Yusuf

Facts about Mars You would Need to Know in Order to Send a Rover There
// Ms. Mc: Good thoughts about Mars and its conditions, however, you were to use the provided websites to ansewer your questions (-1). Good additions from our class discussion. 9/10. //
 * ** You need to know when Earth is closest to mars **
 * ** You need to know how much thrust you need to get out of the atmosphere **
 * ** You need to know how to make a safe landing **
 * ** Make sure you have enough food to make the trip **
 * ** The sandstorms on Mars can block out the sun and make solar power impossible **
 * ** At its closest, Mars is 35 million miles from Earth **
 * ** It takes about 7-8 months (214 days.) **
 * ** Launch window occurs every 2 years. **
 * ** Mars gravity is about 1/3 of earth’s **
 * ** Mars has strong seasons due to its tilt so need to be able to store energy **
 * ** Temperature is cold (-125 to 25 degrees C) so rover would need to withstand these temperatures **
 * ** Mars’ surface is rocky, hundreds of thousands of craters, large mountains, and the largest canyon in the solar system so need to choose a flat landing area **
 * ** Mars’ has polar caps, made out of frozen carbon dioxide and water need to land away from these **
 * ** Rover needs high traction wheels in order to move across the rocky, sandy terrain. **
 * ** Mars has 2 moons so want to steer clear of them when landing **

**Log Entry #2**
Rocketry Essay Around 100 B.C. a Greek inventor named Hero of Alexandria used steam as a propulsive gas. Hero put a sphere on top of a water kettle with burning fire below it to create the steam. Then the gasses traveled through 2 L – shaped pipes on opposite sides of the sphere allowed the gas to escape and also gave thrust to the sphere so it could rotate. This is one of the leading inventions that led to the creation of the rocket. There is no real date the states the “the first rocket was made on this day by this person in this country.” Though the Chinese began to experiment with rocketry as a form of protection or attack due to the battles they had with the Mongols. They first began this by using, what they called, “Chinese fire-arrows”. What this was was an arrow with a tiny rocket filled with gun powder which had to be lit by Chinese soldier. They also placed this rocket on a bamboo stick which was leaning on an angle, which was then lit by a soldier which propelled it towards the attacking Mongols. Then suddenly there came a new idea for rockets. 

In 1898, a Russian schoolteacher, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), proposed the idea of space exploration by rocket. He believed that the use of liquid propellants for rockets in order to achieve greater range. Tsiolkovsky stated that the speed and range of a rocket were limited only by the exhaust velocity of escaping gases. For his ideas, careful research, and great vision, Tsiolkovsky has been called the Father of Modern Astronautics. In the early 20th century there as an American scientist who started experimenting in rocketry. After many experiments, Goddard became convinced that a rocket could be propelled better by liquid fuel. Goddard achieved the first successful flight with a liquid-propellant rocket on March 16, 1926. By using his theory of liquid propellant he shot a rocket which climbed 12.5 meters, and landed 56 meters away in a cabbage patch. Though this may seem unimpressive in today’s standards, back then that was the beginning of an era of rocketry.

Ms. Mc: Very good summary through Goddard but what happened after that? (-1.5). Very good diagrams too! Please refer to them in your writing ("as seen in Figure 2"). Good job 8.5/10

4/10/12

Scratch Rocket Flight Simulation
media type="custom" key="14081212"

[|Click Here to see on Website!] Instructions to Run Simulation
 * 1) Turn on Sound
 * 2) To run simulation press the Green flag
 * 3) To stop the simulation press the Red circle
 * 4) If simulation for rocket does not work click the link above

Baez- I liked your backgrounds. Your words could have been a little bit slower. I liked what you said at the end of the simulation.

Alex B- I think that you wrote what the stages were accurately and you didn't spell anything wrong. I also think that there were no sounds.

Entry #4
 * 1) The nose cone keeps the rocket aerodynamically correct.
 * 2) The body the is the main structural part that holds the insides of the rocket
 * 3) The recovery system is to make sure that the rocket comes down slowly from its decent.
 * 4) The recovery wadding make sure the inside of the rocket stays at a comfortable temperature.
 * 5) The launch lug makes sure that the rocket goes off the launch pad straight
 * 6) The fins make sure the rocket stays straight in flight after it is launched
 * 7) The motor mount holds the rockets motor in place
 * 8) The Rocket Motor is what makes the rocket blast off and it is non-reusable. A new one has to be used for each flight

// Ms Mc: Good labels and definitions! You were to put them in a paragraph format though (-1/2). Please refer to your figures in your text (i.e., "as seen in Fig. 1,"). Also, don't forget to include the date and a title with each entry. -5% (1/2 pt.) for being late to post the picture. 8/10 //

Entry #5 The Atlas V 541 rocket is made up of a payload adapter, a centaur upper stage, Centaur Forward load Reactor, Single RL10 Engine 5-meter Payload Fairing (68 ft.), Centaur Aft Stub Adapter, Centaur Interstage Adapter, Booster Cylindrical Interstage adapter, Solid Rocket Boosters, Payload Fairing Boattail, Atlas Booster, Aft Transition Skirt/Heat Shield and a Rd-180 Engine. The engines purpose is to lift the rocket, with the help of the fuel and thrust of the fuel it will lift off. //Ms. Mc: You just needed to discuss the 4 main parts that were in the reading: SRBs, common core boster, Centaur engine and the payload fairing. You also needed to give the purpose of each of these 4 parts (-2), refer to the figure in your text (-1), and state how tall and heavy the rocket is (-1). Please be sure you check the log prompt for specific details. -5% (1/2 pt.) for posting the photo late. 5.5/10//

Entry #6 The goal or purpose of the experiment was to see if the amount of mass that a rocket has can affect its apogee, when shot off of the launch pad. Some observations of the rocket that were made was that the engines, fins and body parts were all attempted to make constant but in some cases it would be altered a little bit. The weather conditions were attempted to make the same for all of the lift-offs of the rocket but there were no guarantees. The weather for the experiment was windy, with a mid-70’s temperature and scattered clouds, but mostly sunny. When the rocket is on the launch pad there are a few forces acting on it. The rocket is being held down by the force of gravity, and also the forces of the launch pad are pushing back onto the rocket. When the rocket is blasting off the forces that are acting on it are air resistance, because the air is going in the opposite direction of the objects motion. The force of gravity is still acting on it because it is always acting on the rocket in earth’s atmosphere. Also the thrust is going against the air resistance because it is pushing the rocket up in the air. During coasting the rocket is moving on its own inertia and there are no other forces moving against it.

Hypothesis It was hypothesized that the more mass there is the apogee would decrease. This was hypothesized because when something is heavier it would take more force to move it, so in turn, it would take more thrust to move the rocket and the same amount of thrust was used on each of the rockets. In graph 1 it shows a trend that the heavier the rocket is the lower its apogee was compared to the lighter massed rockets. The two outliers may have occurred because of a faulty motor or a sudden breeze could have knocked it away in mid-air. This was proven because of the data in Graph 1: In the experiment there were 8 different rockets tested and all of the variables were attempted to keep as constant as possible. With the first rocket the mass was 44.11 g and the apogee using trigonometry was 62.5 m. For the second rocket the mass of the rocket was 44.8 g and the apogee using trigonometry was 78.1 m. With the third rocket the mass was 46.3 g and the apogee using trigonometry was 62.5 m. In the fourth rocket the mass was 44.8 and the apogee using trigonometry was 38.4. With the fifth rocket the mass was 42.9 g and the apogee using trigonometry was 67.5 m. With the sixth rocket the mass was 44.3 g and the apogee using trigonometry was 57.7 m. With the seventh rocket the mass was 43.6 g and the apogee using trigonometry was 67.5 m. And the final rockets mass was 44.6 and the apogee using trigonometry was 62.5 m. All of the rockets were measured from a constant distance of 100 m from the launch pad. With some of the rockets it may have veered to the right or left or the rocket might have fallen out but the way the rockets lifted off and were in the air was pretty much the same.



Log Entry #7 We thought that it would be a very aerodynamic design that would cut through the wind faster. There is less stuff for the air to hit to slow it down. We turned the fins inside out and placed them in the same place. We also sanded them more, and used less glue. All of this is shown in figure 1, above.

The new mass did have a part in most of the rockets lifting off. With rocket number 1, the new mass was 47.2 and the new apogee was 30. All that was added to that rocket was a new fin. For rocket number 2 the new mass was 45.0 and the new apogee was 27.5. 2 new fins were added to the rocket as well. For rocket number 3 the new mass was 43.8 and the new apogee was 30.5. There were no new fins added. For rocket number 4 the new mass was 43.5 and the new apogee was 14.5. ENORMOUS fins were added and glued to the nose cone. For rocket number 5 the new mass was 42.8 and there is no new apogee because the new rocket exploded on the inside during lift-off. For rocket number 6 the new mass was 42.8 and there is no new apogee because the new rocket exploded on the inside during lift-off. For rocket number 7 the new mass was 46.8 and the new apogee was 53.2. Finally, for rocket number 8 the new mass was 43.1 and the new apogee was 64.9. As shown above, the mass has an affect on the apogee.

//Ms. Mc: Good initial thoughts and diagram. Don't forget to give your uploaded files captions when you add them. You only needed to discuss how your redesigned rocket flew and why you think the flight path was stable or unstable (-1). 4/5//

Entry #8 5/3/12 History of Robotics The first thoughts or buildings of robotics were in China in the rule king Mu of Zhou, which lasted from 1023 – 957 BC. They were thought of by a man who went by Yan Shi. Yan Shit built huge human-sized figure of mechanical handiwork. The king was appalled. No one had ever seen anything like this before. The machine even walked, moved its head up and down and seemed almost completely human if it didn’t have some many wires inside of its body. Yan Shi touched the chin of this great machine and it started SINGING. I was just mind blowing seeing something like that for the first time ever. This great machine was destroyed soon after this showing of mechanical skill. The robot now learned how to wink, and when it winked it made the women blush, which would mean that they don’t love the king, which made him angry. He had the engineer Yan Shi executed on the spot and the robot was torn apart and disposed of. That was the beginning of robotics and there are way more innovative and non-women stealing robots today.' In 1971 the first microprocessor was built, and was called the 4004. This was created by a man named Ted Hoff at Intel. The chip itself was even more powerful than the ENIAC which was built in 1946 and gained fame because of its reliability, speed, and versatility. John Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly spent 3 years building ENIAC, which weighed over 60,000 lbs. Many other inventions of computers and robotics came after that like Steven Jobs and his Mac computers, which are so popular today. Today robots are used to further advance our research tactics. The robot called Robonaut 2 is the latest generation of astronaut assistants, which was launched in the space station aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on the STS – 133 missions. That is the first humanoid robot that has ever been into space, and although its job is to teach mechanics and engineers how robots behave in space, the hope is that through upgrades and advancements, it could one day venture outside the station to help spacewalkers make repairs or additions to the station or perform scientific work.

// Ms. Mc: good start but a few more details about how robots are primarily used today and when they first were developed in modern times would have been good (-1). Also, the Chinese robot story hasn't been scientifically proven. Don't forget to include figures (-2) and specifically refer to them in your entry (-1). I like how you included the Robonaut. 6/10 //

5/2412 Log Entry # 9

What we were supposed to do in this challenge is to program our rover to go to the edge of a table and then stop,when it senses a blue light. If it falls off or does not go the way it needs to then there is a problem with the rover.



In the image it shows that when a sound sensor, connected in port 2, hears a sound of a certain number of decimals or above it moves. In the second block it is say that the rover will go on forever until something brings it to a stop or turns off the program. The only wheels that are pulling the machine are wheels B and C as shown above. They will also cause the robot to stop, by it stopping moving. In the third block it is showing that when the light sensor, which is connected in port 3, detects a light darker than 33 it will do something. In the fourth block it is saying that after the light sensor picks up the color then the vehicle is going to come to a stop. In the fifth and final programming block, it saying that when it has done everything it needs to and it has stopped at the edge of the table, it shows that it is going to say "Watch Out!"

6/4/12 Log Entry # 10

Mars in a very mysterious planet, and we are always yearning to learn more about it. So many mysteries cloud that big red planet, and we are on a mission to discover them. The leading question for Mars is: Is there life on that huge red rock in the sky? Let’s find out some clues, shall we? First of all, what there is that is needed to sustain life on a planet, that planet must have water. No living thing can stay alive without water. There have been minerals and materials and structures that could have only been created if there is water there, or if water at one point was there. Here I am now going to explain to you what has been found. (Such as? -1) I would first like to explain to you how much of a challenge it is to actually get to Mars. The scientists may spend a lot of money, take all of the precautions possible and build it with the strongest material possible, but some don’t even make it off the launch pad. When we finally get there, that’s not even half of what is wanted. We want to find life. There are certain traits or properties that a being with life must: 1) Be made of cells. 2) Need Materials. 3) It must be to stay the same internally, even though temperature changes can be harsh. Homeostatic. 4) Respond to Stimuli. 5) Reproduce through any means. 6) They must be able to grow and develop. 7) Adapt to the different living circumstances. 8) Respiration or release energy that can be used by other beings.
 * Mars **
 * By: Yusuf M. Nyang’oro **

Those qualities are what is trying to be found of Mars. There have been small things like erosion and canyons that could’ve only have been formed if water was there. Very soon, I am sure; we will find life or at least water on Mars. (Actually, frozen water already has been found.)

//Ms. Mc - good start but you need to discuss the specific results with respect to there being water and/or life on Mars from the spacecraft explorations of Mars. (-1) Good presentation of the 8 characteristics of life but you didn't describe how you would classify a Mars' specimen as either living, dead, dormant, or nonliving (-1). Your pictures are good but you need to give them captions and specifically refer to them in your text (-1). -1/2 point for submitting photos late. 6.5/10//