STAR GAZING

THE BEAUTIFUL NIGHT SKY. 

  Thursday, September 27th, 2012 was A.Y.Jackson's Star gazing night day. We had the opportunity to go into the back field of the school and meet with the Royal Astronomical society of Canada to glaze at the beautiful night sky.
  Five members from the Royal Astronomical Society came and brought their fancy and big  elegant telescopes and share their stories of the night sky. I remember different telescopes had different functions; one of them always points at the moon. One of them are very modern tech, to the point, it detects stars by itself. I thought that was pretty cool. Some telescopes allowed us to see different planets, like Mars, Venus and some double stars. I thought that was really epic. All the planets seem so small and cute, it was hard to imagine to be seeing them up so close, yet so far. 

  What I enjoyed the most was, one of the five members from the RASC talked about constellations and the amazing stories behind each star. I forgot the name of the person, however it was a definitely an amazing time listening to him story telling of the stars in the sky. They sounded very interesting and it amuses me of how the stars had those hidden stories behind them. 

 I thought the whole experience of this day was amazing. I liked every part of it. I had never seen the moon up so close in front of you. It seemed so close, but it was very far. I thought the moon was very beautiful in the clear dark sky. I love the stories and the gathering of group of students, laying on the fields looking up to the sky. It was an amazing and very wonderful experience. 

HOT AIR BALLOON #2

FLY FLY FLY,  NUMBER TWO. 

DESIGNING:

  With our failed hot air balloon from our first attempt, we were given the same mission to design another plan and hopefully the plan will succeed this time. We were put into a new group, new team. We combined different ideas and plans and try to produce a newer and better structure. 

   I thought designing a hot air balloon came with many different obstacles and difficulties. From our last attempt of the designing, we were not very certain of the problem for our designs and there was no groups who succeeded in the mission. Thus. coming up with a new design brought up many problems and doubts. We thought of using different materials, such as wires to replace the straws. Hoping it will reduce the weight. We used the exact same bag as last time. We used 10 candles. However, we did not only use the wires, we also added some straws to stablize the candles on the structure. We thought since the weight should be lighter, and adding enough candles we should be able to lift the bag up. 

Results: 

Our expectations... failed.

Unfortunately... our hot air balloon did not fly like we thought it would... :( 

It took several minutes to heat up the big bag and all it did was to be able to float on the ground. 

I think even if we replaced the straws with the wires, the structure was still too heavy... and perhaps the bag was still too big and took up too much volume. If this mission was given to me again, I would really reduce the size of the bag, and perhaps replace the wires with strings instead. Thus, the structure will be less weighty. 

Despite all the downfalls and the failures of this mission, I still had fun designing and thinking of something I had never done before. It was really fun trying to design something that can fly. It was definitely a nice experience working with the groups, sharing different ideas, relate each other's thoughts and knowledge. Our hot air balloon was still pretty awesome! :) 

Hot Air Balloon #1

Hot Air Balloon.
-I AM GOING TO FLY.

  With our previous experiences with the egg landers  we were now given a new task to design a structure to fly. We were told that we would have maximum of 10 candles, a gigantic plastic bag and our recycled straws from the previous egg lander #2. However this time, we do not need to added an object-the egg in the structure.
For our structure, we created a cross as a shape of our base using very limited straws to avoid extra weights. We also added a few extra straws to make a square for stabilizing the structure. We used tapes to attach our candles on the straws. We used a total of nine candles; eight candles around the square stabilizers and one candle at the center. We then bunched and attached the plastic bag at the edge of our straws. We carefully attached the bag and give enough space between the candle and the surface of the bag, so that way the fire would not be in any threat to the bag.

A further view of our structure, refer to a short clip on andrea's wall , at:
under the blog" I'M FLYING!!! or not..." http://andreaearthandspacescience2012.blogspot.ca/2012_10_01_archive.html

Result: 

To the disappointment, our hot air balloon did not actually fly. :(
after we lit all our candles, nothing really happened. The bag expanded after around 3-5 mins and it could sit by itself. After a long while, the candles went out due to the lost of energy.
Our mission to make the hot air balloon fly, failed :(

Improvements; 

if i were to do this project again, I'd consider the weight of the structure and the size of the bag. I thought the bag was way too big and takes up too much volume. Also the candles added too much weight, so I'd consider the number of candles been added to the structure.
Generally, I thought this was an awesome group and our hot air balloon still looked awesome. :)

EGG LANDER  ATTEMPT #2 - The Rocket egg lander. 

DESIGNING  

  So, as our first egg lander did not quite succeed as we expected, we were told to design the second one, and hopefully it will. We were been put into new groups and we had new ideas for our new plan.

  At first, I had suggested a design that looks similar to a birdie, however some of us thought it wouldn't go very well, thus, we decided to pull out the previous ideas that had seemed to work in our first attempt.We used the idea of one of the group's plan with the spongy triangular bottom, which will provide a solid  and stable base for the egg. so we decided to try that out. Our group did not want to completely give up on the birdie idea, so we combined both the spongy triangular base and birdie design together. We insert straws on the side, to ensure our design will fall in one direction straight down, (just like a birdie would). We also decided to add some structure on the side, to secure the landing.
   In my opinion, our design was pretty epic. It looks cool, or maybe even cooler than other group's. As for our group we have a unique shape, unlike most other group's being very square or rectangular structured. Our design looks like a rocket :)

Results: 

Refer to Andrea's blog for the results video at:
http://andreaearthandspacescience2012.blogspot.ca/2012_10_01_archive.html
so... guess what...?
OUR DESIGN WORKED!!!
well sort of... the egg had a little crack at the side, just a tiny little crack, however the yolk did not flow out. Therefore we considered as a success.

Improvements: 

  If I were to do this project again, I'd probably try to inspect the base of the triangles carefully, perhaps it was one of the straws that may accidentally been pushed and add force to the egg and caused the little crack. I would also make the sides of the straws longer, or the base shorter, allow it to have a stronger and secure landing. Despite all the improvements I would make, i still think we worked very well and I enjoyed working with the new group and we had lots of fun! with our awesome rocket egg lander. :)

 

Egg lander Design Blawg

                                                           

                                              

DESIGN:

  For our group's design, we tried looking for shapes that will have a stable structure and is able to absorb the shocks when the egg is dropped. We thought pyramids would be the best shape for the design, since pyramids are strong and solid structures. We also added four straws at the bottom to support the structure so it will have a less impact when the egg hits the floor. We secure the egg in the middle of the pyramid, making nets around it and thought that it would be the best and safe place for the egg.  

Result: 

The structure flipped and the egg eventually cracked. Our group underestimated the gravity and mass of the egg. We did not consider how hard the impact would be nor did we design a flexible structure and estimated where the lander would hit.

MODIFICATIONS:

   There are several things we could have change in our next design:
-   We should consider the flexibility of our structure; we can't expect the structure to fall in the certain way we expect it to.
 -  We should consider other ideas to support the egg and spread out the impact force when the structure is dropped.
- Perhaps, making a more symmetrical shape would be a better idea, or a structure allows the egg to fall in a certain direction.