[this is school]

So, a couple of days ago, Gabby, Jackie and I attempted at doing the magnetics lab.. I'm disappointed to say, we didn't get too far on the lab.. We were supposed to build the Gauss Rifle.. There were these 4 small block-shaped magnets that had a very strong magnetism. To build the Rifle, you were supposed to tape each magnet 2.5 inches apart from each other. Each time I taped down one magnet, and was taping down the next, the other magnet would come off the tape and ruler and snap onto the other magnet... Because of how strong the magnets were, and apparently how weak I am, it took either forever for just one person to pry them apart, or took 3 min for 2 people to pry them apart... pretty sad... So we finally figured out a better way to set it up... we had this metal/magnetic beam on the counter and decided to mount the magnets on that instead. Then behind each strong, block magnet, you were supposed to place 2 round ball magnets. -In the picture they were also supposed to lay flat.. which is where we encountered our "final" problem... the magnets, for some reason, WOULD NOT LAY FLAT!! One thing I wondered about this lab, once we ran out of time, was how the Gauss Rifle would have worked (had it been set up correctly..).. well, that's the last lab of this segment of labs!

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Today, Sam, Gemma, and I did the Motors Lab. We finished the first lab.. We coiled wire around a straw and stripped the coating off the ends... we then attached the ends to the battery and insterted a needle half-way into the straw and it got sucked in!! We started on the next lab.. Making our our Motors.. but when I tried it, it didn't work as it did in the diagram.. the wire loop was supposed to spin around, but it just fell out.. I learned how much power/ magnetic power there is to be able to pull a needle into a straw.. I'd really also like to know why the second lab didn't work.....

the picture is of the 2nd lab..

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Today Emma M., Honore, and I all did the Impact Craters lab. We had to drop a golf ball from 5 different heights (we did 6) and measured the depth and width of the craters. We found that 4.5 (for the width) and 2 (for the depth) centimeters was constant in all but a few where 1 (for the depth) and 3.5 (for the width) centimeters was constant. Next, we had to calculate the GPE. The way we have to calculate the GPE is GPE=MGH we had the G and the H but we needed the M to be able to find the GPE. So, we took the golf ball to the scale and found that it weighed 45.8 grams. We know that mass is measured in kilograms so we needed to divide 45.8 by 1000. 45.8/100=.0458. Using this, we calculated the GPE of each of the heights. These were the calculations: from 36inch=.41J. 30inch=.34J. 24inch=.27J. 18inch=.21J 12inch=.12J 6inch=.07J. Next we had to calculate the velocity by using GPE=KE when KE=1/2(M) (V)2. For these calculations we got the velocity for: 36inch=.62m/s 30inch=.6m/s 24inch=.5m/s 18inch=.4m/s 12inch=.3m/s 6inch=.2m/s.
Thats all for today!

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today I did the lab, the power of sound. Clara, Gemma and I used Logger Pro to track magnetic currents. We first just held a nail above the sensor.. and it picked up a signal and we recorded it.. second time, we wrapped a wire around the nail 3 times and recorded the signal data. the wire was attached to a flash light battery.. We did the same process each time, for wire wraps 6,9,12,15,21... When we looked at the data as a whole, we saw that the current actually had decreased.. but the current was supposed to increase. I think the problem was that it was hard to record the current because it wasn't steady.. it would go from 270, to 120 in a second.. so some of the data was rather inaccurate in that case.. I learned that even a nail without anything attached to it contains electricity. and that the more wire/metal, the more electricity..

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Today, Anja, Cece, and I did the heat shields lab. We had a wooden dowel that had a nail glued onto it and we had to make a heat shield to keep the glue from melting for as long as possible. We were given a piece of wire netting, a large piece of aluminum foil, a washer, and a bolt. My design was in this order, stacked from closest to glue, to farthest from glue: wire netting, washer, aluminum foil, bolt.. and a small piece of aluminum to cover the tip of the screw. The other thing I did was designed it so the wire netting made a sort of a dome shape, and the aluminum on top made a bowl shape.. it looked like this: )( )=netting and (=foil I thought the aluminum could then reflect the heat and protect the metal for longer, while the under lair curved the opposite way to act like a dome, and also allow the heat that made it through the aluminum to spread out and not give direct heat to the glue. I was only to test my shield once, but it was able to last for approximately 18 seconds... I was surprised how quickly the heat traveled through the aluminum and how hard it was to make an effective shield. I was also surprised by how many different ways you could make the shield and how many different varieties and combinations there were.

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So yesterday was our mini culmination (take 2) and we did really well!! Everything fit together perfectly and we were able to get 3 pieces to our Mars base!! Two things were transported by the catapult and rover, and the other by parachute, RobotixX, and the balloon propulsion thing. I think we did really good and I think we made significant progress since the first run! YAY!!

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Today, Hannah and I got the balloon propulsion thing to work!!!! First we had to repair the basket because somehow it had gotten left on top of the file cabinets and had gotten slightly damaged.. With a little bit of hot glue, and a bit of tape, the basket was as good as new! Then we just started with small objects, sending them back and forth.. And it worked really well. And the good thing was our basket and stuff was light enough that we only needed one balloon! Things are working great and it's all coming together.. Lena also decided that for the basket, it might be easier if she built on out of non-lego materials so it could be bigger and lighter. I think this mini culmination will work really well!

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Today, we found out that we'll be doing our mini culmination again.. and if we could do anything to fix it, we could do it now. Since the robot was working fine now, Hannah and I volunteered to help with the balloon propulsion system with propelling the object in the basket from one side to another. Today, we re-assigned jobs and went over what could be fixed, and what didn't need more work. I traded with Amalia so she could be communications at the Mars base this time and I could work on the balloon thing. By the end of the class, we had a clear idea of what needed to be done, and had started fixing things up.. I also helped Lena with making a bigger basket for the rover.. That's it for today!

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I think we did a pretty good job.. and it turns out, my rover never had to go because we never got to that station.. We were sending an object from the Phobos base down to the Mars base.. but in the process of transporting the object, the robotixx machine started to lose battery power! that wasn't what we had anticipated.. but I think we did fine anyway.. we did better that some groups.. As for the catapult, the object kept barely missing the rover's basket.. At my base (Mars Base) things were busy with talking to the other bases and figuring out missing parts and which base they'd go to/ which base had them. I thought overall, it went well and I liked it! : )

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Today, Hannah decided to make the basket for the robot while I continued to grapple with the programming and the robot. I think the program worked better today and went a little smoother.. but I think I'll still work on it in homework center to work out anything else that might be wrong with it. I'm a little worried about the actual mini culmination because we haven't practiced all the programs working together and today was the last in class day. But I talked to people in other groups, and they said they hadn't practiced either.. Not to say that's an excuse.. We still don't have the basket done, even though my partner was supposed to work on it the whole class.. (which was kind of frustrating..) I think things will work ok for mini culmination.. And, I've come to the conclusion on the robot, that as long as it goes straight, and goes from base to base, when it it needs to turn around, instead of the robot doing it, the person at the base can simply turn it around and restart it in the other direction.. I think it would work better because even though the rover is programmed to turn around on it's own, it has trouble with it, given the surface it's on (I think).. And instead of wasting time and waiting for the rover to turn itself around and go back, we can just pick it up, turn it around, and send it back. I'm not too worried about the culmination..


PS. I made a basket in homework center with legos.. even though it's not that big, I think it should be fine..

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Today, I worked on programming the robot and using the light censor. My partner didn't really seem to understand how things worked, so I did a lot of explaining and stuff along with trying to focus on programming. Most of class, I worked alone while my partner floated between other groups. I asked a lot of questions and fixed a lot of stuff with the robot.. I didn't realize how much more complicated my program was going to be! My program was made up of 2 loops.. One loop was the motion of going forward and keeping on the black line.. The other loop was once it reached the end of the white line, it would turn around and go back on the same line. The thing I'm having problems with now is getting the robot to start.. It takes either a few minutes of waiting for it to start, or flipping through each of the 5 programs to get the robot running before my program will start. It's a little annoying sometimes because of that. I'm still going to work on it in homework center to see if I can get it to start any faster and to work more on the second loop of the program. ( the turning around and then going straight.) I feel very stressed out right now because I feel like I'm not getting as much help as I'd like from my partner and my team.. but, I'm going to stick with it and see where this will take me..

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Today, Hannah and Lucy switched AGAIN. So, Hannah's my partner again.. We messed around with the program a little more.. And got it working a little better. We still had a little trouble with the program once it was uploaded. For example, we would upload it, and it would tell us it would be on one of the programs, and when we ran it, it wasn't on any of the programs... After we asked Bert, Hannah and I got it running again, but it was running really slow. So we decided to take out the rods fastened to the sides of the bot because it seemed like the rubber tread was rubbing against the rods, making it turn slower. After this change, things were moving much better... The only problem, we later realized, was that when we were fixing it and securing things down, sometimes the rover would kind of break and collapse! So, between programming, we also were fixing and stabilizing the rover. Soon, another class was coming to an end and there's still a lot of work to be done. And again, I'll be working more on it in homework center..

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Today, Lucy and Hannah traded jobs, so now Lucy's my partner.. We decided it would be easier to use a color censor instead of guessing times and speeds. What the color censor would do is: We can program it to follow the black line, and when it hits white, stop, turn, and get back on the black line. It was working fairly well on this loop that we were testing it on until, our rover ran out of battery power and we had to change batteries.. After that, things started going down hill.. Whenever we tried loading our program on the rover, it wouldn't upload it, or it would make us download this program that took like 10-15 minutes to download. After trying to download our program onto the rover multiple times, and downloading some other program onto the computer twice, class was coming to an end and both Lucy and I were frustrated with it. After school I'm going to work on the robot program more to see if I can get it to work any better. I wonder why it won't work!?!

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oh gosh... I'm a little behind on this.. ( I didn't know we were supposed to be blogging this) So here I go.. I'm in the mini culmination group A1 and I'm working with Hannah to program the lego robot to go 15 feet.. stop, turn around, and go back. Today, I started to do a program after we had a group meeting to divide up tasks.. I'm also going to be a communications person at one of the bases.. The only thing I think is going to be hard about the robot programming, is figuring out the time for it to go from one place to another and at what power level. That's it for today!

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Today, Hannah, Lucy, and I did the robotixx lab. We built a robot that used a crane to pick up some wire.. And on the other end, we had a sort of pincher thing that was able to grab larger objects. We also attached wheels so it could move back and forth. It took a while to work but once we got it, things went smoothly. I thought it was really fun to see al the different things we could do to build it. I was surprised at how many different parts there were to use for building. I was also surprised at how easy it was once you get started. This relates to the robotics key point because it takes many smaller motions to create a larger action!!

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Today, Anna, Lena and I did the recovery lab where we made a parachute that had to create the most drag possible! After a little while of thinking, we decided that we would have two layers of the plastic: the under layer and the top layer.
Under layer: has a small-ish hole in the center just like in some parachutes they have a hole in the middle to create drag.
The Top layer: is smooth (has no holes) and is a little larger than the other layer to catch more air.

Then, after that test, we realized we needed to support it so it wouldn't collapse on itself. Then we lined it with tape in lines going outward from the center of the "under layer" and also made a border of tape. This time, it seemed to work best. It still fell rather quickly, but we all noticed it having more drag than the last time, and especially rather than just dropping the object with out the parachute!! Something I was kinda surprised by was how much more challenging it was to create maximum drag.. it seemed easier said than done in some parts! This lab related to Newton's 3rd law (every object has an equal and opposite reaction) because the parachute's weight is pulling it down, but the air is going against the parachute (the air is headed up) so it will create drag for the parachute and give it an equal and opposite reaction!!

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Today Lucy, Kayla, and I did the lab, Launching from the Moon. We had to used balloons and a straw to get some random objects up to the top of the string. We also had to keep track of the cost and budgeting too. First we tried launching just the straw with the balloon and it worked on the second try. Next, we tried launching this foam ball and and it didn't work.. even when we tried two balloons! Then we tried a ping pong ball with a paper towel roll and 2 balloons. that didn't work either.... Eventually, the balloons would stop deflating because it was almost like they got melted around the end and would stick together. It wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be. But I guess I was also a little surprised on how little we spent on our supplies.. we only spent money on one balloon.. but I guess we did spend money for having failing missions too... but it wasn't as high in price as I thought it would be. : )

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Today, Cecilia, Hannah, and I did the lab remote repairs. We each got 2 bags: one bag with a finished product, one bag with a bunch of parts. Over Google Talk, we IM-ed and figured out who had which parts and which model. I had Cece's finished product and I think Cecilia also had my finished model. It was a lot more challeging than I thought to tell my partner exactly how to build it w/o being able to show them anything!! I never got to build my model because I was helping cece help her's the whole time! It was really fun and I learned a lot about what are some effective ways of how to explain things.

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Today Emma M., Amalia, and I did the Thrust Structures Lab. In the lab, we did not get to finish because we spent a lot of time doing the launch pad. We had a few different approaches of how to build it and in the end we were going to combine all of our ideas My idea was to make triangles (the strongest shape) with the popsicle sticks and then make a square and stack them up like a (very) short tower such as: triangle, square, triangle square.. etc. so it would be very strong and rather light. Mine held up through our "strength test" of throwing it either against the wall or the ground 3-4 times and seeing how well it held up. My structure never broke and was really light, which sort-of surprised me.. So, I guess I learned that things that are light and built the right way can actually be quite strudy.. which I'm sure would also have payed off in a real launch pad as well. **This relates to Newtons 3rd law because it states that there is always an equal and opposite reaction and the launch pad that we make, has to put as strong of a force up, as the sandbag's/wood's force is coming down!

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