We cut out ~1.5 inch cube pieces of wood (poplar, rock maple, red oak, red alder, hickory, hem fir, and walnut) to compare their radiating spectral profiles and temperatures when red hot. We lit these pieces on fire, blew out the flame, and used our spectrometer to find the spectral profile. We also had attached a thermocouple to the surface of the wood. We started with hickory and poplar, and when we started our measurements, we found the spectral profile shape to be the same for both woods. The two woods did however vary in luminosity. But the data confused us because we know the temperatures did vary but the spectral profile yielded the same shape. In fact, when we blew on the wood, the temperature increased by about 100 degrees Celsius. After talking with our advisors, they said that the spectrometer was yielding its own sensitivities to different wavelengths. We may not be able to proceed using the spectrometer with wood because of the infrared light it emits that the spectrometer cannot pick up.

We met up with one of our advisor’s graduate students who assisted us in Matlab. She helped us use a matrix in order to determine the average intensity of a selected region on an image. This is very helpful for us to find an accurate intensity of our subject.