Mini Culmination Prep- Day 2

Today Kayla and I played around with a motor. Bert said it would probably be the heaviest thing we would have to launch, so we played around with it. we got it to land in the general vicinity of our launch pad pretty regularly. we had a margin of error of about 2 or 3 inches each way (which should be okay if we make our box big enough on our rover). I measured the weight of the bag, the height from which I dropped it and how far the motor went so that we could come back to it later. Kayla and I are experimenting with the weight of the object (because that makes the needed force on the opposite side of the lever bigger- I think) and the surface area because the air resistance effects how far the piece will go. hopefully we can get enough data about shapes and sizes of objects that we can figure out the different measurements during the mini culmination!

Mini Culmination Prep

Today our group sat and decided who was going to do what in the mini culmination, and who was going to prepare the different pieces for the M.C. I was working on the "Earth Launch Lever" station. What Kayla and I did was we used the little styrofoam pieces to keep the back side of the lever up. If we had a lighter piece, we had to position the lever so that the backside was tilted up more so there wasn't as much range of motion and the piece would go forward instead of up.

Bloopers!!!

Map Score!!!

Newton's 1st Law

Universal Law of Gravity

Remote Repairs

Me with my finished pieces!!!

Remote Repairs Lab

Today Meena, Lena and I did Remote repairs. It would have been better with more time, but we got two things built. Meena had two things that she told me how to make. Unfortunately, Lena and I didn't get very far on her piece because we ran out of time and she was missing a piece. But, Meena's piece looked just like what I made, so our communication was good!!

This relates to the robotics key point because we had to do everything in small parts, like telling the person the color, then the size and shape and then where it went and how it was connected. Then we moved to the next piece.

We will need these communication skills in order to communicate with ground control if something goes wrong with our spaceship on M2M. We need to be able to be able to describe with size, shape, color and location so that we can get the help we need to fix it or vice versa.

Thrust Structures Lab

This relates to newtons third law because when you apply a certain amount of force down, there is an equal amount of force pushing up. That is why the water bottle flies up when we drop the bag down.

This relates to M2M because when you launch from the earth or from Mars, you need enough force pushing you up to not only overcome the force of drag but also the force of gravity.

Recovery Systems Lab

During this lab, Lena, Alaina and I tried to counteract the force of gravity by using parachutes to create air resistance/ drag. We used plastic garbage bags, string, tape (to reinforce the holes), and a little sandbag weight. Our parachute consisted of two layers. The first one had a hole in the middle, about 4 inches in diameter and the second one (on top) didn't have any holes. there was about an inch of space between them when the air was blowing. Our model didn't work. The weight or the sand bag pulled the corners together so that they could not catch any air. We tried to reinforce the edges but it didn't work. We thought it might have worked better with a smaller bag, because ours was folding in half. This relates to Newton's third law because gravity pulls down with the same force the air pushes up with, but the earth is bigger, so gravity overcomes the drag created by the air. In this case we were trying to make the drag overcome gravity so that we could have the parachute float instead of fall. This relates to mission to mars because when you land on a planet (Mars) you have to have a pararchute to overcome the force of gravity because you don't want to crash into the ground, you want to get set down lightly. I also though that there could be some human error in our test because we only had one hair dryer in one particular place, but if you were falling from the sky, there would be the same amount of resistance and that might have had something to do with why our didn't work.nce in all places, so I think that might have had something to do with it.

Robotix Lab

Today Thalia, Meena and I worked on the Robotix lab. In this lab we had to create a robot that could go forward, then pick something up and then move back again. Thalia and I built the robot with 4 different engines and wheels, and Meena built the arm. however, meena's arm was to heavy for the motor, and couldn't pick anything up because it was a scoop and not a clamp. I revised it byu making a clamp sort of thing with 2 engines and 2 scoops. The arm was able to lift my clamp, but before I could attach it to the robot, 2 things happened. 1) we ran out of time, and 2) The arm and clamp and engines all came appart!! This relates to the robotics key point because it really showed how each part is it's own function. We had to make a robot that could move forward and back and then an arm that had up and down motion and then a clamp that had 2 parts, a part moving one way ( from right to left) and another moving the opposite way at the same time (left to right). We used 6 different engines just to complete just 2 simple tasks, moving forward and backward and picking something up. I learned a lot that I think will be useful for mission to mars, for example, the motors are not very strong, you need to make what they are lifting and the weight of the arm as minimal as possible. Also, if there is something very heavy resting on wheels or something, it is good for you to reinforce the conection between the wheels and the body of the robot. You really wouldn't want the wheels of your rover to pop off while you were exploring the surface of mars!!

Motion Lab

Today I worked with Lena and Thalia. I learned a lot about motion and positions, velocity and acceleration. For instance, you can have no acceleration even if you have a positive velocity. This happens because acceleration is when you are slowing down or speeding up and velocity is your speed. So, if you are going at the same pace, you have no acceleration because you aren't slowing or speeding up, but you still have a speed (velocity). Another thing is that the graphs will be flat at different times. The position graph will be flat when you are at a position, but you are not moving and you stay there for some time. The acceleration graph will be flat when you have a constant acceleration. The velocity graph will be flat when you are going exactly the same speed for a certain amount of time.

Moving to the moon

If I were to dive into a swimming pool on the moon, it would be very different. First of all, when I jump up I would go higher because if I use the same amount of force as I do on earth, I would go much higher because there is less gravity pulling me down. Then I would fall slower, because less gravity is pulling me down. I would not go as deep, because, again, less force is pulling me down. (So I don't have to dig such a deep hole for my swimming pool & I save money).

Lego Robotics

Today Amalia, Gemma and I programmed Robots using Robolab. Basically we were trying to figure out how fast each speed was and how long it should go for. We got our rover to go through the two towers, but then our batteries were really low and we had to get a new rover. That really screwed us up. The better rover went faster and longer and we had to adjust it a lot!

This relates to the Robotics key point bhecus efirst we had to make the rover go straight and then turn left and then go straight again. We had to break it up into those three tasks and then do then each one at a time.

This is going to be really useful for M2M because we have to program robot (I assume) and now we know what speeds for certain amounts of time do what. For example, we had our Rover go at speed 4 for 6 seconds and then turn left at speed 2 (?) for 5 seconds. We will be able to program robots quicker and we will be able to navigate the program better from now.

Launching from the moon Lab

During this lab, Cecilia, Gillian and I tried to get materials from the ground to the wall. We tried using the cardboard tube and we taped th lego sticks and three bllons to it. We tried to launch it once, but it did not make it off the ground. We spent 277,000 dollars on our one launch that failed. It surprised me how much force it took just to lift the cardboard tube off the ground. It felt light to me, lifting it, but the air didn't come out of the balloons very fast. This related to Newton's third law because we were trying to pull alot of weight (as in force due to gravity) and we didn't have enough force pushing down to actually push us up and overcome that weight. The earth is alot more massive than us, so we (or our rocket thing) will move if we have enough force, but in our lab, we weren't able to create enough. It made me really amazed at how much power rocket engines have, and how much power airplane engines have. I think this will be very useful during M2M because I'm pretty sure we have to either launch off earth or launch off Mars and apparently it takes a TON of force to do that!!!