Damon

4.8.12 Entry 1:

What you need to know about sending a rover to Mars:

// Ms. Mc: Good facts about Mars and its conditions. Also, good additions from our class discussion. Where is you. 10/10. //
 * Mars and the Earth each orbit at different speeds around the sun, so you would have to send the rover to mars when the Earth and Mars are the closest to each other (launch window happens every 2 years, and lasts for about 2 weeks)
 * The gravity of Mars is 36% to earth's, so the escape and entry formulas for the rockets will be different.
 * When landing the rover, you need a safe landing spot. This includes: no outrageously big rocks and a fairly flat surface so that when landing the rover, the equipment will not be damaged
 * Mars has a lot of dust / sand storms, which may cause a bad landing
 * need enough fuel to escape the Earth's atmosphere
 * mars has long seasons (-125*C to 25*C)
 * heat shields need to be very heat / cold resistant
 * Mars has two moons, so you have to steer clear of them

4.8.12

Entry 2:

The hero engine was invented in 100 B.C. by a Greek inventor named Hero of Alexandria. Water was stored in a large pot, and heated up by a fire below the pot. Some of the water vapor that was produced by the boiling water went into two L shaped tubes going into a sphere also with two smaller tubes coming out of it. These two smaller tubes are faced in opposite directions, so when the water vapor escapes the sphere, the sphere, it turns (in a direction veering in which way each smaller L shaped tubes are facing).

The Chinese were the first to invent rockets. They invented them in the first century A.D. They invented gunpowder, and used to fill hollowed out bamboo sticks and put them in the fire at holidays or religious events. In 1232, when the Mongols and the Chinese were at war, the Chinese mounted the bamboo sticks onto arrows, and shot them at the Mongols. It was very effective in killing off the opponents. They soon learned that it was more effective and accurate to launch the rockets off of a vertical tube. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was a Russian schoolteacher who published a book at the age of 46 that suggested that you should use liquid fuel instead of solid fuels to fuel rockets. 23 years after Tsiolkovsky's book was published, on March 16, 1926, Robert H. Goddard achieved Tsiolkovsky's dream of making and flying a liquid fueled rocket. The rocket went up 12.6 meters, and landed 56 meters away. This was important because the methods that was used in Goddard's rocket is still used today.

Ms. Mc: Good summary of the history of rocketry up to the beginning of the 20th century but what about after that? (-2). Great drawings! Please include captions under them (-1) and refer to them in your writing ("as seen in Figure 1"). Good overall, just missing a couple of things. 7/10

4.8.12

Entry 3:

media type="custom" key="14081146" Instructions: 1. turn on sound 2. press spacebar 3. do not run in Opera Web Browser 4. if widget does not work, click the link below the widget or download it below

Download Link:

Matt- you have a good rocket in your video, next time you might want to look over your spelling and puncuation, overall you did a great job. Q Train- I liked the fire on your rocket, make sure the speed of your rocket is the same throughout or almost the same. Great job though!

Entry 4:

The first part of the rocket, and one of the most important in terms of aerodynamic thinking is the nose cone. On this rocket, it has about a 1 cm diameter, and about 1 inch long. On almost any aerodynamic vehicle, there is a nose cone, may it be ending in a point, or a large curve. It is shaped in a curve because when flying, the air will wrap around the nosecone, and onto the rocket in a more preferred shape. The second part of a rocket is the body tube. This is almost always just a long tube. On my rocket, it has a diameter of about 1.5 cm. After the air goes around the nosecone, it goes to the body tube. Inside the body tube is the landing, or recovery system. This system consists of just a parachute, on my rocket, but sometimes has more complicated devices in other vehicles. The wadding is what seperates the burning engine from the landing system. This wadding is just un-burnable paper. The fins are on the outside of the vehicle. They make the rocket fly straight.



//Ms. Mc: Good job on the parts you defined. You didn't say what the motor mount does (-1/2 pt). nor labe or definte the moto (-1). Don't forget to put captions under your figures, graphs, tables, etc. (-1). Also, when you insert your file, you need to have your cursor exactly where you want your figure, table, graph, etc. to go. This picture was up under entry #2 so I moved it down here for you. Finally, don't forget to include the date for your entry (-1/2). 7/10//

Entry 5:

The Atlas V 541 rocket is 191.2 ft tall with a diameter of 12.49 ft. Its mass before launching is 1,170,250 pounds. It was chosen to carry the rover to mars because it has served sucsessfully before on another mission. Each Atlas rocket has an ID of three letters: the first is what the diamiter of the rocket is in meters. In this case it is 5. The second diget is the number of solid rocket boosters it contains, and in this case is 4. The third number is the number of rocket boosters in name was devised with three numbers The first notible part of the rocket are the solid rocket boosers. There are four of them, and are used up in 94 sec.



//Ms. Mc - good general overview but you left out some details such as what the functions of the SRBs and nosecone are (-1). You also didn't identify the common core booster or the Centaur engine as main parts of the rocket (-1). Finally, the third # in the name, "541," stands for 1 Centaur engine. Please be sure to add a caption when you upload your files and refer to the figure specifically with the figure # in your text (-1). Also, please include the date and a title with each entry. Please write your entries in Word so you can spell check them before posting. 7/10//

Prompt 6: A rocket

The pourpose of this experiment was to figure out which rocket would fly higher: lighter or heavier. This is a diagram of the rocket sitting on the launching pad with nothing happening to it. The force of gravity is pulling the rocket down, and is equal to the force that is pushing the rocket away from the launching pad. The mass of the rocket affects this because heavier rockets have greater gravity.
 * INTRODUCTION**

In this diagram, the rocket is going through liftoff. The engines of the rocket are thrusting on the launching pad, and the force of gravity is no longer equal to the force of the thrust and the launching pad, so the rocket rises. The rocket could have a heavier mass and not enough fuel, so it might not lift off the ground.



This diagram shows from where the rocket first experiences liftoff to where the rocket goes through earth’s atmosphere. This is called powered flight. The force pushing the rocket down is no longer one force, but two forces. The new force helping gravity out is air resistance. This is the air particles pushing against the rocket as it goes through the air. Fortunately, the thrust of the rocket provides enough force to keep the rocket hurtling upwards. The heavier the rocket is, the slower it will fly, and it might not achive a higher apogee than the lighter rocket.



It was hypothesized that lighter rockets will have a higher apogee if the fuel for each rocket is the same due to gravity pulling the ship down. If the rocket has a larger mass, it will be more vulnerable to gravity, and gravity will pull the craft down back to earth easier and faster. If the fuel for the heavier rocket was far greater than the fuel for the lighter rocket, the heavier rocket may have a better chance of achieving a higher apogee because it may overwhelm the force of gravity, and continue accelerating upwards. Without this thrust, it may not move off the launching pad even.

In table one, eight different rockets were launched with around the same temperature and wind. They each had different weights, but the same engine. It was previously hypothisysed that the graph would probably an inverse scale, and the hypothisys was right. Some of the low outliers are due to engine failures. The engines either fell out or did not work to the fullest. Two numbers that represent a inverse line on this graph would be 67.5 and 57.7 as they are connected while going down.

Prompt 7:



//Ms. Mc - good initial thoughts. You also were to discuss the locations of the CP and CG relative to each other and how that would affect the rocket's apogee (-1/2). I didn't see how the fins were placed differently according your your diagram (-1/2). Plase don't take a snip of the whole entry - just do one for your images and type up the text. Your title should reflect what is in your diagram. 4/5//

Prompt 8: 5.2.12 NEW: The history of robotics dates back to around 100 B.C. to modern day. The equipment in these time periods include simple water engines to modern day rovers on Mars. The first recorded mechanism that is related to robotics would be the Hero Engine. This engine was invented by a Greek scientist named Hero. Though all it did was evaporate water, the Hero Engine was the base of all steam engines throughout the years. Another device that was made early on was Leonardo’s Robot. This device had lots of gears that made the robot move like a person. This was a scientific breakthrough, and inspired lots of people. From then to now were the inventions of automobiles, steamships, aircraft, and rockets that took humans to the moon.

All of modern technology involving robotics started in the early 1900s when the industrial revolution struck. The industrial revolution was the when steam engines were first created. People boiled water to make steam. This steam could move different things to make the machine work. This sparked about everything that you see today. Robotics is defined as a branch of technology that relates to robots, which are machines with moving parts. Every bit of machine you see today involves moving parts in it. This includes a car’s pistons moving, or a jet’s engines motor turning

OLD (ONLY HISTORY OF ROVERS):

//Ms Mc - good general overview of robotics. Missing detail between Davinci's robot to modern day (-1). Don't forget to specifically refer to your figures in your text (i.e., "as seen in Fig. 1") and discuss them in your text (-1). 8/10//

Prompt 9:



Prompt 10:

This rover challange was to make the lego mindstorms rover go across the table after the word 'go', and then stop at the edge. (What was it to say when it stopped? -1/2) This would be helpful on mars because you would need for the rover not to run off of a cliff that was not seen before hand from earth.

media type="file" key="AQ_Video.AVI" width="300" height="300" Video 1 - rover stopping on the edge of the table after 'go' is said



1. wait 2 sec 2. when the robot hears a sound greater than a certian frequency, go on (How much sound and to what port is the sound sensor connected? -1) 3. move foward unlimeted (What ports are the servomotors connected to and what percentage of power? -1) 4. sence the edge of the table (What port? What sensor? How much light? -1) 5. stop (What ports? By braking or coasting?) 6. says watch out (What type of block? What volume? How many times? -1)

//Ms. Mc - good in general but needed more details; 15.5/20 - 10% (2 pts) late = 13.5/20//

Prompt 11:

There could be life on mars that we do not know about because of a couple reasons. The first reason being the 3 fundemental things needed in life which are liquid water, some source of energy, and organics, which there is evidance of all three. There at least was and proably is liquid water becuase of salt that was found on the surface, which can only form in liquid water. There is, of course was energy, and is due to volcanos on the surface, and solar rays. There also might have been organics because the rover Spirit looked at a rock, and there was a microbe looking particle (see figure 1). (Actually, this photo is of a meteorite from Mars that was found on Earth. It is disputed as to whether these are fossilized microbes or could have been created by non-biological means though. -1/2).

A micro-organism is a living thing that is made up of only a couple cells. To be a living thing you have to:

1. be made of cells 2. they grow 3. have life spans (not one of the 8) 4. they can reproduce 5. they respond to their enviroments 6. adapt 7. need materials 8. homeostatic (-1/2)



-1/2 didn't refer to fig. 2. You also were to discuss how you would classify a specimen from Mars as either living, dead, dormant, or non-living (-1). 7.5/10