all the way back down here then there is our Grandpa where is the granny and there is granny Okay, go go go. This is the only chance. Oh look. Okay. Let's check this Boat key Okay, so we got the bokeh we're doing so far Okay, so the steering wheel is over there What's in here nothing great? Oh my god. Okay. There's a lot of stuff around this house weapon key Is there anything in here? Nope. There's nothing here. Okay. What about in this? I'm so scared. Like what if the grandpa's up here? Okay, nice. So we need to make a noise No granny Granny don't do it granny. I'm sorry. Oh My god. Okay. Nice. Dude. I'm stuck. Oh We need to get out of here because granny's chasing us Dude I can oh my gosh, you put a bear trap right there. No, you don't Dude, where's the old man? Okay. Nice. So we got the bokeh down here And we put this on the boat or do we need to hold on to it? How do we start this? Can I get out of here and just start I don't have the boat yet I can't start the boat yet. Great. So we have to drop this down here. Oh My god, where can we drop it? Okay, whatever. Let's drop this right here And then let's get the old people down here. Okay. Can you hurry please? I do not want to get caught up here I mean right here. Okay, so we need to go grab the steering wheel for the boat And then the grandpa has a key around his neck, which I suppose we shoot him with the taser so we can get the key Okay, let's go. Everything's working according to plan you guys, but where did I leave the taser? Dude the old man is so creepy. Okay. Nice. The taser's right here We got the steering wheel You guys I think we're gonna safely escape out of this place Yeah, we just need them to come up here Oh, what is that? I just discovered something right there. Oh my god. Oh my god. She's right behind me. Oh My goodness all the gas tanks right there. Nice Dude granny's way faster. Isn't she? Right guess I'm just too old and I'll slow her Hey, please don't let the old man be downstairs. That was not cool at all We just got trapped in her trap Okay, nice. So I don't know if either of them come down here or not But whatever let's keep continuing with our I need a bolster. Is this not the thing for the boat? This is a steering wheel, man. This is not for the boat. Oh my god Okay, so I guess this is not for the boat. Oh, yeah, I think I saw like some thing on the wall There it is I think it belongs right there, but what does this even do? Okay, so we turn the wheel. What is that for? I have no clue, man Okay, whatever it's just a minor step back We're still gonna manage to get out of here. Hopefully So let's get them down here so we can go back up And wander around. Oh, yes, we found the gas tank in the shower. I don't know what it's doing in the shower But it's in there Okay, granny's coming Granny, please quicker Thank you.  It's like he can barely even breathe Okay, let's go up here No, you don't see me stop lying. You just straight up lying granny Oh, yeah, we need to stun the old man kind of forgot about that. I don't think I forgot about you old man So there's nothing inside of these cabins like why even put them in here? And you guys didn't hear that, right? Okay, great. He did it. Okay, so is there anything in here? Move box. Oh my god. That is the toughest box ever Okay, so there's some cutting pliers. What can we use that for? Oh, yeah, I found like that box in the wall Maybe we can use it for that. I don't know man. Let's just grab them. Oh, wait, she can't come in here, right? Where's she going? Granny, okay, I think we're safe here Dude, she's laughing He is mocking us right now. Oh, yeah, we need to shoot him You gotta be kidding me if the floor is really just far Why can I why can I hide down here? I'm trying to hide under the bed Right there you go. I saw a key right there inside the inside the uh wardrobe or whatever And there is the infamous granny dude. Why is she walking slow over here? And she asked him to stop Okay, please get out of here. Thank you so much. I'll see you later grandma. Don't worry. I haven't forgotten about you Okay, I think we're safe to go out. Oh, we need a crowbar What does that do? Oh, we can check if granny's coming Okay, so that's pretty cool. Wait, can you actually see her though? That's the question Hey, um, there's two doors up here Wait, can granny come up here? Hey, um, nope There's nothing here. Great man Dude, oh my god, so there's really nothing up here. So how do we get How do we get there? I think we might need like the gun like the shotgun to open that. Okay, that was loud We need to keep it moving yo Granny, I'm in your bedroom. Come over here Oh my god. No, I'm sorry. Don't come here Dude, she's so quick. Okay. Uh, why is that? What is this slenderina? Okay, so how do we open this? Um, open. So we don't need this anymore We need this out there. Okay, can you do Okay, great. We're stuck in here. We need the shotgun grab the shotgun. Oh, yeah. What's up, granny? No, why did I just drop the shotgun? Um, crouch. Oh my gosh, she's right here. Hey, granny. I need last words. Yep. That's what I thought grandma Okay, so this is our chance to escape And where is the old man? I haven't seen that old man like forever Okay, nevermind. He's still here He just let us know he's here and and alive because he just left Okay, great. Let's drop this down here. We have granny out of the picture for now Let's go put this on the boat Where it belongs Yes Okay, so we got one part for the boat Okay, so we needed the gas we needed the gas tank and the spark plug Which we know where the gas tank is so that's plus No Grandpa, please don't do this Please don't go. I knew it was too good to be true. I knew he was gonna just curse Oh my god, okay So we have to be careful of that old man as we can see he is dangerous himself Okay, so we need this crowbar for upstairs So let's get these old people down here to the party What is he saying? Is he sinking? What What in the world is going on in this house y'all? Okay, here they come quiet There's the old fort And there's the older fort. Okay, so let's get out of here Padlock key. I know I saw padlock somewhere grandma. Oh my god, great. Here comes granny Come here granny. Why can't I drop? Can I take this gas can because we no we need this No I was gonna try to hide inside of there because granny was gonna cut me off No It's we're underestimating these old people way too much We need to pick up our slack Oh my god, dude This old man is onto me He is onto me man. I swear There's a trap right there. I had no clue. There was a bear trap Nothing like straight up camouflage is right there, man Why can't he get trapped in the bear trap? I mean like he steps on it. It only makes sense, right? Okay, let's go go go with the flow Up the staircase before granny comes behind us. It's maxes in the head with her bat Okay. Oh wait, where the plugs at I mean where the pliers we need the pliers to cut this I see you Oh great now. I'm getting chased by the old man. Oh my god. No, dude. He's so fast Okay, so we need to find that shotgun. Where did I leave that shotgun at?  Okay, so we got that. Okay, so if I go around this way, I won't creak make the floor creak I need a security dude. How did I open this earlier? I think the security key is the key around the old man's neck.  That was too close. Okay. Nice drop the gun drop the gun drop the gun Okay, now we need to get the key around this old man. Dude. I can't grab the key Okay security key nice. Oh no, I need more ammo though Are you kidding me? So now we need extra ammo to open that Is there any shotgun shells down here? Nope. Oh my god. This is my worst luck you guys Okay, so we need shotgun shells And we're in the world that we're gonna find shotgun shells.  Okay, so we can't seem to find them on the camera. So let's go up here Okay, open this. Okay, nothing here. Let's just double check Because I do not want to leave anything behind I think that there's nothing here. Okay, so, uh, this should work here If not, then I don't know what else to do. So let's shoot Why I didn't mean to shoot twice You gotta be kidding me, man Okay, uh, so now we need cutting pliers. Great. Please let this be the only thing we need Because I'm tired of going up and down the stairs. Okay, uh, let's uh open this Cut that cut this. Oh my god. What there's a map. Is that like a vampire? Dude, who is that? Okay, whatever man. I'm gonna need you to scoot over. Oh my god. Okay, whatever. Uh, what is that? The door handle What do we need a door handle for? Okay, so we need a door handle for a door, which I don't know what door I guess for the main escape Okay, so we really need the spark plug also I have not seen that thing anywhere Okay, where are the old people at? Dude back away. Why did he even spawn up here though? And he got me. He got me That box just caused me a life It wouldn't get out of the way. No Day five the last day, dude, where's it like so close Okay, so I got the gas tank. We needed the spark plug. I have no idea where that's at like I have not seen it throughout the whole entire match And the boat keys right there. Oh, there's oh wait, that's not a key. Is it that's a weapon key not a safe key. Come on Maybe in here. No. Oh my god. You gotta be kidding me. Where is our old feller at? Very nice feet down here And of course, he's down here Where'd he go? Dude, he just disappeared Where did the old man go you guys? I think he's on this side Wait, did I just drop something? If he's in there, then he's trapped Okay, nice Dude, he just vanished dude. What is he doing down there? He almost gave me a heart attack Oh, I think granny's gonna come toward the gas tank. Dude, did she not see me? Granny did not see me Oh, you don't Okay, great. So now we're trapped down here. Please don't come this way Please do not come this way. I see you.  No, we were so close Uh-oh Okay, so now I understand why this is here. Don't do it grandpa. I'm sorry.  No, dude, we were so close We just needed the spark plug which I had no clue where the spark plug was I couldn't find the little spark plug Oh my god, okay So these two are definitely like a duo. They got their own thing going on All right, I got what if you guys know anything that I missed in the gameplay Let me know in the comments below because you guys are the geniuses and the masterminds To all of these uh to where to find these clues and stuff Well, thank you guys for watching Thank you guys for the main support if you guys enjoyed the video Make sure to slap the like button If you're new to the channel Make sure to subscribe and turn that notification bell on and I will see you guys in the next one. Bye


In this video I want to talk about disc clutches. So disc clutches are basically a mechanism for causing two things to rotate at the same speed where they initially are not. And in its simplest form basically what it means is we take two rotating discs, rotating at different speeds, and we press them together until they're rotating at the same speed. And that's kind of a simplification of what we're talking about. So in order to analyze this situation we're going to go ahead and say, you know, assume that we have a rotation occurring and we're going to apply a force to press these two discs together. Now we have a contact material in here because it isn't, you know, terribly efficient to press two solid circles together to make this happen. But we have a little bit of a friction lining here which provides that contact interface. So if I was to take this drawing and look at it from a side view, I'd have a contact surface that looks something like this where it has an inner radius r i and an outer radius r o. And we want to understand the forces and the torques necessary for this all to come into play. You know, what sort of torque would we expect to see transferred between these two things. So to do that we're going to take a little differential section of the contact surface here. So this differential section is a circle with a width dr. So as when we do, you know, differential units of things, we're going to call this dr. So it's a differential piece of radius, which means small, more or less. And some assumptions we're going to make or an assumption we're going to assume a uniform wear rate. So we're going to assume that the entire range of radius from r i to r o wears at the same rate, which means that we can expect a pressure differential as we move out. Because what this is saying is that pressure times radius is a constant due to, you know, the different rotational speed and such from the inside to the outside. So if pressure times radius is constant, that means that the max pressure occurs at the inner radius. And this is useful to us because we can then use that as a as a known point when we look at our differentially sized piece of material here that I'm kind of trying to shade on the picture. So taking that, then we can say that there is a force applied over that differential area. And it's going to be equal to pressure times area. So pressure is just p max. We can go ahead and say that. And we need to think about what the area is. Well, the area is going to be two pi r i, which is circumference. And I'm picking our eye here, because it's where we know a value of the pressure that it's at the maximum. So two pi r i is circumference times width, which is dr. So that gives us an area circumference times radius, or circumference times width of that circular section. And area times pressure then is equal to force. And it's a differential force because it only applies to this small little differentially sized unit that we have going around here. So we've got this little differential equation. We can integrate this and get force.  So I'm integrating over r. You can see there's no r in my equation. r i is just a constant value. So that's not our differential variable. So we can just integrate over this. And it's going to be equal to all this stuff in the middle times r evaluated from r i to r o, right? If we remember how to carry out our our integrations when we know the limits.  Great. We can do a similar thing now in terms of torque. So torque, again talking about this differential piece of torque, we can say it's equal to the differential force, where this is the the normal force applied. We have a friction coefficient, and we have r. So we have a force applied multiplied by a friction coefficient to get a tangential force, which is where we get our torque from, and multiplied by the torque arm, which is going to be radius. And carrying this out in a similar way, or rewriting this and substituting in what we have, we have two pi r i d r p max mu and r. So now I've pulled down this d f quantity up here that I had already written down into this equation and substituted it in and get this over here. So now I can integrate this piece and I get t equals the integral from r i to r o. So two pi r i p max mu r dr. So not much has really changed, but now I have an r inside my integral and I'm integrating over r. So I just taken that into account. So integral of r is one half r squared. So I get, I've dropped the two now because of the one half pi r i p max mu for friction and my r values, the difference between them squared. All right. So now I want to go ahead and do something with this. And one thing that I don't probably have by default is p max. So we want to go ahead and see if we can substitute that with something else. So I'm actually going to take this equation and rearrange it to solve for p max.  And I can take this and substitute this in to this equation here into this this t equation. Okay.  All right. So we're almost to where we want to be. One thing we need to make note of or that we can make as a simplification, r o squared minus r i squared is equal to r o minus r i times r o plus r i. So this is a nice little algebraic thing that we can try to remember. And what you're going to notice here then is that this r o minus r i would then cancel with this one down here and drop that out of the equation. So what we end up with then is t is equal to f mu over two r o plus r i as an equation that gives us the torque transmitted between two shafts for an applied force and friction and unknown values of the radius. Now one thing I'm going to add in here I'm going to put an n and this is to account for the number of friction interfaces that we have in our clutch system. So I've derived this equation by just saying we're taking two plates and pressing them together. But of course a clutch typically doesn't consist of just two plates being pressed together. There's usually multiple stacks of plates which are being pressed together. So however many friction interfaces we have which is number of contacts between the two sides of the rotating members would tell us how many times we can multiply this torque by. And that gives us that equation. Now we could actually go back and evaluate our equation and dig in a little deeper. But one thing we find is that generally the maximum torque is found when r i is about equal to 0.58 r o. So this is one of those the reasons that we would have this this shape right where we have this inner radius and this outer radius where the contact is happening because there's actually a point of diminishing returns where we get our best outcome when r i is equal to 0.58 r o. Alright so I will stop there.


Rumors were rife about the alleyway behind the tavern. It was haunted, folks said. Haunted by the ghost of a young girl who had been found murdered in that passage. People avoided the small street after dark, for the spirit was said to be a vengeful one. Of course, no one could name anyone whom the ghost had actually killed, but the tales were enough to keep people away from the alley at night. Fortunately for the owners of the tavern that backed onto the alley, their front door faced a well-lit road and so business was not slack. Then one night, while the tavern was full of drinkers, a nasty character named O'Hare wandered into the bar. Women and children were not safe in his presence, but especially not women. After O'Hare had consumed far too much alcohol, he suddenly announced to the bar that he'd seen a pretty young thing in the alley out back of the tavern. The bartender froze in the middle of polishing a glass. No one said a word, but everyone was thinking about the ghost of the vengeful young girl. Everyone in the bar looked down at his or her glasses as he stumbled to his feet. No one made a move to stop him, and there were quiet whispers of, he deserves what's coming to him. As O'Hare left the building, it's just too bad that there isn't really a ghost, thought the bartender, setting down the shining glass and picking up another one to polish. O'Hare sorely needed a lesson in human kindness and respect for others. It was at that moment, a horrible scream came from the alley. Everyone in the tavern looked up in shock and fear, and there really been a ghost out there. O'Hare was up to his old tricks and now costing another woman. The men leapt to their feet and raced to the back door of the tavern. Pouring out into the street, they were met by an unnatural cold, and their eyes were dazzled by a blaze of light. The bartender thrust his way to the front of the crowd and saw the body of O'Hare lying in a pool of bright white light. His throat had been torn to pieces and blood was spilling out in gushes. Above him hovered the semi-transparent figure of a young girl, her eyes gleaming with red fire, her mouth covered with blood. She glared down at O'Hare and then turned to look at the crowd. The specter licked the blood from her lips, her eyes on the bartender's neck. Then she vanished, taking the light with her.  The local authorities were summoned to deal with the body of O'Hare. They were skeptical, but there were many eyewitnesses. The bartender resigned his position the next morning and took a job across town. The memory of the ghost hungry stare at his neck, prompting him to look elsewhere for employment.


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