Autumn and Electricity

Autumn is my favorite time of year on our university's campus, and we've taken full advantage of it, finding ourselves playing among the leaves in the woods and around the creeks before and after opera performances, during Girl Scout field trips, on the way to and from ballet classes, and on this particular afternoon, just for Will and I, during her sister's Nutcracker rehearsal:

Will and I were rushing across campus to catch the tag end of our university's Science Fest--normally we spend several hours at this event, but this was also Fun Show day, so a brief stint in the electricity lab was the extent of our science enrichment:

Riding a bicycle generator and lighting lights! We also got demonstrations/explanations of solar- and wind-powered generators.

 And yes, I say "our" science enrichment, because it was me that pestered the poor undergrad supervising this gadget--it's scanning for wavelengths in the air, picking up, on this afternoon, wi-fi and cell phone signals and a few other little unidentified frequencies:

I asked him if the cell phone spike would spike higher if I held my cell phone right up to the antenna, and got the go-ahead to experiment--it did! Would my Nook also cause a spike on some frequency? Nope! My car remote triggered a loud clicking on another antenna that had been quietly emitting static. It was so cool!

What it's actually for, I don't know, but I totally want to build one for myself now.