Remi

Facts about Mars
= Needs to be rust-proof as Mars' atmosphere contains trace amounts of oxygen which will oxidize iron =

= Mars' surface is covered in craters(hundreds of thousands) =

= Need to know Mars' orbit in order to line up with it. =

= Mars has huge dust storms that could damage the rover so need to be able to withstand lots of dust =

= Mars has seasons due its tilt so need to point rover at sun in order to collect solar energy. =

= Need to store energy for the winter =

= Mars is cold(-125 to 25 degrees C) so rover needs to withstand cold temperatures =

= Takes 214 days or about 7 months to get to Mars =

= Need to launch when planets are close so we don't need as much rocket fuel. =

= Mars has 2 moons so need to steer clear of them =

= Rover need to be able to steer around terrain; able to move over rocky and sandy surfaces =

= 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 but these all came from our class discussion. Where is your original work? (-3) 7/10 =

History of Rocketry
In 100 B.C. one of the first devices to successfully employ the principles that are essential to rocket flight was created. This device was called an aeolipie. A Greek inventor named Hero of Alexandria used steam as a propulsive gas. A sphere was mounted on top of a water kettle and a fire was started below. The fire caused the water to change to steam and the steam traveled through the pipes to the sphere making it rotate. Later in time, the Chinese started employed rockets by using a form of gunpowder made from saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal dust. Some of the tubes might have failed to explode and instead propelled forward.

In 1898, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky a Russian school teacher proposed the idea of space exploration by a rocket. He proposed to use liquid propellants so the rockets could reach greater distances. Tsiolkovsky is now called father of modern astronautics because of his ideas, careful research and great vision. During the same time period of Konstantin’s idea, American Robert H. Goddard conducted practical experiments in rocketry. On March 16th, Goddard had his first successful flight with a liquid propellant. Goddard’s inventions and experiments led him to be called the Father of Modern Rocketry.

Later in the 20th century, A German named Verein fur raumschiffahrt created the V-2 rocket. The purpose of this rocket was that it was used as a weapon that could devastate whole city blocks. After all this history of rockets, NASA was formed. NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA became a civilian agency with the goal of peaceful exploration of space for the benefit of all humankind.



//Ms. Mc: Great overall summary of the history of rocketry! Missing V2 rockets (-1). Good drawings too! Please refer to your figures in your text (i.e., "as seen in"). 9/10//

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Scratch Rocket Flight Simulation
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Instructions to run simulation

Ben- Liked your Halloween theme. You needed to your text stay on screen longer. But in the end I really like you simulation.

Mac- I thought you idea for scratch was very creative! I thought that you could have slowed it down a little more, but you did a great job!

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[[image:cascience7-2012/rms_rocketphoto_2.JPG caption="Figure 1. Rocket Photo"]]
In the model rocket above all of the parts have a different functions. For example, the nose cone guides the airflow away from the rocket. The body tube is the main structure of the rocket. It is what contains all the parts that are inside the rocket. A piece inside the rocket is the recovery system. The recovery system is used to keep the rocket in tact and to get it back safely to earth. Another piece that is inside the rocket is the recovery wadding. The wadding helps protect the recovery system from hot ejection gases. At the bottom of the rocket is the launch lug, the launch lug is what guides the rocket straight off the launch pad into the sky. The fins are what keeps the rocket flying straight. Beside the fins is the motor mount, the motor mount is what holds the motor in The motor is the piece that a rocket needs to fly. Without a motor there would be no flight.

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

The Atlas V-541 Rocket
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The Atlas V-541 Rocket
The Atlas V541 rocket is about 1.17 million pounds and is 191 feet high. The Atlas V541 rocket is a launch vehicle. Launch vehicles are what can take a rover to mars. The Atlas V541 rocket provides the velocity that it needs to escape earth's atmosphere and to set it on the course to Mars. The rocket also has the right liftoff capability for the heavy weight requirements. This being said the Atlas V541 rocket is capable of carrying the Rover Curiosity to Mars. The rocket is made up of a nose cone, four solid rocket boosters, a central common core booster and a one engine Centaur upper stage. You can see all the parts above in figure 1. The central common core booster is used to power the engine into Earth orbit. The four solid rocket boosters are also add thrust to this first stage in liftoff. During the lift the nose cone and the motors have come off and the rocket is ready to just coast until it gets to Mars.

// Ms. Mc: good overview of the launch vehicle. What does the Centaur engine due? (-1/2). Please capitalize Earth and Mars as they are proper nouns. You do not need to include the word "diagram" in your caption as it already has "figure" in it. 9.5/10 //

Rocket Launch Lab Write Up
Rocket Launch Lab The purpose of the Rocket Launch Lab experiment was to construct your own rocket and test to see which rocket would fly the highest.Also the purpose of the experiment was to determine the relationship between the mass vs. the apogee. While doing the experiment the forces that could have been acting on the rocket were considered. It was hypothesized that the rocket would fly higher with less mass. It was hypothesized that the rocket would fly higher with less mass because the more mass an object has the more thrust is needed to make it move. Thrust is the act of the rocket getting pushed on to get the rocket to move. More thrust is needed because of gravity and the air resistance acting on the rocket. Gravity affects the rocket because it is the force that pulls objects down to the center of mass. Air resistance is the force to an object when the object is falling. When the rocket lifts off is when the rockets engines turn on and starts to fly. The rocket continues to be in powered flight until the fuel is burned out. Powered flight is when the rocket still has fuel that the rocket didn’t use during ignition and is pushing the rocket up. With a lot of thrust getting put upon the rocket the rocket would only fly so high because the thrust would have burned out. Once the thrust runs out of the rocket, the rocket is just floating on inertia. Inertia is the act of an object not wanting to change what is happening. Interia is also known as “laziness” of an object. For example, if the rocket was moving the rocket would want to keep moving due to inertia. The rocket just floating on interia is also known as coasting.The lighter the rocket the more fuel is kept because the less thrust that is needed. This affects the apogee because when the thrust burns out the more fuel is left for the rocket to use. This affects the apogee because the heavier rockets dont have this extra fuel. The higher the rocket flies the higher the apogee is. The apogee is important to be high because that is the highest point in the rockets journey.



After conducting the Rocket Launch Lab experiment the data and results were looked at. The mass of the rockets were taken into consideration on how high the apogee was. As seen in graph number 1 all of the masses of the rockets were in the 40s. When looking at the graph, an inverse relationship is being shown. It is an inverse relationship because it shows that the higher the mass of the rocket the lower the rocket flew and the lower the mass was the higher the rocket flew. The lowest of all the masses was 42.8 grams and the highest was 45.9 grams. When the data that was collected for the apogee was looked at the range of the apogees was 18.5 meters to 107.24 meters.The rocket that was 42.8 grams went the highest with 107.24 meters but the rocket with 45.9 grams didn’t go the lowest. The rocket that went the lowest was 43.4 grams it was thought to be an outlier. The rocket was thought to have been an outlier because there could have been an angle gun error. Also there was another rocket that was 42.8 grams but didn’t go the same apogee that the other rocket with 42.8 grams went. The rocket went 37 meters lower. The data was explained because the rocket veered to the left while in flight. Therefore the hypothesis statement was mostly correct. Regarding the facts that the rocket could have been put together wrong or the fact that the rocket twisted/turned in flight, the rocket with the lowest amount of mass flew higher than the rockets with the most amount of mass.

Rocket Fin Design


As seen in figure #1 the fin design we are using is that the rocket will have 3 fins with a rounded edge. We are using 3 fins with a rounded edge because we believe that it would make it more stable. We also believe that it would prevent air resistance.

After launching the newly designed rocket the mass and the apogee was compared to the first rocket. The first rocket without any changes to the fins was 45.9 grams and the apogee was 53.2 meters. The second rocket was the rocket with the newly designed fins that were curved was weighed and the new mass was 45.3 grams which is actually lower then the mass of the rocket with the regular designed fins. The apogee of the new rocket was 39.4 meters. The new apogee was lower then the last apogee. The factors that were taken into consideration in the second launch was that the fins on the rocket might not have been placed directly where they needed to be. We tried to eliminate the drag by using the curved fins to make the flight have more stability.

History of Robotics
Robotics has been an interest of humans since early on in history. The robots have been created as early as 350 B.C. The first robot is dated back to 350 B.C. when a scientist named Archytas of Tarentum built a mechanical bird that was powered by steam. This bird served as one of history's earliest studies of flight. The bird was known as “the pigeon.” Later in 200 B.C the Greek inventor and physicist Ctesibus of Alexandria created water clocks that have movable figures on them. The water clocks were used for time pieces. The next out break for robots happened in 1495 when Leonardo DaVinci designed a mechanical device that looked like an armored knight. DaVinci's robot to make the armor to move like there was a real person inside. As seen in figure 1, the robot looked like a knight and was used to entertain royalty.

Later, In 1738 Jacques de Vaucanson began to build automata in Grenoble, France. He built three total. His first was the flute player that could play twelve songs. The next was his second hat played a flute and a drum or tambourine, but by far his third was the most famous of them all. It was the duck. The duck was an example of Vaucanson's attempt at what he called "moving anatomy", or modeling human or animal anatomy with mechanics." The duck moved, quacked, flapped it's wings and even ate and digested food.

As we start to get into the 1900’s in history new inventions are started to be discovered. Robots are starting to be used in all sorts of things. New inventions are continued to be created. For example, the Robotuna to study how a fish swims is created. As shown in figure 2, the Robotuna is designed to look like a fish to mimic the fish’s swimming patterns. Robots are also now being launched from the Kennedy Space Center and are going all the way to Mars. As you see robots started small but formed into something that is very important today.



//Ms. Mc - good general overview and figures. What are robots primarily used for today? (-1/2). I like how you included the Mars Rovers. Insert your figures after the paragraph in which you discuss them. 9.5/10 //

Robotics Video
"On the Edge" was a Lego Mindstorms Robotics challenge. In the challenge "On the Edge" you tried to get your robot to go until it detected a dark line and then the robot would stop, preventing it from falling off the edge. To get the robot to detect the dark line, you would use the Light Sensor or the Ultrasonic Sensor. Also to make it go you would use the Sound Sensor to detect your voice to begin.

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Video #1- "On the Edge"
In the programming code for "On the Edge" different blocks were used for different parts of the challenge. The first block was a wait for sound block. (-1/2) It was what told the robot to detect the sound of our voice saying "go" to make it move. (How loud of sound and what port? -1). The second block is a move block. This block is what makes the robot move which in this case was forward. (What ports and with how much power? -1) The third block is what senses light; we had to measure the amount of light that the piece of tape gives off and put it into the block. We had to measure the amount of light given off by the tape because the robot needs to know when to stop. (What port and what value of light? -1/2). The fourth block is another move block which makes the robot stop after detecting the tape. (By braking or coasting? -1/2) The last block is a noise (sound) block, it makes the robot say "watch out" after the task is complete. (How loudly? -1/2)

-2 Missing program code figure

Ms. Mc - right idea but you left out some things. 14/20

Life on Mars?
There have been many journeys to Mars. Each journey has been trying to find out more about the "Red Planet." Everyone is interested in the Mars because it is most Earth-like of the planets, it is one of the most likely planets to have developed indigenous life besides earth and it will probably be the first extraterrestrial planet to be visited by humans. The USA and the Soviet Union sent rovers and orbiters to search for life on Mars. Mars 3 was the first spacecraft to soft-land and instrumental capsule on the planet and Mariner 9 was the first spacecraft to orbit another planet. The Mariner 9 showed a variety of spectroscopic, radio- propagation and photographic data. In figure one it shows how the Mariner 9 looked. The pictures showed a history of widespread volcanos and ancient erosion by water. There has been thoughts that life could survive on Mars because of the temperature and that the discovery of life on Earth was very quickly. After many voyages, in 1996 the scientific world was shocked when scientists announced they had found evidence of life in a meteorite. In the meteorite bacteria,, chemical equilibrium and magnetic particles similar to terrestrial bacteria were found. (This is now disputed by many scientists though.)



A microbe or microorganism is a microscopic organism that is made up of either a single cell, cell clusters or multicellular relatively complex organisms. In figure two it shows a microorganism. To categorize a microorganism to be living, dormant, non-living or dead you look at the 8 characteristics that a living object needs. The 8 characteristics are that it has to have cells, is able to reproduce, is homeostatic, has respiration, able to grow and develop, able to adapt and evolve, use other materials and respond to stimuli. So to categorize if it is alive, dormant, non-living or dead you had to check each one. First you would see it if had cells and or made of many things. Next you would check if it can reproduce and you could also check If it were homeostatic and if it had respirations. Then you could check if it was able to grow/develop and adapt and evolve and use other materials. Also you would need to check if it responded to stimuli. If the microorganism has all these characteristics it is considered alive. If it used to have all these materials then it is considered dead. Then if it has all the qualities but not all are in use then it is dormant and if it doesn’t have any of these functions then it is non-living.



// Ms. Mc - very good overview of the evidence of water and possible life on Mars and how you would classify a specimen. You forgot to directly refer to your figures. -1/2 9.5/10 //