Two students in a recent thermodynamics/statistical mechanics course needed to complete a course-related project to receive honors credit for the class. Such courses are typically theoretical, without an accompanying laboratory, although there are existing related hands-on exercises. The choice of the project was influenced by one student’s desire to become a mechanical engineer after graduating while the other wanted a project that was “fun” without “just doing more calculations.” The choice of this particular project was further refined by the future engineer’s interest in the thermodynamics of car engines.

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4.
See http://playground.arduino.cc/Learning/OneWire for a discussion of Dallas Semiconductor’s OneWire device. Note that issues with program run time optimization are discussed here. We avoided this by first getting the addresses of our sensors and then writing the temperature reading code using those addresses.
5.
DS18x20_Temperature_reader_RU.ino will read all of the 64-bit addresses at once. By adding the sensors one at a time we could discern the specific address of each sensor. See material under the “Supplemental” tab at TPT Online, https://doi.org/10.1119/1.5008346 .
6.
DallasTemperature_wave_RU.ino. See material under the “Supplemental” tab at TPT Online, https://doi.org/10.1119/1.5008346 .
7.
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8.
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(
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. 
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9.
The thermal diffusivity K = k/(c. ρ), where k is the thermal conductivity, c is the specific heat capacity, and ρ is the density. Values for aluminum are from
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Cutnell
,
Kenneth W.
Johnson
,
David
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Shane
Stadler
,
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G.
McIntosh
and
B.
Sharratt
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Thermal properties of soils
,”
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Nov.
2001
).

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