Kaelin

4/9/2012 log entry #1 Facts About Mars You Need to Know in Order to Get a Rover Safely There
 * Needs to be rust-proof as mars' atmosphere constrains trace amounts of oxygen which will oxidize iron
 * Covered in craters and volcanoes (hundreds of thousands)- need to pick a smooth landing site
 * Need to know mars; orbit in order to line up with it
 * Mars has huge dust storms that could damage the rover
 * Mars has seasons due to its tilt- need to point rover at sun in order to collect solar energy
 * Mars is cold (-125 degrees C to 25 degrees C
 * Its takes 214 days to get there (about 7 months)
 * Need to launch when planets are close so we don’t need as much rocket fuel.
 * Has 2 moons do need to steer clear of them
 * Rover needs to be able to steer around the terrain; able to move over rocky and sandy surface
 * Launch window occurs every 2 years launch to where mars will be at the time the rocket would arrive at mars

//Ms. Mc: good facts about Mars and its conditions. They all seem to have come from our class discussion, however. Where is your original work? (-3). Also, please capitalize Mars as it's a proper noun. 7/10 //

log entry #2 The history of rocketry summary

The Chinese started to discover rocketry with gunpowder-filled tubes that they attached to arrows. They had used these for religious ceremonies. But when the Chinese discovered that the escaping gas from the tube could launch itself, the true rocket was created. This was often used for warfare against Mongol invaders. Although it was not necessarily accurate, but it took a toll on their confidence.

The first time that any one actually thought of using rockets for space travel was first thought of by a Russian school teacher named Konstantin Tsiolkovisky. At the time, this seemed insane and a goal out of reach, he received a lot of teasing from other people. He had suggested the use of liquid propellants instead of solid like gun powder. Although he had the idea, an American Robert H. Goddard was the first to make it <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> work. The first successful flight was on march 16, 1926. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Because of the hard work of many people, space exploration has become more than just a silly dream. Now NASA allows America to find out more about the surrounding universe. This was made because the USA was concerned by Russia's satellite. They were worried because this meant that Russia might be able to spy on the united states in the future with a satellite. Although the satellite only transmitted radio signals, America had to do something fast. And then, NASA was created and soon was sending rovers, rockets, and many more things to explore and make breakthroughs about the universe.

// Ms. Mc: good overview of the main contributions to rocketry. Although you drew a picture of Hero's engine, you didn't discuss this in your writing (-1). Also missing the V2 rockets. (-1) Good drawings. Please refer to your figures in your text (i.e., "as seen in Figure 1"). 8/10 //

4/9/2012 log entry #3 Scratch Rocket Simulation media type="custom" key="14055578" press the green flag, turn up your volume, watch, and enjoy :)

Ruhi- I really liked you creative speech bubbles when your rocket was talking! It was very cute! You might want to capitalize some of the words that need to be capitalized though. Overall, I really liked your project, especially the Ice Cream truck being your rover :).

Remi- I really enjoyed your popsicle/ ice cream themed rocket. Your speech bubbles might want to be alittle more detailed and capitalize the words in the speech bubbles. Overall, I thought your rocket was very cute!

4/16/2012 log entry #4 Parts of a Rocket

<span style="color: #ff0047; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 18pt;">The rocket includes 8 parts that all contribute to the success the rocket has when in flight. A rocket always has a nose cone, this helps make the rocket aerodynamic and therefore making it easier to fly. The rocket also has a body tube. This helps keep all of the parts inside together. Also on the outside of the rocket, there are fins, that’s helps guide the rocket. The launch lug also helps guide the rocket up. Another part of the rocket is the rocket's motor, this propels the rocket and helps it lift off the ground. On the inside of the rocket, there is a motor mount which helps the motor stay in place during flight. There is also a recovery system that makes it possible for the rocket to land safely. The last thing that is inside of the rocket is the recovery wadding. This protects the recovery system to ensure that the rocket lands safely.

// Ms. Mc: great definitions and labels! 10/10 //

4/18/2012 log entry #5 Atlas V-541 Rocket

As seen in figure 1, the atlas v-541 rocket is very large. Its about 191 feet tall and weighs about 1.17 million pounds. There are many parts that make up the V-541 rocket, but some major things are, the atlas v rocket, solid rocket motors, centaur, and the payload fairing. The atlas v rocket powers the rocket into the earth’s orbit with its duel and oxygen tanks that feed the engine. The solid rocket motors are used to increase the amount of thrust. The centaur is also used to help it accelerate out of earth's atmosphere and then on its way to mars. The last major part is the payload fairing. This nose cone not only protects the rocket while its flying out of earth's atmosphere, but it also helps it become aerodynamic making it easier for it to get out of the atmosphere. Even though this does make the rocket heavy, it’s not as heavy as most rockets and this provides the velocity that it needs to break away from earth’s gravity. It also has the right liftoff capability taking the heavy weight requirements into the picture.

Ms. Mc: very good overview and photo. Please capitalize Earth and Mars as they are proper nouns. Don't forget to give the files you upload a caption with a # and title (-1). 9/10

4/26/2012 log entry #6 Summary

The purpose of this experiment was to build a rocket and test to see how high each group could make it fly. Many variables came into the picture while deciding precisely how to build it. One of these variables and a large concern was the forces acting upon it as the rocket struggles to move higher. When the rocket’s engines are lit they have to be strong enough to break its own inertia. Inertia is Newton’s second law that basically states that objects are lazy. Objects in motion want to stay in motion, and objects at rest like to stay at rest. Then once it starts to move upward, the force of gravity and air resistance try to slow it down, which the engines thrust needs to help break through. Hopefully, with a well-shaped nose cone the air resistance will not hold the rocket back too much. A good nose cone consists of a couple things, a slick surface, and a cone- like aerodynamic shape. This will help the rocket cut through the air instead of trying to push against air resistance. Another variable that was considered was the mass of the rocket. It was hypothesized that the less mass the rocket had, the easier it would be for the engine to lift it off the ground and break the force of gravity. It was thought that this would happen because if there is less mass to the rocket, than it will take less propellant to cause it to move. With all of these things taken into account the rocket’s apogee would have been able to soar above the others because it will make it easier for the rocket to cut through the air.



In all, nine rockets were tested. There are many things that could have affected the rockets apogee, including human error. As shown in graph 1, the lightest rocket weighed 42.8 grams and the heaviest weighed 46.5 grams. The average weight was about 44.1 grams. The apogee ranged from about 18 meters to 120 meters, or an average apogee of 75.5 meters. Also as seen in graph 1, there is a clear inverse relationship. You can see that as the mass of the rocket becomes more and more, the lower the rocket flies. Not counting the outlier, the heaviest rocket flew the lowest. It flew under 60 meters while the rest were pretty high above. Another example that shows that there is an inverse relationship is the lightest rocket weighing 42.8 grams flew the highest. This clearly shows that having a lighter rocket helps it fly higher.

Fin Re-design


As seen in figure 1, the fins on the rocket were changed from straight to curved. It was thought that the curved fins would allow the air to flow off of it, allowing less air resistance to slow it down. The number of fins and the placement was kept the same because this would keep the rocket stable and keep it from spinning. The mass of the first rocket was about 45.9 grams while the second rocket weighed 45.3 grams. This could have played a part in how high the rocket's apogee was. When the engines were lit, the first rocket flew 53.2 meters, while the second rocket only flew 39.4 meters. This shows that what was hypothesis was wrong. Since the mass was fairly close to the first rocket, and so was the placement of fins, it was most likely the shape of the fins that determined how high the rocket flew. It was proved that the fins cutting through the air (straight fins) were better than the air flowing off of them (curved fins).

5/3/12 log entry #8 History of Robots

The world has been interested in robots off all sorts since early on in history, even as early as 200 BC. Technology has changed from when robots were first used to now. Because of this there is a large difference in how robots are made. The earliest known time that there have been studies of flight was from a Greek mathematician, Archaism. He built a mechanical bird powered by steam engine that serves as the first model plane. As time goes on, more and more people think of the possibilities of robots, including Greek philosopher Aristotle. In 1738, Jacques de Vaucanson started to build automata in Grenoble. He builds three in all, but one of these was a mechanical duck. This duck quacked, flapped it wings, and could even digest food.

While there were not too many inventions, in the 1900's things began to pick up. First, robots were brought up in plays, movies and later in short stories. Through the early 1900's there is a lot of talk about robots. Robots began to star in many movies including Metropolis and the day the earth stood still.

In 1970 the movies came to life when a scientist designed a robot arm called the Stanford arm. This arm is still influencing the way robot arms are created today. As time passes little things change such as adding motors to the arm, making it faster. And soon enough they were sending the robots into the sky from the Kennedy space center.

Even though all of these accomplishments are important probably the most impressive things happened in the late 1900's and 2000's. This is because of the mass of robots being sent by NASA to explore space. Some of these robots are Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity. These three robots all were sent to Mars to help us know our universe a little bit better.

//<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Ms. Mc - good general overview, however, you were to include 2 figures and refer to them in your text (-3). I like how you included the Mars rovers. What are robots primarily used for today? (-1/2) 6.5/10 //

log entry #10 5/17/2012 on the edge

media type="file" key="ker_ontheedge.AVI" width="300" height="300" video 1: On the Edge Challenge

General description of the challenge? -2



The first block is a sound sensor, it is like a microphone once it hears a sound it tells the robot to start the next thing. (What port and what level of sound? -1). The second block is a movement block that tells the robot to move forward 1 rotation. (Actually, it tells the rover to more forward indefinitely. -1/2 What port? -1/2) The third block is a light sensor block. This tells the light sensor on the front of the robot to look for a difference in color (the blue duct tape). (What port and how much light? -1/2). Once it senses this tape, it puts the fourth block into action. The fourth block tells the robot to stop once it senses the change in light. This is what caused the robot to stop before it fell off the edge. (By braking or coasting? -1/2) The last block is a noise (sound) block. This block tells the robot to say “Watch Out” before it is over. (How loudly? -1/2)

Ms. Mc - good overall but missing some details. 14.5/20

Log Entry #11

There are many reasons why there could or could not be life on mars. Some people think that there couldn’t be, and other think that there could. In order for something to be alive it has to have the 8 characteristics of life, non- living things can have some of these things, but if it is living it has to have all 8. These 8 characteristics are that an organism must respond to stimuli, reproduce, be able to grow, be made up of cells, need materials, be homeostatic, take in energy, be able to adapt to its environment and it must have a genetic code. To test if there could be life on mars they sent the Viking rovers. These were sent with the tools needed to see if the bacteria on mars were truly alive. These tests came back as negative, showing that there could not be life, but with new discoveries scientists realized that live can surivie in more harsh conditions then they had ever thought. Thoughts of mars and earth sharing materials began to rise. Scientist found signs of life in a Martian meteorite. (This is disputed now though.) It was thought that mars was hit by a very large meteorite that could have interfered with the life on the planet. While taking a large chunk of mars, the meteorite may have also ripped apart mar’s atmosphere. In order for something to be alive, it must have all 8 characteristics of a living thing. Some organisms on mars but not all are quite alive. For example something can be dormant. For something to be dormant it means that it was once alive, and that now it does not have all 8 characteristics, but if put back in original circumstances then it would become alive once more. If something is non-living it might have a few of the characteristics of life, but it is not alive and never will be. If something is dead it used to have the characteristics of life but it will never be alive again. Many tests could be run to see if something is living, dead, non-living, or dormant. Some tests that scientists would perform are seeing if the microbes would grow and reproduce and in what environments. Then, research would be made to see if these types of environments could be on Mars. Then scientist would try to recreate the environment to see if the microbes had a chance of growing on mars.





//Ms. Mc - good general overview of the space explorations. What have the rovers found with respect to life on Mars? (-1/2) Your figures are good except I believe the first one is of one of Mars' moons. You didn't give the second one a caption nor refer to either of them in your text (-1). Good discussion of the 8 characteristics of life and how you would classify an organism from Mars as either alive, dead, dormant or non-living. 8.5/10//