Jay+C+SFLOM

What is Electricity?

Electricity is the energy from positively and negatively charged particles (protons and electrons). These energies result in electricity. Electricity can be used to power other objects such as computers, cars, phones, etc. Electricity has three different forms; static, current, and discharge. Static electricity is electricity that cannot move. Static is usually created by friction and can result to electric discharge which is another form of electricity. Current electricity is the most common type of electricity. This is mostly used for transmitting electricity from one place to another. Current electricity is controlled like static but it can move. Current is in between static and discharge, from not moving to moving all at once. Discharge is the last form of electricity. Discharge is uncontrollable with a few exceptions like the plasma globe. An example of discharge is a bolt of lightning, or an electric explosion. There aren’t many examples of discharge because it is uncontrolled.

How can Electricity Help on a Trip to Mars?

There are many ways that electricity can help on a trip to Mars. One of the sways is that you need something to power the rocket or whatever you are using to get to mars. Another way is that you need an oxygen compressor which needs electricity to be powered. The engine is another example of something needing electricity. The spacesuits also need electricity to work. There are many other things that need electricity like the control panel, the computer, and other electronic equipment like that.

What is Magnetism?

Magnetism is the attraction of two objects without touching them. The three elements that can be magnetized are the Iron Triad. These three metals are Iron, Cobalt, and Nickel and can be mixed into alloys which also can be magnetized. There are 2 types of magnets. There are electromagnets and magnets. Electromagnets are magnets that extremely powerful but need a constant flow of electricity to work. The way that they work is that a flow of electricity goes in a circle which creates a magnetic field. These magnets can be turned on and off. These are mainly used for lifting metals out of other garbage in junkyards to melt them down. Regular magnets have a North and South Pole and are always magnetized.





How can Magnetism Help on a Trip to Mars?

The way that magnets can help us get to Mars is that Electromagnets can help keep things in a spaceship that are important locked to the ground. Also a magnet can be used as an airlock because doors that are locked magnetically are more airtight that other locks. Magnets can also be used to find magnetic materials on Mars that we might have not seen before. These are the uses of magnetism on Mars.

The Big Bang

The universe originally exploded out of nothing. Particles of matter came out of the explosion The temperature fell and a mixture of quarks and antiquarks came out. Before 1/10 of a second old protons and neutrons were created. Then in three minutes protons and neutrons combined to make helium. After about 300,000 years the first hydrogen atoms were created. A billion years after the big bang galaxies formed and started to collide with other galaxies to form bigger ones.

The Milky way

Looking at the side of our galaxy it is a flat disc of stars about 100,000 light years across. The large bulge in the center of our galaxy is about 20,000 light years across. Our sun is about halfway across from the bulge. On the other side of the galaxy a dwarf galaxy is merging with ours. Our galaxy has 4 spiral arms. In the central bulge of our galaxy the stars are red and orange. At the heart of the bulge is the nucleus of the galaxy which is probably a black hole. It takes the sun takes 250,000,000 years to go around the Milky Way once.

How Stars Form Stars form in cold, dark clouds of gas and dust. Another exploding star makes the gas clump and the gas starts rotating and heating up. The clouds of dust and gas start to surrounds the new star. Then center of a star gets hot enough for nuclear reactions. For a long period of time nothing happens but then it starts expanding and contracting. Then, is becomes reddish orange and starts shrinking until it is no longer there. Large stars instead of shrinking they grow huge and explode. Biggest stars are bluish white and the smallest stars are reddish orange

The Sun

The sun is a star that is much nearer to the Earth than other ones. In a total eclipse you can see the photosphere. In the central core of the sun it is 15 billion degrees. Every second 4,000,000 tons of hydrogen vanish to generate the sun's energy in nuclear reactions. The sun's surface seems with hot gas and plasma. In disturbed regions of the sun sunspots appear, they are dark spots that are 1000 degrees cooler than the surrounding areas. Solar flares can blast atomic particles to the earth but they get caught in the magnetic field and the ones that get through make auroras. The sun spins about once a month.

The Solar System The sun formed when it pulled together a cloud of gas from another explosion. The rotating ball created a disc and inside the disc the particles clumped. The planetesimals that were farther away survived closer ones only metals survived. In the outer solar system Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune were created. In the inner solar system Mercury, Venus Earth, and Mars were formed. Inside these planets metals sank and the rock solidified

History of rockets The basic principle of rockets came from the Greek inventor Hero. But the earliest actual rockets were invented at about the 1st century AD by the Chinese. At this time the Chinese had filled bamboo tubes with the earliest forms of gunpowder and threw them into fires at religious festivals. Later they experimented with these tubes and found out that they could propel themselves through air using the gas. These were the first actual rockets. The first time that true rockets were used was in 1232 in the battle of Kai-Keng. The Chinese used early forms of missiles to attack the Mongols and drive them out.

After the battle of Kai-Keng, the Mongols produced their own rockets and may have been responsible for the spread of rockets to Europe. Through the 13th to the 15th centuries there were many rocket experiments. In England, a monk named Roger Bacon improved gunpowder and this greatly increased the range of rockets. In France, Jean Froissart found that launching rockets through tubes made them more accurate. This sparked the idea of the bazooka. Joanes de Fontana of Italy designed the first torpedo.

In 1898, a Russian schoolteacher, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), proposed the idea of space travel by rocket. In a report he published in 1903, Tsiolkovsky thought that the use of liquid propellants for rockets would achieve greater range. Tsiolkovsky said that the speed and range of a rocket were limited only by the speed of the escaping gases. Tsiolkovsky has been called the father of modern astronautics.

Rocket Experiment

The nose cone of the rocket is at the top of the rocket. This is used to swiftly cut through air to minimize air resistance. The body tube is the part of the rocket that holds everything together. The recovery system consists of the parachute shock cord and baby powder. This is used to get the rocket down safely. The recovery wadding is paper used to stop the hot gasses from burning up the recovery system. The launch lug aims the rocket to where you want to shoot. The fins keep the rocket straight. The motor mount holds the motor in place. And lastly the motor is a non-reusable device that releases the gases.

The purpose of this experiment was to figure out if the weight of the rocket affected how high the rocket flew. We constructed 9 rockets in total and two had the same weight. We painted the rockets and the reason for that was to make the rockets all different weights so weight could be our control. After painting we hypothesized if weight would affect the height and then tested our theories.

We fired our rockets one by one and trundle wheel to find 100 meters away. Then used the angle guns at to determine the angle and averaged the two angles. Then we used trigonometry to find the tangent of each angle and multiplied each of them by 100. We did this to find the height. We found out that the weight did not affect the height much.

Our rocket flew pretty averagely and everything deployed correctly. We used black, red, yellow, and green paint. On some of the launches there was a lot of wind but on ours there was a little so it didn't affect it much. Our construction quality was pretty good and we knew this because some broke apart but ours didn't. If we added a little more weight to adjust the center of gravity it might have flown better.

Mars Rover Drop

The way that we designed our rover drop vehicle was that we tried to create a makeshift parachute with the plastic bag and also to put as much cushioning material on the bottom as possible. We did this so that it would slow down as much as possible and if it didn't slow down it would have a backup. The idea almost worked as we only got a hairline fracture but I feel for it to completely work it needed more cushioning and a better way to break the fall. The cushioning idea worked really well but I feel as if the parachute didn't do much. If I did this a second time I would create multiple parachutes or just put a ton of cushioning on it.



Robot history

Robots first appeared in sci-fi movies and have become a reality since then. We now have automated robots such as Curiosity the rover which is now exploring Mars and is gathering information about Mars for us. We now can create bionic limbs and arms for people who are born without certain limbs. Isaac Asimov Created the three laws of robotics but they are false. The three laws are,


 * 1) 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.


 * 1) A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
 * 2) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law

These laws are false because robots are able to harm humans.

Now there are many uses to modern robotics such as they are used for warfare, medical purposes, to make life easier, etc. Right now we are developing self-driving cars, safer auto-etc. Also right now we have robotic household appliances like vacuums, washing machines, and other helpful things around the house. We have also gone into robotic warfare. Right now in South Korea they have a robotic turret that shoots anyone in the half mile zone (No man’s land) completely by itself with no human guidance. We have come very far with robotics and I believe this is just the beginning.



Mindstorm Programming

Motors can be used in many different ways to power generators, allow things to move freely, etc. But the way that the Lego motors work is as a way to let Mindstorm robots to be able to move in different ways. The way that motors work is that first they need power. After the motors get power we need the NXT Brick which is the ‘mind’ of the robot. Lego Mindstorms is a programming software used for programming Lego NXT bricks to allow the robot to function. All functions are done from the central NXT brick, this "brick" is a computer that is able to hold memory and as said before, gives the robot it's commands.

There are 4 basic sensors, ultrasonic, sound, touch, and light. They are connected with network cables, but they use different ports. These ports are 1, 2, 3, and 4. Each has a separate port that is stated in the instructions. Each sensor adds a new function for the robot. The Ultrasonic sensor adds the ability for "sight." It uses echolocation to detect how far away something is. The sound sensor gives the robot the ability to detect sound with a microphone. The touch sensor gives the robot the ability to touch. It is a simple push button that can be used to stop the robot from crashing. The light sensor gives the robot the ability to detect the light reflectivity of different surfaces. This can be used to follow a line or stop before the robot goes in to a different surface.



Geology

Geologists identify rocks and minerals in many different ways. These ways are color, luster, hardness, cleavage, light refraction, and what color it fluoresces. To find color and luster all you need to is look at the mineral/rock closely and see the color and the way it shines. To find hardness we use moh’s Hardness scale. It ranges from 1-10 10 being the hardest at diamond and 1 being lowest at talc. Cleavage is how many layers the mineral has such as mica which has many layers. Light refraction is if you look through the mineral if it is transparent how it does refract the light around it. What color the mineral fluoresces is based on if it fluoresces at all and how much it does.

One of the ways that Curiosity finds out about the minerals on Mars is by drilling in the rocks collecting the powder and then testing their chemical compounds. Curiosity also has cameras which can identify color and luster. It also has a mini laboratory inside of it and can find the chemical compounds if the rocks and minerals.